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In music, stagnation is tantamount to death. On both a genre and an individual level, a fresh take on traditional forms is vital to future survival. The trick, as Eric Sardinas well knows, is to inhale your influences and exhale your own unique sound.
“What you do with your inspirations is what makes you,” he says of that obvious but elusive truth. Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1970, Sardinas is grateful for parents who surrounded him with music. “I grew up with gospel and Motown and anything from Ray Charles. Elvis was my first concert when I was 6 years old,” he recalls.
Naturally inquisitive, Sardinas probed the roots of rock ‘n’ roll and blues galvanized by the raw emotional playing and other-worldly instrumental sound of first-generation legends Charlie Patton and Son House and Chicago great Elmore James. “It was the thrill of hearing one person playing the guitar and generating the energy of five,” he confides of their irresistible attraction. “I love the sheer strength and heart of a single player.”
A lefty who plays right-handed, Sardinas graduated from toy guitars and a gut-stringed classical model to slide and Dobro resonator guitars when he was eleven. At fourteen, seeking that magical combination of wood, steel and electricity that would extend its scope, he added pickups creating an unusual but extremely powerful instrument in blues rock. “Regular electric guitars just didn’t seem to work for me,” he says trying to explain his choice. “The resonator and the tones of the acoustic in traditional Delta blues – that was where I was at in my mind and musically.”
In 1990, Sardinas relocated to the Los Angeles area where, like his heroes of yore, he busked on street corners for spare change. Six years of hard work in the trenches as the three-piece Eric Sardinas Project led to a slot opening for Johnny Winter on a West Coast tour. Two sizzling releases on Evidence Records broadcast the testosterone bravado of Sardinas’ patented firebrand of buzz-saw slide guitar and blast-furnace-stoking blues rock. A brace of similarly turbo-charged forays on Steve Vai’s Favored Nation’s label (including 2009’s Eric Sardinas & Big Motor) locked in an expanding legion of ardent fans.
Like cards in a winning poker hand, Sardinas’ flamboyant black leather apparel, menacing stares, long flowing hair, body tattoos and, on occasion, guitar torching lavish his live shows with an unmatched visual punch that has cemented his status as one of the biggest attractions in today’s blues market.
Still, hell-bent as he is on rocketing the blues to the brink of some yet unseen distant musical galaxy, Sardinas’ objective is to connect with his audience in the same way that Robert Johnson and his ilk did so many decades ago. “People sometimes don’t understand that there’s a freedom, a release of energy, a circular motion that’s going on” he expounds. “You’re not watching TV; you’re in a live experience. When the edge of the stage blurs and people forget that there’s that line there, that makes me happy.” www.ericsardinas.com
Ken Wright
