“5 Questions With” is an ongoing series featuring kickass entrepreneurs, community leaders, and other superheroes.
Pianist/vocalist [and fellow Green Terror!] Eric Byrd has been playing professionally for over 30 years. Along with the principles of swing and be-bop, rousing gospel-tinged chords and trilling blues lines are fundamental elements of his performance style. His improvisations are intense, soulful and romantic; he takes listeners on a joyride as his fingers create magical works of art.
A Grammy Award voter, Eric is currently the director of Worship and Media at FCOB in Frederick, MD. An in-demand leader and sideman, active in both the jazz and gospel worlds, Eric is the primary composer for the Eric Byrd Trio.
Enter, Eric.
Question 1: What’s your superpower?
Leadership, organization and vision. The Bible says “where there is no vision the people perish.” I can still remember standing on U St in Washington, DC after a gig at 2am and talking to someone who’s a musician, and telling him “I want to be Tony Bennett” about 30 years ago. For me, that meant I want to play concerts where people are listening to the music – not some loud bar where I can be ignored. I want to make money playing music – not play for tips or the door, because my parents paid a lot of money for me to go to school to learn music. I’ve invested 10k+ hours to play music. I’m not playing for $100 much longer. I want a band and not a random group of musicians, I want to look good and dress well because my heroes did and, lastly, I wanted a career not a gig. All of that requires vision to see where you want to go, a plan to get organized to get there and lead other musicians to buy in.
Question 2: Why are you the exact right person to do what you do?
I didn’t choose music; music chose me. Part of it was God given, part of it is hard work, part of it is making your own luck, creating your own breaks. But I’m the exact right person because I’m a combination of a creative and yet organized. Most creatives are a hot mess on the organizational side and most organized folks cannot free their spirits enough to create art. I’m a Gemini: I can split into 2 functions.
Around 2002 or so my trio had just completed a US State Dept tour of South America. We were treated like The Beatles. We returned to the states and nobody cared: we were getting the same calls to play for crap money in crap places. Our big break was turning into a big bust, a wasted opportunity to get to the next level. And I didn’t want to move to NYC and I didn’t want to be on the road every week, but I wanted something greater.
A great friend of mine Sandy Oxx was running the stage at the Carroll Arts Center and she told me something I’ve never forgotten. She told me to be a Lexus not a Honda. A Honda is for every budget, for every person. Lexus is unique, it’s special, it’s more expensive than the Honda because it can do things the Honda cannot do in terms of experience. Denzel Washington says your career will be defined by the gigs you say NO to, not the gigs you say YES to. From that second, I’ve thought about the band as a luxury experience. In the next 12 weeks we have 10 concerts. Concerts! Not bar band gigs, not weddings, not playing by some body of water singing Jimmy Buffett tunes. But our music, our repertoire making the money we’ve asked for. It’s not arrogance. I thank God every day for Him enlarging our territory. The Bible also says “a man’s talents make room for him” which means God gives all of us a talent and He will create a space where we can use it. That keeps me humble. But that’s why I’m doing exactly what I was designed to do with the people I do it with. 21 years together now. That’s insane.
Question 3: Tell me a story about a time your work made a difference.
In March 2020, the pandemic hits. We, like everyone else, were figuring out what to do. So on Good Friday before Easter that year, knowing that we were like most people, unable to attend an Easter Sunday service, decided to live stream us playing our jazz arrangements of Spirituals, Hymns and Gospel music. I had one iPhone to give to my oldest son to stream to IG and I took the bassist’s phone to have him stream to FB with my middle son. Real high tech stuff. We streamed the whole gig and played at my empty church.
In Feb of 2022 we get an award from Gov Hogan (MD) for 20 years of Artistic Excellence serving Maryland and beyond. His chief of staff is a huge fan of the band. When I asked her why us, she said her husband was sad they wouldn’t be able to attend church on Easter Sunday of 2020. He got on social media and saw a jazz trio playing in an abandoned church but we were wearing suits and ties and we played with excellence. That lifted his spirits and they’ve followed us to this day. We just saw them last week at our gig.
Some people look at problems and complain. Leaders look at challenges and see opportunity. Christ looked at death and saw a way to redeem us – even folks that would deny God exists. We saw a pandemic and looked for ways to stay creative. That one decision got us to the office of the governor for the state of Maryland. Not bad…
Question 4: What’s your go-to move for drumming up business?
Grind harder. Have achievable measurables. Start at the end and work backwards. For example:
There are 52 weeks in a year. I don’t want to play every day or every Fri/Sat/Sun 52 times. So here’s my current workflow that’s open to change:
- 2-3 gigs a month max
- Those are defined as places where we can play OUR music and OUR music is presented with excellence and respect. Not wedding band, background, or doing lame versions of Ed Sheeran tunes (especially the one where he ripped off Marvin Gaye)
- Each gig pays us our market value
- I charge folks “x” amount of money for every concert. We have some wiggle room but that’s the price. (BTW our price has gone up some as a result of gas and inflation making everything else more expensive)
- That means we’ll play somewhere between 24 – 36 gigs annually. Out of this amount
- 4 – 8 will be brand new venues and/or places we’ve never played before
- 4 – 8 will be gigs we don’t choose to play every year for whatever reasons
Therefore, we continue to put gigs in the hopper and pull some out. Then the new gigs become steady gigs…program different kinds of music…rinse, repeat
Question 5: Tell me a story about a time you fell down and got back up again.
We’ve never fallen down. We’ve readjusted our aim.
We recorded 2 projects around our Bro Ray Band we just knew were going to be huge. The recordings were not. Every record we’ve made we’ve made money for sure, but those 2 just did not move the same number of units as our trio stuff for whatever reason. I still don’t exactly know why. Currently we are debating our next move and the Bro Ray band is an option. So we’ll just keep coming up with new songs to write and play and until something “feels” right. We readjust.
