#ArtistAtHome is a series of portraits and profiles of local artists by Christopher Edmonstone. Read all about it and see the archive HERE.
Today's #ArtistAtHome and rocking the Canadian Tuxedo is none other than Erik Nielsen. He always has a friendly smile whenever I run into him!
Erik is a go-to bass player with some great bands in Vancouver like Rich Hope, Ben Rogers, The Belle Game and Dralms. He is also one of the two house engineers at Afterlife Studio which recently took over the space of the old Mushroom Studio. Things have been busy there too - they're currently working with a wide variety of artists including K-os, The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, Joshua Hyslop and The Blue Moon Marquee.
Alongside John Raham, they have been working on some new Dan Mangan as well as Barney Bentall and Dustin Bentall. Erik says everyday is a highlight day as he gets to work with so many amazing artists. He isn't always in the studio control room though, as Erik also plays bass on the new Rich Hope & The Insiders record which is coming soon.
Bass was not his first instrument, but it was definitely the first instrument he took seriously. He started playing in Grade 8, and after high school, went to Capilano College for the Bachelor of Jazz program, but dropped out after three years. Erik landed on his feet though, and ended up on a world tour working for U2. The tour ended early in Argentina due to a band emergency, and the crew were all sent home on short notice. In lieu of doing the rest of the tour, he was offered the opportunity to head to Spain for a month to work with Shakira, but that fell through. On the economy flight from Buenos Aires, he drank over $200 Jack Daniels try to get to sleep, but came to the realization that he wanted to play bass more than work for someone else anyways. With that, he joined Daggermouth and took off on a 3-month tour playing almost every major city in North America. Since his return from that tour, Erik has split his time between audio engineering and playing.
Erik Nielsen relaxing at home.
I always like hearing about the worst gig people have played, and Erik's story lived up to the bill. It took place at The Wicked Spoon in Salmon Arm while he was on the road with Ben Rogers. This particular show had all the signs of a bad one walking in, being a 'filler date' (a gig that you sometimes need going from one place to another). When they arrived, there was no stage, the PA was in a pile in the corner, no promotion had been done, etc. It was one of the band members birthdays, and the guys were really hoping for a great show that night. They thought the night might rescued when the band was invited by the owners to their brew pub close by where they would drink for free. Sadly, free was not so free, so they had enough and wanted to get out of there.
Before leaving the large empty gravel parking lot where the van was parked they decided to blow off a little steam and shoot up some empty beer cans with a pair of Red Ryder BB guns that they had bought at a Canadian Tire along the way. On the way to Sunnybrae, Erik noticed there were RCMP patrol cars in the rear view just as the lights and siren go off to pull them over. The first officer came up to Erik's side of the car and asks him to roll down the window, barking "WHERE ARE THE FIREARMS?!?!" Erik was momentarily puzzled and replied "what firearms?" to which the officer barked "THE FIREARMS YOU WERE SHOOTING OFF IN THE PARKING LOT" Finally realizing what they were talking about, Erik says "oh you mean the BB guns? Well there's one right here !!", just as he made a motion to reach down for the gun (stupidly he said). Well that didn't go over well (as you might expect).
All told,thankfully nobody was hurt, they took the guns and waited for the commanding officer to show up while being issued threats of "You're lucky you're not face down in the dirt with handcuffs on and guns at your back", and the like, but when the commander showed up, he saw the guns and had a good chuckle. "Red Ryder?! I didn't even know they still made these toys!!" Alledgedly, the BB's traveled a little further than the beer cans, and apparently were hitting a little old ladies house - although nobody recalls seeing a house anywhere near the parking lot. They eventually let the band go, but not until they dumped out all of our beer which they had safely stowed away. Just another day on the road.
As you can see, Erik has a pretty good vinyl collection, and during our time together he threw on an album from Spoon River that he had worked on. Good Stuff!
Many thanks to Erik for being part of #ArtistAtHome. See him play May 28th at The Cobalt with Rich Hope & The Insiders. This show is bound to be epic.
