Well... first I ran a six-month demographic study and hired a polling company out of Boston. It was expensive and counter productive... OKAY! I'm lying. It's my name. Actually there is a handful of Eric Schwartzes running around the country playing different types of music. I've talked to many of them - they are all exceptionally talented. So, rather than confusing things more, I just dropped the first name. Schwartz! Ta-da! It's like STING or BONO with more of a Mel Brooks/Christmas Story kind of feel to it. But with my peeps sitting in live we are known as RICH WET CZARS

Yes, I play live with a small combo, RICH WET CZARS, made up of Jeff Rybak on percussion and Dan Hogan (of Air This Side of Caution) on Bass. Occasionally I play with my buddy Steve Lord from Gag Reflex as a duo.

I have been with Soundclick since 2000 with some other projects (Gag Reflex, Jack, Barry Newton & The Plagues) - without mp3s and Soundclick, it would be much more difficult to get my songs and sounds out to the world. Thousands of people have heard what me and my comrades do, where fifteen years ago, they couldn't have. It's a giant open mic to the world.

Yes

I wrote my first song in fourth grade after taking organ lessons for about a month. It was called "Intervention of the Angels" (I swear) A couple of years later I started learning guitar from a nun. I switched to electric in high school after seeing Marty McFly tear it up on Johnny B. Goode. It was about then that I started writing songs... really, really bad Bryan Adamsy- Def Leppardy songs. A few years later I heard Pink Floyd and everything changed. Then I wrote really really bad Floydy songs - but it taught me about lyrics. I kept plugging away and eventually, around the time I got to college my stuff started getting better. I started playing drums out of necessity in the mid-nineties. That's it. The whole story.

So many - I learn a little from everything I listen to. But the biggies for me are all songwriters: Tom Russell, Ralph Covert, Patrick Vernon, Ryan Adams, Steve Hogarth, The Indigo Girls, Bruce Cockburn, Paul Simon,

London, Silver City - New Mexico, Galena - Illinois, Pick-a-Cup in Evanston Illinois - The House in Dekalb, Illinois

ill-treated larynx, various acoustic guitars, some drums and percussion that have gathered in my den, any keyboard or piano I can get my hands on, ACID Music, DDClip, GoldWave

I dedicate everything on this page to my son, Danny. Maybe he'll find this stuff one day and enjoy it.