Sue Bonzell: What is the bad habit your wife thinks you have? Maybe that’s more appropriate. I don’t know.
Eric Burgett: Yeah, maybe we’ll … Maybe … I’ll tell my version and I’ll tell her version.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, there you go. That’s good, I like it.
Eric Burgett: They’re two totally different things, and one of them does involve food and wine.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, okay. My two favorite items.
Sue Bonzell: This is Up N Country on 93.7, The Bull. It’s powered by vLivecast. I’m your host, Sue Bonzell. Let’s get this show started.
Sue Bonzell: He has opened for Chris Stapleton, Lee Brice, Clint Black, Jana Kramer, and so many more. I’m super excited that Eric Burgett is here today. Welcome, Eric.
Eric Burgett: Thank you, Sue. Good to be here.
Sue Bonzell: Yeah, and we’ve got him set up with a little bit of bourbon today, so you know it’s going to be a really good interview. Okay? That’s how you know. So Eric, we talked a little bit, and most of these country artists that I interview, the majority of them are guitar players. You do something a little bit different. Tell me about getting into using the piano keyboard instead of the guitar.
Eric Burgett: Instead of the guitar, I chose the keyboard. I just grew up playing piano, honestly. I was four years old, I was already listening to country music, but I was also listening to guys like Billy Joel and guys in the country world that played piano. Ronnie Milsap, Charlie Rich, got the Jerry Lee Lewis.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, totally.
Eric Burgett: Even the more rock stuff, like the Bob Seger stuff that had the piano driven stuff in it, old time rock and roll. (singing). Gets people going. Just all those songs … I’d be riding on the tractor with my dad, and that’s where it all started, really, just hearing the piano, hopping off the tractor, jumping on the piano bench, and away I went.
Sue Bonzell: That’s so cool. Now, did I read somewhere that your folks had a bar or a restaurant or something like that, that you would play in as well?
Eric Burgett: Absolutely. Yeah, that was the Korn Krib. The good old Korn Krib. It’s nestled right off Highway 121, going through my hometown. It’s a really unique place. It’s built out of two grain bins, two corn bins.
Sue Bonzell: Really?
Eric Burgett: Two silos. However …
Sue Bonzell: You call them?
Eric Burgett: You want to call them out there. They’re put together by a middle building. You all just got to look it up. Look up the Korn Krib, Latham, Illinois, and that’s where I started playing.
Sue Bonzell: That is so cool. So it was the Korn Krib and it was church also, right?
Eric Burgett: Yes, a bar and church.
Sue Bonzell: Right? This sounds like a country song, I think.
Eric Burgett: It really is. It’s my life. I would go from playing Korn Krib on Saturday night, wake up in the morning, and play for the offering. There was nothing like it. But a 40 person strong church on a good day.
Sue Bonzell: Wow. Okay.
Eric Burgett: Yes, small town of 400 people.
Sue Bonzell: Whoop, whoop, bringing down the house Sunday morning.
Eric Burgett: Yeah, we did.
Sue Bonzell: Now, you have a new single out, this is Wild Girls?
Eric Burgett: I do. Yeah, Wild Girl came out …
Sue Bonzell: Okay. Wild Girl, yeah.
Eric Burgett: Last Friday. It seems like forever … Honestly, sometimes you promote a song so much in a week, you feel like you’ve been promoting it for a whole month.
Sue Bonzell: Well, yeah. You’ve done a great job. Like you said, on TikTok, you want to check out any of his music or a preview, man, TikTok is the place to be.
Eric Burgett: Absolutely, yeah. I’ll give previews of songs that are coming out two months from now, and get you all’s opinion on it. We’re also on TikTok live over here right now, talking to you all over here.
Sue Bonzell: Yeah, we are.
Eric Burgett: But yeah, Wild Girl came out last Friday.
Sue Bonzell: Okay. So tell me about writing that song and what it means to you.
