Eric Lee Martin (born October 10, 1960) is an American rock singer who was active throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, both as solo artist and as a member of various bands. He rose to prominence as the frontman for the hard rock band Mr. Big, which scored a big hit in the early 1990s with "To Be with You", a song that Martin wrote during his teen years.
Early years Eric Martin was born on October 10, 1960, to Frederick Lee "Pepper" Martin and Iris Martin. His father was from Cincinnati, Ohio, having been a drummer and was stationed in the military. As such, his family often moved where he was stationed, including to Germany and Italy. As a child, he had plenty of records and listened to albums to musicals such as South Pacific and Hair. They eventually moved to Sacramento, California.
The Martin family finally settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in about 1972. Martin met up with some of the band members who would join him in his first successful venture: Kid Courage. Kid Courage opened for AC/DC for two shows in the Bay Area, which were AC/DC's first shows in America.
Martin was a drummer for a short while. Realizing it fit his personality better, he opted for frontman/lead vocalist in the next bands he joined. He played in a handful of teen rock groups with Randy Richardson, Fil Pearl and Ric Walz-Smith, such as S.F. Bloodshy and Backhome while attending Foothill High School in Sacramento, California. He performed in a punk band in the mid-1970s called The Innocents with Walz-Smith and Connie Champagne. In 1974 Eric played college clubs with Jim Preston in The J.C. Michaels Band.
Also in 1974, during the summer break, Martin joined a musical comedy workshop held at Mira Loma High School in Sacramento. He auditioned for the part of Judas; although he ultimately did not get the role, he did become the understudy. Martin credits the honing of his voice to his teacher, Judy Davis. She taught him diction, stamina, and breath-control.
Eric started to make it big when he joined Stark Raving Mad (which also included future Winger guitarist/keyboardist Paul Taylor) in Santa Rosa, California. Stark Raving Mad, which also included Donavan Stark and Brian Stark, cut a demo with Bearsville Records that was produced by Chris Nicks, brother of Stevie Nicks.
Musical influences Martin grew up listening to both soul and rock icons in the 1970s, such as Otis Redding, Paul Rodgers, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Edgar Winter, Free, and Humble Pie. When he was about 13 to 15 years old, while living in Italy, he was introduced musically to different artists under Motown Records and Stax/Volt Records.
Career
415 / Eric Martin Band (1978–1985) Martin had decided to live independently by the age of 18. His first job was selling ice-cream. Later, John Nymann, guitarist for the band Mile Hi, gave him a call and asked if he would want to form a new band together. The two had known each other since their former bands (Mile Hi and Kid Courage) had played together at the Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway in San Francisco. In agreement, Nymann and Martin got people together from both their previous bands, and formed a new group named 415 – which was the telephone area code for the San Francisco Bay Area, since every person in the band was from there.
415 was formed in late 1979. It marked the start of Martin's career as lead vocalist. He stated, "415 played hundreds of shows at area nightclubs, beer parties, even high school and college dances, before eventually headlining San Francisco's premiere night club – the Old Waldorf. Selling out in advance, word quickly spread about our dynamic live shows and soon we were opening for established acts like Billy Squier, Hall & Oates, Rick Springfield, Molly Hatchet, the Marshall Tucker Band, and Foreigner, to name a few. Eventually, without yet being signed to a recording contract, we played in front of 60,000 fans at Oakland Stadium at Bill Graham's Days on the Green Concert." The band became a popular local draw, all the while still being an unsigned act.
415 was later signed on to Elektra/Asylum Records under the management of Walter "Herbie" Herbert, Ron Chiarottino, and Sandy Einstein. These three persons managed and worked for the band Journey. The management decided to change the name of the band to the Eric Martin Band (EMB), as singer-named bands were popular during that time. EMB debuted their first album in 1983, entitled Sucker for a Pretty Face. The LP received a gold disc (certification?), and consequently led to the band's appearance on American Bandstand and in various arena tours as the opening act for ZZ Top, Night Ranger, and Journey. In one interview, Eric mentions that they "worked thousands of shows, from clubs, to frat house parties, Bill Graham concerts, opening for anybody and everybody." One of the most acclaimed performances of the band was a solo tour in 1983 held at Honolulu, Hawaii. But despite continuing to land high-profile gigs as support for some of the most popular acts at the time, the band decided to split up in 1985 after returning from the ZZ Top tour.
During this period, Eric was considered for the position of lead singer for the band Toto on two occasions (replacing Bobby Kimball following his vocal issues) and then to replace David Lee Roth following his departure from Van Halen. Eric had an audition with Toto but following a "liquid lunch", the session didn't result in all members agreeing to him joining, though Steve Lukather was a strong advocate. In 1985, Eddie Van Halen heard a tape of Eric and invited him to audition. At San Francisco airport on the way to Los Angeles to meet with Van Halen, Eric met Sammy Hagar in the departure lounge who told him that he was on his way down to LA as he had already been told he was the new vocalist, so Eric did not take the flight so did not have the audition. Hagar indeed did become the new lead singer.
