Following in the giant footsteps of his soulful idols ‘mdash; Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson ‘mdash; Eric Hutchinson claims he needs to sing like he needs to breathe. But he doesn’t stop at the shower: According to his Web site, he sings at coffeehouses and funerals with equal timbre.
Unfortunately, all that practice couldn’t keep his third album, August 2007’s Sounds Like This, from deflating. A jumbled reincarnation of Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson and Adam Levine, Hutchinson’s eerily familiar take on the sensitive young songwriter fails to transcend that boy-meets-girl pop grooves formula.
But maybe we should cut Hutchy some slack ‘mdash; after all, la-la land can be a tough gig. A brand-new addition to the music biz, the Maryland native graduated from Emerson College in 2001; a film degree, along with a reputation as an open-mic regular in Boston, fueled the dream that prompted his starry-eyed move to Los Angeles. He released 2003’s popcorn debut That Could’ve Gone Better, on Madonna’s Let’s Break Records ‘mdash; but six months later, the lucky streak was halted by parent company Warner Bros, who decided to drop Hutch from their lineup. At the end of his rope and scrambling for lunch money, the hopeful managed to squeeze out Before I Sold Out, with tracks like ‘Breakdown More’ and ‘Outside Villanova’ spinning through pervasive loneliness and sex with minors, highlighting his darker corners and blues-rooted soul.
Anxious to pull Hutchinson out of his funk, a friend recently sent notorious gossip blogger Perez Hilton (aka everyone’s favorite skinny bitcher) his latest album, Sounds Like This. The next day, Hilton listed it as a top 10 fave on his Web site, garnering millions of hits literally overnight.
In nearly every interview, Hutchinson still incredulously recalls how, within a few weeks, he had rocketed all the way to No. 9 on iTunes’ most-sold list. At the time, he claimed he barely knew who Hilton was.
Predictably, Warner Bros. pulled an ‘Oh, my bad,’ welcoming him back to the label with open arms. Suddenly, he had fans calling themselves Hutcheads. White-bread America wore him as proud as its pastel Uggs and Abercrombie hoodies, blasting sugary, summer-barbeque tunes and extra-cheese odes to ‘Rock and Roll’ that sound more like Jason Mraz B-sides.
And why should generation Britney care? On ‘Okay, It’s All Right With Me,’ Hutchinson’s skipping right with them, borrowing Maroon 5’s trademark nasality to spin the kind of apathy one can only feel with a nothing-else-matters mouthful of cotton candy. Dwindling love? ‘Not the same/ But it’s all right with me,’ he croons.
The love ballad is, after all, a staple of the soul-rock gods our Hutchead worships. He stretches farthest toward ‘She Will Be Loved’ romance on the gravelly ‘It Hasn’t Been Long Enough’ ‘mdash; a rough-edged, scratched-up gasp for air under waves of deep blue jazz. For a moment there, as he admits ‘I think I’ve been wrong enough to know when I’m right,’ we forget the smiling press shots long enough to let one heartstring snap.
Tapping into this secret, charcoaled sadness will almost certainly garner success beyond his 10,000-plus MySpace fans. He’s already won the Yahoo! Music users’-choice award, and his clap-happy single ‘Rock and Roll’ recently reached No. 11 on VH1’s Top 20 Countdown. Just maybe, if he can sink a little darker into the caverns of his self-proclaimed ‘acoustic soul,’ Hutchinson might one day be selling just as many UCSD-rack Valentine’s compilations as the olden-day idols he so esteems.
Eric Hutchinson will play for free at the Pub on Thursday, Jan. 29. Doors open at 8 p.m.