“When we finished the Tell The World tour it just felt so good,” gushes Eric Hutchinson. “The band was so tight that I called my manager and said, ‘We have to just keep doing shows, this cannot be it for the year. We’re too good right now.’”
And just like that the singer-songwriter, whose recent career-defining series of shows have received a retooling and spit-shine, is heading back on the road, beginning a 31-city tour in Boston on Oct. 27 that will be rolling into New York City’s Highline Ballroom on Nov. 2.
“So I got together with the band and I said, ‘How can we make this show different from the one we did in April or May?’” continues Hutchinson. “’What can we do to spice it up?’ So that’s been really fun to find different things and I like having three albums right now and getting to pick the best from each album. It feels like there is no filler anymore and, if anything, right now the challenge is how I can squeeze all this stuff in.”
To add to Hutchinson’s excitement about his surplus of material and getting back on the road is that he will not be alone this time, as his friend of 10 years, singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman, will be teaming up to realize a collective dream to share the stage.
“We’ve known each other for almost 10 years,” says Prettyman, a delightful songstress to Hutchinson’s songsmith. “We met each other when we were both kind of starting out. He is really funny and easy going, writes really fun music, and we kind of always just kept in touch. We supported each other and I always go to his shows and vice versa. I think this was a long time in the making and the timing just happened to work out. So, we are going on the road.”
The two friends and creative cousins—both love to make infectious, ear-bending pop music, which lends itself to high-energy shows—are affectionately calling the tour City & Sand. Hutchinson has called Manhattan home for many years now and Prettyman is a proud native of San Diego.
“I was really excited about it,” effuses Hutchinson. “The concert promoter got excited about it, and then fans got excited about it.”
Hutchinson and Prettyman not only have a great deal in common creatively and personally, but on a professional level both spent the summer on the road after having gone literally solo—no label for both and no management for Prettyman—and although Hutchinson is planning a different show than his recent Pure Fiction concerts, his partner in crime will be previewing new material from her upcoming EP, Back To Home.
“I think this album is probably the most real expression of me yet,” says Prettyman. “I don’t have anybody telling me what to do or that this song isn’t a single or you need to go write with somebody else. I just got married and was actually on my honeymoon and my guitar player, Steve Miller, told me, ‘You need new music and we have three weeks before the tour starts, so let’s make an EP.’ So, literally for the last three weeks we’ve been in the studio trying to get it done and we managed to somehow pull it off.”
New material and a rapport that comes from two like-minded musicians, who have mutual respect and share genuine affection, makes for an interesting dynamic for fans.
“What’s exciting is Tristan and I have been getting together and rehearsing some stuff,” says Hutchinson. “It’s going to be a fun tour. We got to shoot a little mini episode thing that was kind of gearing it up and it’s just always nice when you are on tour with somebody that you are really friends with. It’s a different vibe and I think that’s going to come across on stage.”
Prettyman concurs, “We’ve joked about my covering one of his songs as the first song in my set and vice versa. There will be surprises.”
Tristan Prettyman and Eric Hutchinson will be playing at the Theatre Of Living Arts in Philadelphia on Nov. 1 and the Highline Ballroom in New York City on Nov. 2. For more information, go to tristanprettyman.com and erichutchinson.com.