Mr. Big (1988–2002, 2009–present) In 1988, Martin teamed up with Billy Sheehan, Pat Torpey, and Paul Gilbert to form Los Angeles supergroup Mr. Big. The band combined "shredding" musicianship with melodic vocal harmonies. The reputations of the players generated immediate interest in fellow musicians, and the band was signed to Atlantic Records in 1989. That year, the band released their eponymous debut, which received critical and commercial success in the US and Japan. In June 1990, the group toured America with the Canadian band Rush.
The group's 1991 release, Lean into It, featured two ballads that established them as a commercial success: "To Be with You" (number one song in 15 countries) and "Just Take My Heart". The album was followed by a British tour in April and May of the same year, supported by bands The Throbs and Heartland.
After another British tour, the band released the Mr. Big Live album in 1992. Mr. Big continued work on a third album as they headlined shows across the U.K. in 1993. In December, the band broke away from this run to play as support act for Aerosmith's three-night, sold-out stand at London's Wembley Arena.
In 1993, another ballad from Mr. Big's new album Bump Ahead rose to the top 10 of the charts – a cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World". Although the band was unable to sustain commercial success in the US, their popularity in Japan continued to soar, leading to several Japan-only live albums as Raw Like Sushi I, Raw Like Sushi II, Japandemonium, and Mr. Big in Japan In 1996, Mr. Big released Hey Man, which sold strongly in the Far East. In 1997, the band released the album Live At Budokan before taking a break from recording and touring.
While recording their fifth studio album, Paul Gilbert announced his decision to leave the band, and new guitarist Richie Kotzen was added to the lineup. The new line-up of Mr. Big released Get Over It in September 1999 in Japan. Get Over It yielded "Superfantastic", a number one hit in Japan that went multi-platinum. Mr. Big put in a 20-date tour of Japan followed by a New Year's Eve 1999 show with Aerosmith at the Osaka Dome in Osaka. Get Over It was released in the U.S. on March 21, 2000, followed by a short club stint at The Roxy Theater in West Hollywood.
In the summer of 2001, Martin and the rest of Mr. Big released Actual Size in Japan and the rest of Asia. The CD stayed on the charts in the number three spot and "Shine" the first single off the album was number one. The song was also used as the ending theme for the animation series, Hellsing. Though headed for a breakup, the members of Mr. Big performed a farewell tour of Japan and Asia in 2002 as part of a contract they were obliged to comply with.
A near Mr. Big "one-off" reunion took place on May 13, 2008, in Los Angeles, at the House of Blues, when Paul Gilbert was joined onstage by Pat Torpey, Richie Kotzen and Billy Sheehan for renditions of Humble Pie's "30 Days in the Hole" and original Mr. Big composition "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy". Reportedly, the three had such an amazing time that they decided to contact Eric Martin a few days later, and a reunion of the four original members (Paul, Eric, Pat, and Billy) was put into motion.
The reunion was first officially announced on February 1, 2009, in a Japanese radio program called "Heavy Metal Syndicate by Koh Sakai". The interviews and press conferences that followed shortly within the first two weeks of February revealed plans of the band to tour Japan in June 2009 and to release new albums. A world tour followed suit, with dates all across Europe, and several gigs in South East Asia, particularly in India, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and South Korea.
In 2010, Mr. Big recorded a new album titled What If... produced by Kevin Shirley and released in December 2010 first in Japan.
On May 10, 2011, after almost two decades, Mr. Big played the Araneta Coliseum in Manila, the Philippines. The band performed most of the songs from "Lean into It", and also introduced new songs from What If.... The band embarked on a very successful South American tour that ended with two dates in Brazil, at the last of which in the city of Porto Alegre on July 10, according to Eric Martin, Mr. Big had an "end of the tour party" live in front of over 2,000 fans at the local rock venue Bar Opinião.
In October 2014, Mr. Big released ...The Stories We Could Tell with 13 new songs and a bonus live track of "Addicted to That Rush." They embarked on a world tour to support the record and an unofficial fifth member of the band joined them on the tour: Matt Starr (from Ace Frehley's band,) is a drummer and singer, and Mr. Big recruited him to sit in for Pat Torpey, who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. While Torpey did tour with the band, he played drums on only a few songs, and typically sat on a stool and sang with the band while Starr handled the rest of the drum duties. Additional dates were planned for rock cruises and West coast dates in early 2016. On July 7, 2017, Mr. Big released Defying Gravity, its ninth studio album. The record was recorded in six days to accommodate the schedules of the band members and the producer, and was released on the Frontiers Music SRL label. It featured 11 new songs and was produced by Kevin Elson, who also produced Mr. Big's debut record in 1989. They embarked on a tour of the United States, followed by tours of Europe and southeast Asia, including a return to the Philippines on October 12, 2017.