Wreckless Eric

Event information

In his thirty-seven year career Wreckless Eric has made seventeen albums and worked with, or had his songs covered by artists as diverse as The Proclaimers, Yo La Tengo, The Blockheads (with and without Ian Dury), The Lightning Seeds, Holly Golightly, Cliff Richard, The Monkees, Ian Hunter, Die Toten Hosen and Two lone Swordsmen, to name a few.

In 2012, the painter Peter Blake named Wreckless Eric as one of the most important pop icons of the past forty years, and included him on the remake of The Beatles Sergeant Pepper’s cover where he takes his place between David Hockney and Grayson Perry.

On his last ever radio show, recorded a week before he died, Lou Reed played Eric’s Take The Cash and described him as magnificent.

For the past six years and three albums he has worked in partnership with his wife, the songwriter and musician Amy Rigby, under the banner Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby.

Eric has recently signed to Fire Records who started a reissue campaign beginning in December 2013 with the two albums he made back in the mid 1980s with the legendary Medway garage band The Len Bright Combo of which he was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist.

The Len Bright Combo recently reformed for a one-off date in London. A review in Shindig Magazine described the show as: “Sounding like a punked-up Big Three with Syd Barrett on guitar, a breath-taking marathon of garage-pop genius ensues, as the band tear through nineteen songs in ninety minutes….”

In April 2014, to coincide with Record Store Day, Fire Records will reissue his 1989 album Le Beat Group Electrique, followed by The Donovan Of Trash in May as part of a celebration of 30 years of Fire Records combined with Eric’s 60th birthday.

When not touring Eric lives in bohemian splendour in upstate New York, where he spends his time painting, writing and recording.