Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Carranza.
Hi Eric, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m a musical artist from Saint Paul and I’ve been recording and performing with various groups for the last couple decades. Each band or project is quite different from the next which keeps things interesting. I spent years traveling in a van doing the touring rock band thing early in my career. In more recent years being more grounded in Minnesota, I have been able to be involved in more of a variety of different projects at once as well as teaching private music lessons for many years now which can be very rewarding.
In 2017, I founded a guitar and electronics looping project, “Excessive.” with the idea of using portable equipment to be able to create music anywhere. I coupled this with improvised sessions with bandmates Matty Harris and Braden Dickie, leading to the 2019 album “Flared Opinions”
Very recently I have been focused on a new fuzzy rock band called, Jest. These songs started on a little beat up nylon string acoustic guitar while I was staying in Mexico during the time when most live shows had been Covid canceled. I really missed being loud. I think that yearning played a big part in how the songs came out of me. When I got back to the midwest, I recorded the album at my favorite studio, Honeytone, in Neenah WI, and got together with a few of my favorite people that I make music with, to bring the songs to life..
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think one of the most difficult parts of being a musical artist is time management. For every release there is such a staggering and somehow always growing amount of work to be done aside from the actual creation of the music. A lot of it is tedious admin work staring at a computer screen, which is not an easy task to balance as a working musician keeping up with a couple handfuls of different types of gigs/rehearsals each week.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Ha, I don’t know, aside from making music, I really just like to practice Yoga, cook, and play Mario Kart with my daughter.
This year will see a handful of new music releases, all from brand new projects that I have started in the last year including, PRINTS, which has been described as “Instrumental heady looping beat-driven electro-acoustic improvisatory doom jazz” SPACEGLOW, which is an experimental R&B, and a couple other things I won’t mention just yet.
First Jest show of the year will be a release party for our debut album “Behaviors” May 5 at Mortimers in Minneapolis.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jest-music.com : https://www.ericjuliocarranza.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MusicJest
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPL0MzAbn3efNhIQzWI1WCg/featured
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MusicJest
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jest_music/
https://www.instagram.com/spaceglow_music/
https://www.instagram.com/printsloops/
https://www.instagram.com/yetisteady/
https://www.instagram.com/excessivemusic/ - Other: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jest1/wait
Image Credits
Patrick Boland
Pratik Singh
Tyler Croat
