ABOUT THE ALBUM

My debut album is titled Exactly What I Asked For.

I wrote all of these songs in my 20s — except for the first song Introducing which emerged as I was recording the album in 2021 and serves to contextualize the collection.

Initially the album has all the satisfying emotional markers of the hero’s journey:

It starts with my deepest want (Enjoy My Song). Then moves to my song about home (Good in my Hood) and then finally the call to adventure (I Have Never Been To Memphis ft. Delta Rae). Everything seems to be headed towards a glorious life when I finally fall in love (When I Started Loving You) and learn what’s worth fighting for (Something To Lose).

But then something goes wrong.

I falter.

I doubt myself.

And then I descend…

I try to change. I try to force myself to reach my potential, desperate to win back the love (A Better Man). But it’s over, she’s gone, and I am lost (Too Late). In the aftermath, all I hear are questions. The doubts grow and I try to make sense of where I am and where I go next (Where Do I Go From Here?). And then finally I try to start again (I’ve Never Been Here Before) but I can’t outrun the truth that has now found me. That I was moving through life this entire time with a core wound. That my deepest want in life had somehow gotten distorted and corrupted. I had become addicted to the love of strangers, asking them to fill a hole in me that I wasn’t taking the time to fill myself. And from this new place I learn the biggest lesson (Exactly What I Asked For). But like life itself there it is never too late to begin again, so we hear Enjoy My Song again, but this time just the music, waiting for someone to sing over it, perhaps with clearer intention, and less doubt this time.

My name is Eric Hölljes and I lived this album as I was in my 20s navigating life and touring the world with my band, Delta Rae.

As I said before I wrote these songs in my 20s.

I am now 38.

I waited years to record and release this album because I was afraid. I love these songs. They crystalized around some of the most important moments of my life, and this album’s potential had grown so large in my imagination that it became the only thing that would comfort me in my darkest days. I became terrified that trying to really record it and share it with the world would only lead to disappointment.

The deeper truth behind this is in the album itself. I have terrible self-doubt. I have a deep fear of actually realizing that I am a loser.

It might be my deepest fear.

But this fear is in direct conflict with the pure joy I feel in writing, singing and playing music.

So I never released it. I couldn’t lose if I didn’t play. And so I stayed safe.

But as time went on I realized as I moved from city to city, getting more and more successful, falling in love again and again. That none of it was working. I was stuck. Trapped. Repeating this same pattern of ascendance and downfall. No matter how big the stage. No matter how much love came to me. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t believe it. The doubt never went away.

I had gone from being the hero of my own story to Sisyphus. Trapped in my own hell.

This album. This fantasy. This endless potential in my imagination was killing me. I needed to release it. I needed to step into the dream and make it real.

So in 2024 I started The Too Late Tour — An Existential Concert Experience only in Living Rooms. And I traveled the country going to 70 Living Rooms to tell this story and share this music. And on February 25, 2025, my birthday, I finally started to release it.