We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gregg Erwin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gregg, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
I believe the one thing that I learned from a previous job was back around 1992 in the fall. I’ll get to that in a minute. First I will say that something inside of me has always driven me to want to, and try to be the best at whatever I was doing all the way back to my childhood. I always tried to do more than the competition could possibly do. I remember when I was involved in sports starting in Junior High School. I was just driven to do more and work harder towards goals and stuff. I think it could’ve been from some of my upbringing. There was a fire burning hot within me and whether it was waking up at 5 am to run the 2 miles before school or hitting the local gym after team workouts or practice and going above and beyond what was required, I just always wanted to be the best. Now back to the question.
So I had enlisted in the Marines for the 1st time and ended up getting hurt and spending almost 5 months on Paris Island. I ended up working for a Master Gunnery Sergeant. I spent most days with him and was pretty much his assistant while I was waiting for my orders to do whatever.
One day he told me to sweep the floors and polish them. “Not something I wanted to do at all ” I think he could tell it too.
A few hours in he came out to check and see how things were going and shared his experience of how he had been promoted through things like I was doing.
He said Erwin it don’t matter if it’s cleaning a floor or bathroom son. Do it better than anyone else and always keep that mentality to continue bettering yourself in life. At that moment I got back something I used to have, my fire was reignited. (I had been down and out after my injury.)
Not sure why he came out there that day but it really helped me alot. I have lived my life that way ever since. I’m not gonna lie sometimes it’s hard but I always look back at my younger years and that day with the Master Gunnery Sergeant.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’m an Outlaw Country music artist from North GA. I do a variety of shows in a variety of settings. I’ve shared the stages with what I believe to be some of the most talented artists of all time. This would be a good time to name drop but I’m not going to get into that because it’s really irrelevant to me, they were just really good people. Follow my pages ect and you’ll see the photos.. It’s been an adventure. There’s nothing like being called up to sing with someone that you opened for.
My actual career in music probably started around 2010, although I had sang in bands and been very successful prior to that.
It was 2010 and I had shattered my knee at work in 2009 and ended up getting fired. So I started back to school and that was tough. I had been out of high-school since 1992 and really wasn’t the scholar type. At any rate, I was all in in college and did pretty well for several years until my personal life took a bad spin and I had to drop out. Prior to that my average was 3.97.
I had gotten a B in a class that wasn’t even required. My average in that class was an 89.7. She gave me a B. Lol.
College is when I started playing solo stuff on almost every weekend. I made really good money that really helped me get by while I was in school.
I did return to a job when I had to drop out of school I stayed there till around 2015 when the company moved all operations to TX. My bosses out in Texas were awesome. They had seen me perform several times. They offered me a job out there but told me the exact date that we would be done in Georgia and recommended that I pursue music and work on lining up shows to at least try and make it my full time job.
So I did. It’s been almost 7yrs and I seem to be doing OK.
I released an EP back in 2019 called 200 Proof and I’ve gotten alot of compliments on some of my work. Played some big shows and had a lot of fun.
If you’re reading and want to find that Ep it’s available on Apple Music, Amazon music and alot of places… if you like it call your local station and request your favorite one or just chill and stream it.
One thing that sets me a part from others would be that I’m as real as they come.
I usually don’t sing or write anything I can’t relate to.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
What’s an NTF lol. I’m all about change but I’m all American and all about the US dollar being as strong as possible.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
In my view, you don’t make it without a lot of support from friends, family and the community. What I know really helps in current times is having as many likes, shares and mentions on social media as possible. So share my music, like my post, and help me grow. Seriously, supoort local music on every platform and be the change.
Contact Info:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
greggerwincountry -
Facebook: www.facebook.com/
greggerwinmusic -
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/
greggerwincntry -
Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/
UCD5R–UpVKqX_J9Pb6NklMw -
Other:
https://youtube.com/c/
GreggErwin https://music.apple.com/us/
artist/gregg-erwin/1097011561 https://music.amazon.com/
artists/B01EOASCPQ?ref=dm_sh_ xO4DILLfaKamgvZgcnjJOlVoO
Image Credits
Richie Stone with Southern Side
Todd Dean Images
Rising Star Martin Dotson