When Eric Earley isn’t fronting indie-rock darlings Blitzen Trapper, he’s been spending his days working full-time at a homeless shelter in Portland, Oregon, a job he’s held since 2018.
“You’re trying to help them have a roof over their heads, help them with paperwork,” Eaerly tells Rolling Stone. “I just started doing night shifts to make some extra cash ‘cause I wasn’t touring as much.”
On this day, Blitzen Trapper is very much on tour, promoting their latest album, 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions. Sitting in a hotel restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, in early August — just weeks before the mountain town was devastated by Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters — Earley is preparing to perform at the 2024 AVLfest. For an act that’s often hard to catch live outside of their Pacific Northwest stronghold, their appearance in Western North Carolina is a rare treat. (On Saturday, the band kicked off the final leg of their U.S. tour in Illinois and will play dates along the East Coast and in the Midwest through Nov. 17.)
“I’m really enjoying playing shows and touring more than I used to,” Earley says. “I’ve been slowly gaining a higher level of awareness about how blessed and fortunate I am to play music.”
Now 47, Earley — much like the hauntingly beautiful and intricate sonic textures of his music — is a mysterious figure, albeit honest and candid when posed a question, especially about the work he’s doing in the shelters. “Oftentimes, the cycles [the homeless are] in are beyond your control and beyond anyone’s help,” he says. “But you generate good karma anytime you genuinely interact with others in a compassionate way — that’s important.”
That idea of good karma is deeply etched into Earley’s soul. It was sparked five years ago when he picked up the book Bardo Thodol, known in the Western Hemisphere as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. (The original title translates to “Liberation through hearing during the immediate state.”) “As a teenager, I would go into these old bookshops that were empty — full of books with no people,” he says. “And I would always end up in the spiritual section looking through Zen books. I never really had a frame of reference for it ’cause I grew up Protestant, so it’s funny that late in my life I would go down that rabbit hole.”
Raised an hour south of Portland along I-5 in Salem, Oregon, Earley describes his upbringing as “pretty conservative…nothing special.” Before he was born, his parents were a musical duo “involved in the Jesus movement in Southern California in the early Seventies,” and he found himself gravitating toward songwriting.
“For so many years, it was just about writing and recording songs, and performing them became secondary,” Earley says. “That’s why my career started a lot later. I didn’t start touring until I was 30.”
Blitzen Trapper formed in Portland around 2000 and hovered in the indie-folk and alt-country realms with a sound that was vibrant, ethereal, and catchy, evoking a mix of Tom Petty, Beck, and Van Morrison. They pivoted seamlessly between poignant ballads and soaring rock numbers, with each song’s melody inspired by the raw emotions and stage presence of Earley.
“[Songs] have always been my way of journaling or processing all the things that have happened to me over the years,” he says. “For a lot of years, I was at odds with touring. Now? I’m more in tune with the people around me, onstage and in the audience. It almost feels like I’ve sort of awakened to what I had all along.”
Earley admits his “ego or inability to live in the present” in the early days of the band may have hindered their potential for mainstream success. He says he made some wrong decisions and didn’t form healthy bonds: “A music career has so much to do with relationships that you build. And if you’re not nurturing those relationships in a sustainable way, you lose out on a lot of things.”
These days, there’s little he’s missing. Earley spends most of his time with his wife and young daughter at their place near the Columbia River, not far from the Oregon/Washington border. He finds solace and inspiration — and that elusive enlightenment — by simply disappearing into the vast woods of the Pacific Northwest.
Those woods are a lot like Earley himself.
“The forests there are big and strange,” he says. “There’s a spiritual energy that’s pretty ancient, pretty wild.”
Blitzen Trapper tour dates:
Nov. 3 — Ferndale, MI @ Magic Bag
Nov. 4 — Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
Nov. 6 — Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Nov. 7 — Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage
Nov. 8 — Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Nov. 9 — Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Nov. 10 — Charleston, WV @ Mountain Stage
Nov. 12 — Milwaukee, WI @ Vivarium
Nov. 13 — Eau Claire, WI @ Pabloe Center at the Confluence
Nov. 14 — St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
Nov. 15 — Kimberly, WI @ Flannel Fest (With Old 97’s)
Nov. 16 — Madison, WI @ Flannel Fest (With Old 97’s)
Nov. 17 — Bloomington, IL @ Castle Theatre