Eric Burgett: Yeah. I wrote it with two of my good buddies, [Lonnie Fowler 00:03:42], and Matt McClure, my producer, who’s just a kick A-S-S guy, producing.
Sue Bonzell: You can say it. It’s okay, you can say it.
Eric Burgett: Okay, I’m watching my language. Kick ass. He had a percussion beat going. I was telling these guys my idea, I had this idea. “You drive me wild, drive me wild, wild girl.” And the play off the word “wild girl”, the way the hook sits in the song, we wanted to be hooky to the ear. And it’s a little more on the pop-ier side, I think, but also kind of what’s going on out there, and still has Eric Burgett’s sound in it. We have some light keys and stuff in the background driving guitars, and it’s a feel good, roll your window down song, so …
Sue Bonzell: Oh yeah, absolutely. I do like the hook. The first time I listened, I’m like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” And then I heard the hook and I was like, “Okay, that’s a good one.”
Eric Burgett: Thank you, thank you.
Sue Bonzell: I like it, I like it. And that was when I’m like, “I got to talk to you. We’re talking.” So yeah.
Eric Burgett: Thank you. Take it out to California.
Sue Bonzell: That’s right.
Eric Burgett: Roll the windows down.
Sue Bonzell: Exactly.
Sue Bonzell: Now, speaking of other songs, you have another song Late At Night. Now, I understand you wrote that for your first dance at your wedding.
Eric Burgett: I did, I did.
Sue Bonzell: So did your wife know about it ahead of time? Was it a surprise? How did all of that happen?
Eric Burgett: She did not hear a single bit of it.
Sue Bonzell: Really?
Eric Burgett: I played that very good. It was awesome. So, I wrote it … We finished it a couple months before my wedding. I think the only little thing that my wife heard was the piano intro. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh.
Sue Bonzell: And she’s like, “Oh, he’s just working on some other song.”
Eric Burgett: She’s like, “What is that?” Yeah, yeah, I’m working on different things, so when we got out on the dance floor, we had a different first dance song picked, and little did she know, we switched it up. The DJ, I gave him the song beforehand, and I’m like, “Hey, here’s the deal. Play this as our first dance, my wife doesn’t know it.” And we got out there, and she was just so surprised, and she loved it. Man, we got it all on video as well.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, he’s so romantic.
Eric Burgett: Thanks.
Sue Bonzell: And your wife’s beautiful too, by the way.
Eric Burgett: Thank you. [crosstalk 00:05:56], [Amy 00:05:57].
Sue Bonzell: Now, I know, obviously, you love your wife, and I saw some great videos of you cooking for her. Valentine’s Day, not too long ago, you made a very special pretzel.
Eric Burgett: I did, I did. I love cooking, I love watching cooking. It’ll be that late at night thing, like we’re in bed and we flip to the cooking channel. It’s just one of those things. I have a passion for it. I love smoking chicken on the smoker, I love grilling. One thing I had been doing for a while is cooking with beer. Busch Light …
Sue Bonzell: Of course.
Eric Burgett: Has been an avid part of my journey.
Sue Bonzell: He’s looking for an endorsement, so Busch Light, if you’re listening, yeah.
Eric Burgett: Come on, Busch Light. So, that whole recipe, I was like, “Okay, beer pretzel heart or beer pretzel.” I’m going to make a heart using beer dough. Beer …
Sue Bonzell: It’s so cute.
Eric Burgett: So I surprised her with it. She came home from work, and I had it in the oven.
Sue Bonzell: Well, and I love that you actually did the … It wasn’t just like, “Hey, I made a pretzel.” Like you did the recipe for everyone. So, not only is he sharing his talents in music, but now you’ve got a cooking show. You’ll be like the next Trisha Yearwood, right?
Eric Burgett: Hey, I like that, that’s a really good compliment. Thank you. Music, food, good people.
Sue Bonzell: And beer.
Eric Burgett: And beer, yeah, yeah.
