Heartbreak wrote Erick Baker’s first song. Somewhere in between the lines of the lyrics was the discovery that fueled his ultimate message: hope. Woven into the fabric of Baker’s music is the idea that anything is possible for those who are willing to follow a dream or a broken heart and experience the frighteningly ecstatic sensation of being fully alive.

Erick Baker never thought he would be a musician. Although as a child, he often sang into a hairbrush microphone and strummed a broom guitar. The closest that Baker ever came to performing before the age of 23 was lip synching “Stand By Me” in his fourth grade talent show. As time passed and the decisions of what to do with the rest of his life arose, he never once considered music as an option. Instead, Baker followed the well-worn road of life, emerging with a college degree and no idea of what to do next. On one of the final days of his last summer before entering the real world, he picked up a guitar and taught himself how to play a couple of songs.

Before he realized what was happening, Eric was performing popular songs in local bars and attracting a lot of attention. Baker abandoned the idea of a 9-5 job and found success where he least expected. All of a sudden, everything changed. Derailed by a great loss, Baker was left staring in the mirror at an empty face. Searching for something more, Erick Baker wrote his first song.

Baker sacrificed the money and the packed audiences to be able to play his own music. There were only seven people at his first show, but that night he found everything he had been searching for. Soon after, he was discovered while playing an open mic night, and just a few weeks later he opened for John Legend in front of a crowd of over 1,500 people.

Carried by the validation from the John Legend show and a new belief in himself, he went into debt to independently record his debut EP, “It’s Getting Too Late To Say It’s Early.” His mother repeatedly told him, “This is the biggest mistake of your life”. But that mistake soon became the turning point of his career.

In February 2008, Baker released “It's Getting Too Late To Say It's Early.” The EP was an immediate success. At the release show, the venue sold out and left people standing in the streets. Three days later, unexpectedly, he found himself opening for James Blunt. Unannounced and unknown, his set brought the entire crowd to its feet with a standing ovation. Afterwards, Baker sold every CD he had as hundreds waited over an hour to buy a copy. Erick Baker had discovered that his dreams as a child, singing into a hairbrush microphone and playing a broom guitar, were part of a reality hidden inside him.

Info via ticketbiscuit.com/rhythm-brews. Photo by Carie Thompson via facebook.com.