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Nearly two decades after Zuckerbaby disbanded, singer Andy Eichhorn begins solo career

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Earlier this year, Andy Eichhorn began playing solo concerts for the first time.

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They were modest affairs. He did one in Vancouver and a few in his hometown of Calgary. He would strum his acoustic guitar, a gift from his wife, and play some of the power-pop gems from his upcoming self-titled debut EP.

“It was something I always wanted to do and had never really explored,” says Eichhorn, whose EP is out at the end of the month. “They started to sound really good and people liked it. So I had all these plans and then, boom, everything fell apart.”

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That ‘boom’, of course, was the COVID-19 pandemic, which has grounded the live-music ambitions of every musician in this and every city for the past few months and for the foreseeable future. But for students of the late 1990s Calgary music scene, Eichhorn’s return to the stage and recording studio is more notable than most. For many, it may seem as if the vocalist and frontman of Zuckerbaby took an unusually long pause before following up on the promise of his band, which became one of the city’s most prominent “coulda’-been-a-contender” stories after signing a major-label contract and releasing two albums. 

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The singer didn’t completely vanish from the scene. After enduring dwindling sales and a major-label merger in the early aughts, Zuckerbaby disbanded not long after its 2000 sophomore release but reformed in 2006 for reunion shows. The band will still occasionally resurface for the odd performance, as it did in 2016 when it warmed the stage for fellow 1990s hard-rockers Age of Electric.

But, for the most part, Eichhorn disappeared from the spotlight to concentrate on raising a family. As frontman, he may have ostensibly been the face of Zuckerbaby, but admits that being a solo artist initially held limited appeal for him.

“Like a lot of people, you start worrying about other things in your life that you weren’t accomplishing, like having a family,” he says. “There was a point where I didn’t even open a guitar case for probably five years. I just wasn’t feeling like I had anything to play for. Which sounds kind of depressing, but I think a lot of people go through that. Some people play for fun or personal enjoyment, I always wanted to write and be creative. Performing is great, recording is great, but the actual writing is the most fun I find. So if a person doesn’t feel like doing it, you just don’t do it. One day turns into a month, which turns into a year.”

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Eichhorn credits his wife’s gift of a Gibson acoustic guitar for rekindling a creative spark. Roughly five years ago, he was bemoaning the fact that he had been forced to sell a 1950s J-45 Gibson guitar from his collection years earlier. He had bought the guitar in the 1990s at a store in Saskatoon and years later was still fondly remembering it as the guitar “that got away.” So one day his wife surprised him with new Gibson acoustic.

“It forced me to work on songs again,” Eichhorn says with a laugh. “I thought: ‘She spent all this money on the guitar, I better start playing it.’ ”

Eventually, he had accumulated a collection of workable song ideas. This corresponded with him reconnecting with Calgary producer Lorrie Matheson, who had been an acquaintance from the 1990s Calgary scene. For the past two and a half years, the two recorded at Matheson’s Arch Audio, eventually putting together an efficient, five-song collection of melodic garage-rock filled with jangly guitar, sharp hooks and a debt to Big Star-inspired power pop.

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He doesn’t complete reinvent the wheel. Traces of his former band can be found in the guitar crunch, but the songs tend to eschew the thundering melodrama that Zuckerbaby occasionally displayed. In his old band, Eichhorn and guitarist Reed Shimozawa would often finish each other’s songs through collaboration.

“I always brought the songs that were more mid-tempo and jangly rock, that sort of thing,” Eichhorn says. “He brought the stuff that was a little more adventurous. It had a lot of drama to it and was bigger and had bigger hooks and bigger guitars. My stuff was a little more subtle.”

As for the history and legacy of Zuckerbaby, Eichhorn says he is finally at peace with it and looks back with affection. The band signed a major record deal in 1996 back when label brass was scouring cities in hopes of finding the next Nirvana or at least the next Sloan. Zuckerbaby was “discovered” by Northern Pikes guitarist Bryan Potvin, who was working as a scout for Mercury/Polyram at the time. The band recorded two very expensive records and a handful of very expensive videos before being dropped by their label, which had been swallowed up by Universal Music Group in a merger. Still, over the years the band was able to play with 1990s Canuck stalwarts such as Our Lady Peace, Moist and the Tea Party. They opened for INXS and the Cardigans and toured Canada with Collective Soul.

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“There was a time when I was quite disillusioned, not necessarily with what we accomplished or didn’t accomplish, but just with the industry,” Eichhorn says. “It’s the same old tune that you’ve probably heard a million times: People take things to a certain point and then for whatever reason it never gets beyond that point. But now when I look back at it, we had so much fun. We got to do so many things that we wanted to do. I always say there is a percentage of bands that actually get the opportunity to make a record for a label they want to be on, whether it’s indie or major, and go out and play for people who want to hear them play. Then there’s another percentage who can turn it into an actual business, which we had no idea of how to do ourselves.”

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Now the father of three who works in retail, Eichhorn says the COVID-19 interruption has certainly been a hard pill for him after taking so many years to re-enter the musical spotlight. But having worked up the nerve to perform alone, he hopes to resume when it’s allowed.

“When it’s just you, no one is looking at the guitar player or drummer or bass player and it’s a little daunting,” he says. “I think a lot of people think every frontman or singer thinks the world revolves around them and, in a lot of cases, they probably do. But I’ve always been shy about that sort of thing. Especially as you get older, it seems kind of ridiculous to be jumping around at my age. So when the spotlight is just on the one person, it felt a little weird.”

Andy Eichhorn’s EP comes out May 29 on all streaming services.

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