Sue Bonzell: And beer.
Eric Burgett: Yeah, music, food, and beer. That is me in a nutshell.
Sue Bonzell: That’s what we got. That’s what we got. So, I do want to play a little game with you.
Eric Burgett: Okay, oh boy.
Sue Bonzell: So, this will be fun. But we’re going to take just a little bit of a break. I want to get you set up, because we want to hear you play your new song or which song are you going to play?
Eric Burgett: I could share the Wild Girl song.
Sue Bonzell: Okay, all right. Well, that’ll be good, that’ll be good. We’ll get you set up to play that, and then we’re going to come back, we’re going to finish up with a little game. It’s a little get to know you game. Don’t worry, it’s not scary at all, but we’re going to play that in just a minute. So, we’re going to take a little break and come right back.
Eric Burgett: What’s up, everybody? Eric Burgett here. I’m going to share with you a brand new song I just put out. This one’s called Wild Girl. So, go check it out. If you like it, learn the lyrics, sing along to it. Thank you.
Eric Burgett: (singing)
Sue Bonzell: All right, that was Wild Girl. Okay, that was awesome.
Eric Burgett: Thank you.
Sue Bonzell: So much fun.
Eric Burgett: Thank you.
Sue Bonzell: I’m loving the new song. Where can we get it?
Eric Burgett: Everywhere.
Sue Bonzell: Everywhere!
Eric Burgett: All your digital streaming outlets. We got Pandora, Apple … I don’t even need to name them off, because you all look it up. You can go to my links in my TikTok and Instagram, my website, ericburgett.com. You all get it. Go get it.
Sue Bonzell: Go get it. Go get it, go get it. Help him out, man. All right, before we let him leave or give him more bourbon, I don’t know, we’re going to play a little game that I like to call Truth or Truth, instead of Truth or Dare, because I don’t want to make you do anything.
Eric Burgett: Can I sip a round of truth?
Sue Bonzell: You go ahead. There you go. We got the truth serum on board, we’re ready to go. Okay, so I picked out a couple of little questions here, so you get to pick your own question.
Eric Burgett: All right. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. All right.
Sue Bonzell: What do we got? It’s blank.
Eric Burgett: What’s a bad habit you have?
Sue Bonzell: Ooh. What is the bad habit your wife thinks you have? Maybe that’s more appropriate. I don’t know.
Eric Burgett: Yeah, maybe … Maybe … I’ll tell my version and I’ll tell her version.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, there you go. That’s good, I like it.
Eric Burgett: They’re two totally different things, and one of them does involve food and wine.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, okay. My two favorite items, okay.
Eric Burgett: Because talking about California and stuff, anytime I have pizza, I have to have a glass of wine.
Sue Bonzell: Okay, I like your style.
Eric Burgett: Some call it fancy, but I just call it Eric Burgett. I don’t know.
Sue Bonzell: It’s Italian, right?
Eric Burgett: Yeah. It’s pairing food and wine, and its got to be red and bold.
Sue Bonzell: Yeah.
Eric Burgett: I don’t know. Just something about Italy and wine. Pizza’s one of my favorite things.
Eric Burgett: Turn the other way, and Amy thinks my bad habit is leaving the toilet seat up. I’m very sorry, honey.
Sue Bonzell: I think that’s pretty common. Pretty common.
Eric Burgett: And we even got the soft close toilet lids, and I still …
Sue Bonzell: Oh yeah.
Eric Burgett: She’s like, “Just … [crosstalk 00:13:32].”
Sue Bonzell: You don’t even have to worry about it.
Eric Burgett: [inaudible 00:13:35] go down [inaudible 00:13:36]. But anyway, I’m working on it, I’m working on it.
Sue Bonzell: Just like every other man. Well, some are, some aren’t, but hey, it’s all good. Okay, next.
Eric Burgett: Okay.
Sue Bonzell: All right, next. We’ll do three of them. How about that?
Eric Burgett: Okay.
