BY ALISE CHAFFINS
As a child coming from four generations of coal miners, Erik Huey grew up assuming that was his lot in life as well.
However, he found his way into music and on Jan. 20, released his first solo album titled, “Appalachian Gothic,” which is a deep dive into his love for West Virginia.
“I always thought that mining was the only option. My dad used to say, ‘You better get your act together or I’m not going to recommend you for the mines. You gotta quit daydreaming and focus or you’ll end up dead or injured.’ I was always a bit of a poet and a rock and roll fan. It wasn’t until the end of junior high that I thought maybe there was a way to get into an elevator in the morning and press the up button instead of the down button.”
The path to music is one that made sense to Huey. He grew up in a home with a musical mother, and everyone in his family appreciated different styles. They would watch “Soul Train.”
When speaking with The Dominion Post, he said that the narrative songs of the 70s and 80s really got into his head and influenced his future songwriting. In second grade, he wanted to grow up to be Evel Knievel and his favorite performers included The Who and David Bowie.
Huey said WVU’s college radio station U92 the Moose, in Morgantown, played an important part in his musical development. Hearing bands like The Beat Farmers allowed him to see that styles could cross over, mix and create something new.
“I think when you grow up in West Virginia, you can have a complicated relationship with country music. Especially if you like Echo & the Bunnymen and The Clash, you can’t also like Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. But there were so many bands that came out of the punk tradition in that era that really opened up the country in me.”
Huey has been performing with The Surreal McCoys, whose first album was released in 2015. But when Huey read “The Devil is Here in These Hills” by James Green, he realized that he had to write about the music and the history of Appalachia.
“I wrote a song called ‘The Devil is Here in These Hills’ linking what happened 100 years ago in the mine wars in West Virginia to the conversations now about coal jobs and about people being passed over and the dehumanization of blue collar workers, specifically miners, then and now. And that fierce independent spirit of West Virginians.”
He took the idea to his producer Eric Ambel, who wrote the music for the song on his “dulci-tar” — a combination dulcimer/guitar — and Huey immediately said it was the sound he was looking for. While it started as an EP, he realized he had more to say and it grew into what would become “Appalachian Gothic,” what Huey described as a “hillbilly rock opera.”
“I didn’t want to shrink from the modern realities of Appalachia, but I wanted it to be a love letter to Appalachia. It’s ingrained in my soul. It’s who I am. It’s time that Appalachia got its due.”
