We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Giselle And Erik. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Giselle and Erik below.
Giselle and Erik, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Our debut EP, “Healing,” reflects our experiences through Erik’s open heart surgery and recovery in 2021-22. Some music happens out of necessity, and this music was a response to our lives turning upside down as we looked death in the face at such a young age.
We wanted, more than anything, for this EP to be honest. The songs reflect a range of emotions like fear, guilt, faith and, ultimately, hope and perseverance. We feel a responsibility to do our part to tell our story – to hopefully help others through our music, as well as collaborate to expand and amplify its impact.
Erik’s heart disease is congenital, meaning that he’s had it since birth, and while this music had a release date, his condition is something that will always be in our lives. Since the release, we’ve partnered with the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) and Vanderbilt School of Medicine. It’s been so special to share our music and connect with other CHD patients and families.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We’re Giselle and Erik, a husband-and-wife music duo originally from Florida and currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. Our style melds our roots in folk and jazz, pairing Giselle’s warm, lyrical voice and mellow piano with Erik’s expertise in colorful harmony, improvisation, and jazz and Brazilian guitar.
We met playing in the University of Florida jazz big band together. The more we played together, the more we wanted to combine our strengths and develop our sound as a duo. And somewhere in those years, we fell in love, but that’s another story.
After graduation, we performed as a music duo for Disney Cruise Line, and then our journey took us to Nashville where we’ve been recording, releasing, and performing our original music. We released our debut EP, “Healing” in 2023, and are gearing up to release our sophomore EP.
As independent artists, we wear a lot of hats right now to make our music happen – from being multi-instrumentalists to producing to audio engineering (all the home studio things!), and then working to get it out of the studio and share it with everyone.
We’re definitely “what you see is what you get” people, so we try to hold on to this authenticity whether we’re one-on-one with someone, on stage, or sharing online. Our music, and especially our live performances, have a deep emotional spirit because, in spite of our relative youth, we’ve already experienced a lot of life together. We love live shows because we try to cross any divide between us and our audiences — telling stories, enjoying music, even some unfiltered banter. We joke — but not really — that we want to invite audiences into our living room with us.
Have you ever had to pivot?
From living on land to living at sea!
Between the pandemic and Erik’s surgery and recovery, we weren’t able to be out performing. Instead, we started sharing what we called “Song Sketches” on Instagram Reels. Song Sketches were short clips of ideas we had for original songs, and we ended up with a catalog of ~100 of them. Out of the blue, we received a DM from another musician couple who saw our videos and wanted to pass our information along to an agent who was pitching to Disney — Erik thought this was 100% spam! But — sure enough — it was NOT spam and two weeks later, we got our offer to perform on the ship for 4.5 months. We left port just 3 weeks after Erik’s graduated from his Master’s program…barely enough time to get all the necessary paperwork done!
We love this story because it reminds us that life can really be just that unpredictable and you never know when or how you’ll reap the fruits of your labor. Performing for Disney has opened so many doors for us personally and professionally.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The goal is to be on this creative journey for the long haul, and to set ourselves up to be able to do that sustainably – mentally, financially, professionally. We’re driven to find ways to share our music, find meaningful connections with listeners, all while “leveling-up” our career. Making music is something so intrinsic to us – it’s something we’ll never stop doing, so we remind ourselves to just keep showing up.
Recently, we’ve been challenging ourselves to make more of what we call “big” asks – like messaging an artist or team about being their opener on tour or a brand we’d love to work with or dream songwriting opportunities, etc. We want to go after all the “fill-your-cup” creative opportunities. The worst someone can say is no, but what if they say yes?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.giselleanderik.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giselleanderik/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giselleanderik/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@giselleanderik?si=BrV_-qOgUDCS6MHK
Image Credits
Lead photo: Photo by Oceanna
Tan jacket and navy shirt with guitar image: Harper Shadron Photography
Healing cover art: Photo by Brian Diaz Photography
Live performance photo: Photo by Music Neighbors