We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eric Silver. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eric below.

Eric, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I suppose the fact that I’ve lived in Nashville almost my entire life, but have developed a large part of my business in Brazil, would separate me from the typical “service provider”. I’ve always worked in the Nashville community and continue to, but aside from only focusing on Music Row I made it a point to try to work with music internationally.

Eric, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Of course. My name is Eric Silver. I moved to Nashville in 1981 straight out of high school in North Carolina. I was pursuing the music business and at the same time was very involved in martial arts. My music work entailed a lot of travel, both in the US and abroad. In my downtime, I’d always look for places to practice karate and jiu-jitsu. So over the years, my career as a musician, producer and song-writer, allowed me to study martial arts in places like Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. I particularly felt a connection to São Paulo and eventually it became my second home where I currently live half of the year.

I was in Brazil so much, I started teaching myself Portuguese and paid a lot of attention to the different ways that north and south Americans think and reason. Being flexible and learning to adapt in situations where you are the outsider makes for a much happier and profitable experience. My resumé from the music business in the US (Shania Twain, Keith Urban, the Dixie Chicks, Donna Summer and Cyndi Lauper) opened doors for me in South America, but immersing myself into the culture made a huge difference in my ability to make and keep things happening there. Without ever meaning to, I created a unique brand, being the “Nashville” producer, song-writer, available in Brazil.

Most Brazilian artists reach out to me to bring American elements to their sound. To date I’ve recorded with Brazilian artists, Titâs, NX Zero, Paula Fernandes and Almir Sater, with whom I won two Latin GRAMMY awards as his producer in 2016 and 2018. Nowadays a large majority of my work comes from Brazil, but I always do most of the production, recording and mixing in Nashville. It’s a busy life but always interesting. Along the way I opened my own martial arts school called Zanshin Dojo in Nashville. This is our 30th year in business and when I’m in Nashville, I’m there giving classes six days a week.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The primary resources which haven’t changed since I started being talent, originality and authenticity. Those of us who came up in the music business were trained to gravitate towards what’s popular currently and monetizable. I’m a very hard worker but in retrospect can see that I dedicated large amounts of time trying to perfect things that weren’t representing the real me. It’s easy to get distracted by other’s people’s opinions and advice. I did that a bit. So in retrospect I’d say the best resource is yourself. It isn’t easy but to be an artist, find your art. Find what you do best and do it. Of course the internet and different sites have blown wide open the opportunity to be found discovered, but it’s important to have something unique to be discovered for.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I went into a high-school of several thousand students from a school which had 75 students from 1st to 9th grade. I thought I’d try some of the activities that were offered. I tried the wrestling team but it didn’t go well as all the guys had been wrestling for years and I had never done it before. Then I tried out for the high-school jazz band as the guitarist. That didn’t happen either. Years later I was in Nashville, working with people like Keith Urban, Donna Summer, David Grisman, Victor Wooten and others….as a guitar player. I also had opened the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school in Nashville where the first students were largely wrestlers.

The moral of the story is, if you enjoy what you’re doing, don’t stop. You never know where the road’s going to take you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ericsilvermusic.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ericsilvermusic
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ericsilvermusic
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ericsilvermusic
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/ericsilvermusic

Image Credits
Photography by Silmara Ciuffa.