Blitzen Trapper's Eric Earley isn't a talkative man. He's a mumbler on the phone, not terribly forthcoming, and uncomfortable, it seems, with getting too much attention, but he laughs a lot. It's a sound that comes up frequently when he's faced with questions that make him look at his life, which has been mostly spent in and around Portland, Ore. It's a strange but charming sort of reaction, given Earley's concession that the band's latest album, 2011's American Goldwing, is "pretty nostalgic."
"I don't really think about the past," he says. "I think there's a reason for whatever songs I was writing at the time. It's not necessarily a matter of confidence, but knowing yourself better as you get older." He pauses, then laughs. "Besides, there's good things and bad things about getting more confidence as you write songs."
