Eric Holland

My first introduction to Eric Holland’s music and way of life was in a little plastic protector sheet resting on my desk at work. At the time I was interning for the Tucson Citizen’s Calendar and Weekend Plus sections. My current project was to bridge the gaps in geography and music to define the term that would later evolve into this blog, border rock. My editor, Polly Higgins, received the slightly disheveled plastic-protected press package detailing Holland’s latest release “American Inmigrante” in the mail. The enclosed CD had a picture of Holland walking across a patch of lonely desert with his trusty dog and guitar in hand. It was then that she posed the burning question: “What is the difference between border rock and desert rock?” Maybe Holland had the answer. After all, his songs were entirely about the trials and tribulations of the immigrant in what I warmly refer to as “Spanglish.” There was only one way to find out.

Flash forward to a few weeks later.

Holland’s frequent travels to Mexico made him hard to get a hold of, but he was extremely determined to meet. Finally, after phone calls and emails, I was sitting in Gentle Bens, pen and notepad in hand at the first available table nearest the door. Holland agreed to meet me there on his tour route through Tucson.

Holland strode in just as I’d pictured him, relaxed long hair trailing behind his ears, a button up shirt and khakis. He took a seat at my table, ordered a tonic water to take the edge off the heat outside, and was ready to talk.



He spent the last 10 years teaching as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Mexico after retiring from being a world renown tennis pro. At some point, he explained promptly, your body breaks down and you have to find something else to do. His travels on pro-tennis tours left him tired but also trilingual in English, Spanish and French. Teaching just seemed like the natural way to go. Little did he know his students would become the inspiration for most of his music. As his lyrics go, “tip the sombrero low, feel the sand between your toes, your new life begins in Mexico.”

“I didn’t start writing until this immigration thing came up. There’s a voice for the silent that needs to be out there,” said Holland. “There’s no time to hate we all have belly buttons.”

With influences like Marty Robbins, Joe Ely and the Eagles, Holland’s sound falls somewhere in Tom Petty land with a cloud of dust rising in the background for desert flavor.

“Like Elvis said, ‘it’s all rock and roll.’ I’m just a different subspecies of rock and roll,” Holland said.

Though his sound is familiar, his lyrics are unique heartfelt tales that speak of life torn between two borders. Admittedly categorizing himself as border rock, Holland believes the term encompasses the political realm as much as the musical one.

“The message has to get out there of the people dying in the desert,” he said, attempting to define the term. “And I think of the old ballads of the frontier and corridos.”

In the end, Holland decided trying to delve too deep into a subject that’s too new to define was pointless. Whatever border rock was, I was only inches closer to finding it. I left Gentle Bens with less answers than I’d hoped, but the Eric Holland detour was definitely worth the experience.

For more information on Eric Holland, check out the Web site at http://www.erichollandaz.com.