Let’s just begin by saying there is nothing in Nashville like Pitch Meeting, Eric Fortaleza’s weekly musical highwire act. Billed as “Nashville’s Best Writer’s Open Mic” the weekly show, which resumes this Tuesday February 25th features a powerhouse band of Nashville heavies (often of 10 or more players) whose job it is to back the any songwriter who’s name is drawn from dozens of hopeful singer-songwriters.
The catch - no one has heard the song, not the audience, and more importantly, not the band.
“No chord charts, no pre-song run through,” says Pitch Meeting founder Eric Fortaleza. “We just go for it.”
I’ve been to a few Pitch Meetings, and I count them among the most exciting musical experiences I’ve ever seen. Not only does the song somehow congeal around the band, but an arrangement seems to spring out of the ground like witched water — horn parts, a guitar solo, a bridge breakdown. I feel like you don’t believe me. It’s totally crazy.
It all happens because of Eric Fortaleza, who has something of a gambler’s taste for musical thrills and guts to spare. To me, he represents a new crop of Nashville musician, something different from the guys you see down on broadway, hoping to move their way up the ranks of touring musicians to become what is the gold standard of the Nashville Cat — the A-List studio musician. That’s a laudable goal, to be sure, but in its application there’s a sense of reticence, a holding something in reserve, because “you never know who’s gonna be in the room.” People trying to get discovered may fire their flashiest tricks, but tricks are different from taking chances.
Eric is ALL about taking chances.
He came to Nashville from Sydney, Australia a couple months before the Pandemic. But he was born in the Phillipines. We talk alot about how being the child of immigrants had something to do with his inveterate hustle.
We talk about alot of stuff in this episode. His unlikely but somehow inevitable move to Nashville after ten years on the Australian scene. Why he founded Pitch Meeting, what he likes about it, what’s next. At some point in the conversation, the studio door opened to the afternoon glare and in stepped Eric’s bandmate Owen Fader, who looks like and sings like a baby faced angel. They played a song together, which shifted the direction of the podcast moving forward. What do you think I mean?
People like Eric are why I am doing this. He’s one of the more inspiring people I’ve met — like past guests Barry Dean and Steve Poltz — I’ve had on the podcast. Music isn’t some strategy for success or fame. It’s about lifting people up and inspiring them to want more from life. At least, that’s what it is for me, and it’s how I felt when the session was over and the Eric and Owen and gone off to do something else.
Go see Pitch Meeting. Subscribe to us on Spotify. Become a paid subscriber if stuff like this means something to you. We’re doing it because life is short and we’ve a solemn obligation to live as big as we can! Alright get back out there and make something awesome.
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