The Grey Expectations Crew – Erin “Atlas” Thompson

Erin “ATLAS” Thompson

ALBUM ROLES: Emcee, Writer, Piano, Keys
Guerrilla Music
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Hello everyone. Meet Atlas. He’s one of the wolves in our band and he’s on the far left in the photo above. Erin is an extremely talented keyboard player, producer, writer, and emcee… and he’s a great friend of Tyler’s.

I’ve known Erin for over 20 years now. I believe we first met at WRUR during the Bruce Banner show. It’s possible that’s incorrect, so he’ll have to correct me. We clicked immediately and started working on some music together. We lost most of it, or never released it, or half-ass released it. We became good friends and stayed in touch even as I bounced to Atlanta and then to Annapolis.

Both of us eventually stopped making music at certain points in our life, but we still managed to inspire each other creatively during these sabbaticals.

Fast forward to the recording of the “More Than Blue” album in 2015. I reached out to Erin to see if he wanted to write a verse for this song called “Star.” He killed it as always, BUT as fate would have it, the song was never completed and the album was released sans that song.

When I was working on “Take It Back”, I reached out to him again and he joined myself and four other emcees Mr. SOS, Ardamus, Zero Basement (William George), and Cash The Pro (RG Cashmere Johnson) on yet again, another track that ended up almost not getting released until I decided to just take care of it on my own nearly a year after it was recorded.

Have you noticed a trend here? Without throwing anyone under the bus, let’s just say that a lot of these issues helped steer me to the place I’m at today… and where we are as a band. When I was younger, I wasn’t focused. As I got older, I was focused, but leaning too heavily on other people who didn’t have the same passion and drive. But when you’re not in control of every aspect of something, you eventually find yourself in a place where your hands are completely tied and you can’t do a damn thing about it. I was tired of it and decided I wanted to at least write and produce one album where I was making all the executive decisions.

Fast forward again to the spring of 2019. We had already begun working on “Grey Expectations” and I was in the process of writing. I started thinking of folks who I felt were capable of writing verses that had to adhere to specific topics. I know plenty of rappers, many of them are much better than I am from a technical standpoint, but there are very few who are consistently capable of writing content-specific bars without a significant amount of micromanagement.

Atlas was a no-brainer. He also had a number of skills a lot of other folks I knew did not have… he was a producer, engineer, and an insanely good keyboard player. At that point, I had laid down all the piano, keys, and synth on the album, and although I can somewhat get by, I’m not even close to a capable keyboard player and rely heavily on midi, which gives me the freedom to make a lot of mistakes.

Erin is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. He’s a dedicated piano player and an outstanding “feel” player. One thing I made a conscious effort to not do on this album is stifle anyone’s creativity. This album is littered with raw emotion and spontaneous grooves and melodies. I prefer to act as a guide when I’m producing. If I hear something I like, I’ll hone in on it and ensure we fine-tune it, but I prefer to embrace each artist’s creative spirit until it’s necessary for me to offer specific input.

I knew Erin was one of the missing links, but he was in #Rochester… I was now in #Madison … and we were finishing the album in #Annapolis. Even when he told me how excited and honored he was that I’d asked him to be part of the band, I tried not to get my hopes up. I knew he had a lot going on and it might be extremely difficult for him to make the trip to Annapolis within such a tight time frame, especially when Kit and I were trying to schedule studio sessions around Kit’s work schedule and times when the other band members could record.

Well folks, he made it and it was every bit as awesome as I expected. He’d never met Cash and Kit Whitacre before, but they all gel’d instantly. That entire weekend was a non-stop adrenaline rush. The vibe in the #MustardMansion was intoxicating and we rode that wave all weekend long.

If you’ve made it this far, please welcome Erin and make sure you follow him at Guerrilla Music LLC and check out some of his music at www.guerrillamusic.net

– Tyler Durdin and Wolves & Sheep