Erik Lunde: Background, Influences, and Musical Style
Rock-americana artist Erik Lunde, who just released his latest single “Long Time Overdue”, has lived almost everywhere you can think of. The artist has had forty different addresses across North America. While traveling our gorgeous planet, Lunde has found a way to take off with his music career. Erik Lunde has found a new home in Colorado which he is extremely fond of. In the U.S. state, Lunde has put together a four piece rock band which he hopes to travel and tour with this year and into the near future.
For people who haven’t listened to Erik Lunde’s music before, the artist styles his music after Neil Young and Simon and Garfunkel. Because of this, Lunde claims that his music falls under the genre of folk rock-americana with traditional country blended in. “A lot of the sounds that I create are similar to those of Johnny Cash from the late 1960’s and early 70’s. In terms of country music, I am more influenced by traditional country groups like the Stanley Brothers than anything modern,” Lunde explains. He also states that “Some other artists for me that I really dug into as a kid in the 1990’s were Bob Dylan, and groups like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones.”
And now that Erik Lunde has found his style of music and learned how to play the guitar (not until he was twenty-eight years old), the americana artist is ready to share some of his new music with people across the world.
Erik Lunde’s “Long Time Overdue”
“Long Time Overdue” is a song that truly exemplifies the influenced roots of Johnny Cash on Erik Lunde. The acoustic guitar throughout the song brings back memories of some of Cash’s biggest hits.
“With that guitar, the song essentially pieced itself together from there,” Lunde shares.
In the music video for “Long Time Overdue”, you may see a bunch of Lunde’s friends, but the artist wrote the song himself.
It must be noted that “I was a ‘traveling trooper’ for about twenty years of my life. And that is about how long this song has been in the making. I worked on films for a majority of my life, and I didn’t have the opportunity to put together a band until I finally got here to Colorado.”
“‘Long Time Overdue’, a very open-ended song, was written as a long-distance relationship for someone that you have wanted to get together with but couldn’t. And when we recorded it, it spoke to how people were feeling during the pandemic. A lot of the things were quite overdue. Particularly over the last year, people couldn’t get together and that of course was really hard,” Lunde confesses.
Upcoming Single: “Steel Militia”
Now that “Long Time Overdue” has been released, Erik Lunde is looking ahead to new music. His next single “Steel Militia” is yet another track off his upcoming album Water From The Stone.
“The song is really powerful. I have had this guitar lick for years now and I have been looking for a place to use it. And at the time I was writing the song, I was in Vermont. Of course the state is close to the location of where the Revolutionary War took place. I was at some war memorial spots, and I tried to figure out a way to get that environment into the song. A couple of years later, the song just kind of came out of nowhere and fit right with the guitar,” Lunde explains.
Once the song comes out, fans will be able to hear the ‘biblical’ track that took Lunde years to write. In addition, “Steel Militia” was supposed to be released pre-pandemic. However, Lunde thought that it wasn’t the right time, so he waited until present day.
Story Behind “Steel Militia”
While Lunde was writing the song, he was also thinking a lot about the Iraq and Afghanistan War. Of course, this was a war that the U.S. got into, but never won.
Lunde explains, “A lot of soldiers lost their lives in this war. I looked up the first soldiers who died in this war on the internet and I came across the Wise Brothers. These guys were from Arkansas. They were both soldiers who were sent to the war at different times. So the idea for “Steel Militia” came from these brothers.”
Lunde also shares, “I learned that a lot of soldiers go over thinking they are doing the right thing. But, someone from the Taliban and someone from the U.S., both believe in something or someone equally. When these two forces meet, there isn’t always a clean outcome. And now that the U.S. is pulling out all of their soldiers on September 11th for the first time in twenty years, the Taliban has come back in, and I think that a lot of the soldiers who are returning home are thinking to themselves, ‘What was all of this for?’”
Even though Lunde’s next single “Steel Militia” has not been released, he has been playing it across the country. In fact, the artist played his single for some wounded warriors at a dude ranch a few weeks ago. All of the soldiers were from the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Erik Lunde says that “…two of the soldiers there even cried after I played the song for them. After seeing the impact of ‘Steel Militia’, I wanted to use this song to raise awareness for wounded warriors.”
Above all, “Steel Militia” will be released later this month, accompanied by a lyric video.
Erik Lunde: Water From The Stone
Erik Lunde’s upcoming album, Water From The Stone, will be released later this year. The record, which took over six years to complete, features songs like “Long Time Overdue” and “Steel Militia”. In addition, there are others that have yet to be announced. The album was recorded at various studios across the country. Many people helped Lunde on the way, and he is extremely grateful for everyone’s help.
“The title for the album is a biblical reference meaning that one is trying to get water literally from a rock. And as an artist, this means that you have to keep faith and persevere through anything that is thrown your way, whatever that may be,” the Colorado-native explains.
For more information on Erik Lunde, follow the artist on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
