Eric Hutchinson

New York-based singer/songwriter Eric Hutchinson crafts witty lyricism and hummable melodies that blend folk with power pop. Born and raised in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, D.C., he first took the stage publicly as a student at Emerson College, the performing-arts school situated in downtown Boston. The campus station WERS and the city’s active singer/songwriter community helped the guitarist and pianist reach listeners for his folk- and jazz-tinged AAA pop, a style positioned between Jeff Buckley and John Mayer, prompting his move from Boston to Los Angeles in pursuit of a full-time career. In summer 2003 he issued his debut album, That Could’ve Gone Better, on his own Let’s Break imprint. The record drew interest from Maverick Records, Madonna’s label distributed by Warner Bros., which had already launched careers for artists such as Alanis Morissette and Michelle Branch. While Hutchinson readied his major-label debut, however, Maverick became entangled in litigation with its parent corporation, leading to the label’s closure. Negotiating his release from the Maverick contract consumed nearly two years, after which he returned to Let’s Break in 2006 with the live EP Before I Sold Out, a title offered with tongue in cheek.

Following the summer 2007 arrival of his second studio album, Sounds Like This, blogger Perez Hilton praised the project on his site. The single notice propelled the record into the Top Ten of most-downloaded albums online, where it reached number seven in September 2007. Warner Bros. gave it an official re-release the next year. Hutchinson’s next studio effort, Moving Up Living Down, appeared in 2012 and included the single “Watching You Watch Him.” Two years afterward he delivered Pure Fiction, again on Let’s Break. In 2017 he issued his sixth studio album, Easy Street, which featured the single “Anyone Who Knows Me” along with guest turns from G. Love and Kevin “K.O.” Olusola. The following year he released Modern Happiness, the first album credited to Eric Hutchinson & the Believers.