Santa Cruz-born Neil Erickson is everywhere in Santa Barbara.

The singer-songwriter regularly plays sets at concert venues all over town, including SOhO, Topa Topa, Sandbar, Foxtail Kitchen, The Blue Owll and James Joyce.

He recently opened for American Idol superstar Jackson Gilles at concert at SOhO.

In this podcast, Erickson talks about how he decided to focus on his musical dreams after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He was on track to major in journalism at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, but couldn't see himself spending his final two years of college in a Zoom setting.

"After doing two years at City College, I didn't want to do two years of a four-year online," Erickson said. "I just didn't like the online and that experience that I had. It wasn't for me. It didn't work out for me."

So he opted to pursue his music. His dad bought him a computer with software so that he could create, edit and produce his music. Around that time he contracted COVID-19.

"I was trapped inside for 10 days," Erickson said. "Instead of playing video games, or zoning out and watching Netflix, everyday I just like wokeup and recorded and made something."

With a classically trained voice in choir, passion for musical theature, Erickson focuses much of his music on love songs. Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz and John Mayer are among his musical inspirations. In this podcast he walks us through the creation of one of his biggest songs, "Better With You."

He has spent many days and nights walking Santa Barbara's Funk Zone, meeting managers to get booked. His sticktuitiveness has landed him many gigs, and he is not one of Santa Barbara's most sought-after local performers.

"I feel that Santa Barbara is a bubble of musicians that is about to burst," Erickson said. "I have met an incredible amount of talented musicians. It's actually unreal, how many great musicians and how many people are passionate about it Santa Barbara.

The former sports editor of the Santa Barbara City College said he might return to college one day, but right now he's focused on his musical career.

"I want to live in Santa Barbara and make music here, and make the best possible music that I can," Erickson said. "The biggest thing for me is can I make music, do what I love and support myself. That question has been answered for me, yes I can do it. But the biggest thing, one, the goal is to make the best music I possibly can. That's the biggest thing. And two, I want to tour. There's so much of the U.S. that I haven't seen."

Josh Molina has been a journalist in Santa Barbara for 20 years. He also covered City Hall for the San Jose Mercury News. In addition to working as a reporter at Noozhawk, he teaches journalism at Cal State University, Northridge and Santa Barbara City College. Please subscribe to his You Tube channel for more content.

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