Sue Bonzell: We won’t torch you too badly.
Eric Burgett: Do you have a hidden talent?
Sue Bonzell: Oh, well, I mean, you have a really good talent that everybody knows about.
Eric Burgett: Yeah, usually I’d say piano back in the day, because people are like, “I’m a country music artist. What’s my hidden talent? I play piano.” I feel like I’m pretty good at using Adobe, like after effects. I make all my lyric videos.
Sue Bonzell: Okay, there you go.
Eric Burgett: And I just love being in that creative space, putting art and art together. My song, putting images together with it. I don’t know. Something about it, but that would be my hidden talent.
Sue Bonzell: I think that’s a great hidden talent. Good, we have work for you.
Eric Burgett: All right, let’s go. [crosstalk 00:14:44].
Sue Bonzell: Just in case the music thing doesn’t work out. I’m just kidding.
Eric Burgett: Do not say that.
Sue Bonzell: Right, I’m kidding. It’s a joke.
Eric Burgett: Let’s see. Okay. Got it. Tell us your cheesiest pickup line.
Sue Bonzell: Oh, there we go. Or maybe the one that you got your wife to go out with you or something. I don’t know.
Eric Burgett: Probably, “What’s crackalackin’?”
Sue Bonzell: What’s crackalackin’?
Eric Burgett: Or, “What’s shakin’ bakin’?”
Sue Bonzell: That’s a good one too. What’s up, Chuck? I don’t know.
Eric Burgett: You want some bread [dough 00:15:23]?
Sue Bonzell: Okay, that was fun. I won’t torture you any longer with that. Well, we’ve had some fun with Eric Burgett today, we got to hear his song. You got that song out, you guys can pick it up everywhere. Wild Girl. So what’s next? What’s next after that?
Eric Burgett: Lots of shows. We’re always booking. We got some really cool things happening this summer that I’m super pumped about. I’m going to go month to month here. I’m going to try. My manager’s in the house and he’s … I don’t want to be like, “Hey, what’s that date? What’s that date?” But … Okay.
Sue Bonzell: He knows them all.
Eric Burgett: In May, I have my own show at the [Bluebird 00:16:04].
Sue Bonzell: Nice.
Eric Burgett: My band’s playing on a Sunday night, it’s a Sunday spotlight night, and they feature for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes, a featured artist, and that will be me. I’m pumped.
Eric Burgett: June, we’re opening up for Lee Brice again …
Sue Bonzell: There we go.
Eric Burgett: Up in upstate New York.
Sue Bonzell: Cool.
Eric Burgett: We’re playing Country Fest in Cadott, Wisconsin on Florida Georgia Line’s night. That’s going to be super pumped …
Sue Bonzell: Fun.
Eric Burgett: To be there. And more music too.
Sue Bonzell: Okay, good.
Eric Burgett: We’re cranking out a new song every six weeks.
Sue Bonzell: Wow.
Eric Burgett: So, stay tuned for the next one. But you got to join my TikTok.
Sue Bonzell: See, yeah, exactly.
Eric Burgett: If you’re on TikTok, go to my TikTok, you might get a little preview of it in the coming weeks. We’ll see, because I think it’s going to be fun for you all.
Sue Bonzell: Okay. We’re going to get the inside scoop, got to follow on TikTok. Follow me too, Sue Bonzell, on TikTok, and Up N Country on Instagram and upncountry.com, you can get all of the artist interviews that I’ve done with these amazing artists. Thank you again, Eric.
Eric Burgett: Thank you.
Sue Bonzell: Of course.
Eric Burgett: Thank you.
Sue Bonzell: Thanks for tuning in to Up N Country, where we have new episodes every Tuesday. And be sure to visit upncountry.com for all of the episodes and information about our VIP club, where you’re going to get exclusive backstage access. And if you’re on Instagram or TikTok, make sure to follow me, Sue Bonzell. I’ll see you next week.
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