Eric Heatherly

From his rockabilly flair to his grassroots work ethic, the singer/songwriter/lead guitarist never represented typical Nashville. The native Tennessean arrived in the city in 1990 (at age 19) during the “big hat boom” as he called it. Labels were looking for more Clint Blacks and Garth Brookses.

“Here I come with a guitar hanging around my neck, slingin’ guitar solos in their face and writing these hillbilly, rockabilly stylish songs and that’s the last thing they wanted,” Heatherly told POLLSTAR. “So I had no choice after knocking on all the doors but to just hit the club scene and just keep pounding it out night after night.”

While working up to three day jobs, Heatherly played downtown nightly for tips. By about 1997, people were waiting in lines outside clubs to see him. Suddenly, all those record reps who had rejected him started coming around. “They’d walk in there and I’d be playing five hours worth of original songs and everybody singing every word to them,” Heatherly said.

It’s not as if he hadn’t been offered deals before. They just all came with a catch replace the bowling shirts and traditional-influenced songs with the 10-gallon hat and novelty tunes. “They were just an executive’s fabrication of what he thought I should be not what I am, which is just kind of a meat and potatoes kind of roots guy,” Heatherly said.

That’s not to say passing on offers was easy. “I tell ya, it brought me to tears a couple of times because I’d be running seven flights of parking garages going to get some guy’s Cadillac for a handful of nickels and pennies and then know that I’ve got a couple record deal offers down the street.”

How sweet it was when things finally took a 180-degree turn. The labels that had previously rejected Heatherly were hovering, witnessing his regular gig at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge where people were crammed in, sweating all over each other, dancing on the bar and going insane.

“And then on [the record reps’] way out the door, they’d be dropping their shiny, slick business card into my tip jar and giving me that classic wink with a big ol’ cigar in their mouth and I’m like, ‘Yeah, right. … You’re playing my game now.’ So I didn’t follow up with any of them because I had already seen them, they’d already lied to me, I’d already done that song and dance. I was determined I was just gonna create my own atmosphere and when the right thing came along, I’d take it.”

That thing turned out to be Mercury Nashville. The label had changed since Heatherly was turned down by its previous chief. Under current president Luke Lewis, the company had become known for signing unique acts and letting them do things their own way.

The Mercury team had snuck into Tootsie’s incognito to watch Heatherly several times. One night after a gig, Lewis walked Heatherly outside where the performer’s ’55 Chevy was parked. The exec asked to take a ride. Heatherly burned rubber in four gears and Lewis made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “Let’s go make some history. … I want you to use your own band and your own songs and do it your way.”

Heatherly’s managers, Bobby Roberts and Steve Goetzman, were equally impressed with the artist’s work ethic, intelligence and incredible live show. But they attempted to stay level- headed and control their excitement.

“We agreed that we would not offer him anything that we just wanted to get to know him a little bit better and see what he was about,” Goetzman told POLLSTAR. “So he came in dressed and looking like a star, which is what he always does onstage or offstage. I guarantee that he wasn’t on Bobby’s couch 15 minutes and we were offering him a management contract.”

The Heatherly team has since lived happily ever after except for one minor glitch the choice of debut single. Heatherly’s version of “Flowers On The Wall” the only cover on the album always raised the roof off Tootsie’s. When Mercury chose it as the first single, “I frickin’ just lost it because I didn’t want to be known as a cover-tune guy,” he said. “To write 300 original songs, to spend 10 years trying to get a record deal and to come out with a cover tune was like my nightmare come true.”

After his managers calmed him down, Heatherly began to realize that debuting with a cover tune wasn’t the end of the world. “In hindsight, they were right and I was totally wrong because this version has knocked down mountains for me,” he admitted.

Now that he’s standing on solid ground, it’s time for touring and more touring, which is fine with Heatherly because the live performance is what he lives for. And like some of the legends that have influenced him namely Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis Heatherly is always spontaneous.

“I never walk out with a set list or plan a show out. I wing it from top to bottom,” he said. That may make things a bit more challenging for his band and the lighting and sound techs, but they love it, and so do Heatherly’s fans.