Singer-songwriter Eric Hirshberg announces his debut album Spare Room which will come out on February 26. In addition, he’s shared the video for his song “I Just Want To Be Here.”
WATCH “I JUST WANT TO BE HERE”
The song, which he initially wrote for his wife as a 20th anniversary present, ““I wanted it to be honest and real and something that she would recognize both herself and us in.” He told American Songwriter who premiered the video, “I realized that most love songs, that we all know, are about either falling in love or getting your heart broken. There are very few songs about the journey and the ups and the downs of making a marriage last,” says Hirshberg. “It has love with more complexity in it.”
“I Just Want To Be Here,” fits well into the themes of Spare Room a decidedly adult album, with themes of marriage and fatherhood, death and aging, along with some political songs including an earlier released “(Keep Mar-A-Lago) I Want America Back” which has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. Hirshberg worked with producer John Alagia (Lukas Nelson, Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock) to make Spare Room.
Hirshberg is has been writing songs non-stop since the age of 15, he took an unusual path to release the debut LP. He spent his college days and most of his 20s playing Los Angeles clubs with his band and trying to build a music career. And while he wasn't looking, a whole other career took over; Hirshberg had a remarkably successful run as a creative executive first in advertising, then in video games, ultimately becoming the CEO of Activision, a post he held for almost a decade. (He is one of the only people ever to become a CEO of a company of that scale to have an art degree.) Over the years, the demands of his life and career drove his music more and more into the background of his life, carefully hidden from public view, but his passion and output as a songwriter never diminished. Spare Room has been decades in the making.
