Erin Cole-Baker goes from New Zealand to Bend

Published 1:47 pm Thursday, November 21, 2019

After seven years living in New Zealand, Erin Cole-Baker returned to the U.S. with her family this year. But she almost came back sooner.

About three years ago, when her kids were ages 4 and 1, she visited the U.S. to play some music with friends. The former Bendite and Breedlove artist had stopped playing and writing songs in 2011, the year her first child was born and the year she and her family moved from the city to New Zealand.

“I had come to the States to play music and went back home, and then we’re like, ‘OK, we want to move,’” Cole-Baker said recently while sitting in a coffee shop near downtown Bend. “That was kind of a similar thing, but we didn’t get very far with the visa, and I wasn’t sleeping. And I was like, why would we move away from family when we need help with the kids? So I wrote ‘Till the Feeling’s Right’ about that experience.”

That song became the title track to Cole-Baker’s first solo album in seven years. She recorded “Till the Feeling’s Right” in 2017 at Anzac Road Studio in New Zealand, and returned to the U.S. for a monthlong tour the next year. Once again upon her return to New Zealand, she and her family decided to move to the States — only this time, they went through with it.

“After doing the tour I did in 2018, I just loved doing that and just meeting up with old friends and meeting new people,” Cole-Baker said. “And just being able to play a lot was just so good, and I thought, why can’t we try to do that as a family, and if I can hopefully make enough money with the gigs to pay for gas and food and all that? So that’s what we started out with: the adventure and wanting to also have more time as a family together.”

They’ve been traveling around the West in an RV since June, with Cole-Baker playing club gigs and house concerts in Utah, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana and of course Oregon (the family has been in the Bend area for the last six weeks) along the way. She has two shows left in the Central Oregon area: a headlining set Friday at General Duffy’s Waterhole in Redmond, and an opening slot at local songwriter Grace Caston’s release party for her EP, “Home,” at Spoken Moto on Saturday.

After that, the family will head back to New Zealand for shows in December and January, and then back to the U.S. Beyond returning, Cole-Baker said she isn’t sure where they will end up.

“We were hoping that we’d get a feeling when we’re visiting different places, like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the place we want to be,’” she said. “But that feeling hasn’t really emerged. … And we keep circling Bend, so like, is that a thing? Do we do that? I don’t know. We do love a lot about Bend; it’s a really awesome place.”

Cole-Baker was born in Santa Barbara, California, but has deep ties to New Zealand: Her grandparents moved to the country when she was young, and she and her parents followed soon after.

“My parents moved to New Zealand when I was 6½, and then we’ve moved back to the States when my oldest daughter is 6½, which is kind of funny,” she said.

Before moving, Cole-Baker started learning piano, and she would go on to play jazz piano at festivals while living in New Zealand. At the same time, she absorbed the record collections of her father (bluegrass, but also songwriters such as Bob Dylan and John Denver) and brother (harder rock such as Jimi Hendrix), and by 10 had picked up guitar and written her first song.

“My brother taught me a bit of guitar probably at like 8 or 9 or so,” she said. “(He) taught me a few of the basic chords, and then I would just — I guess because I had a bit of knowledge of music through the piano, I would pick it up just through watching and listening.”

Parallels seem to abound in Cole-Baker’s life. Much as she’s doing now, she moved to the U.S. shortly after releasing her first album, which has since gone out of print. After some bouncing around, she ended up in Bend for seven years before moving to New Zealand (“We seem to do things in sevens,” she said with a laugh).

She started seriously performing and writing while in Bend, teaming up with fellow songwriter Erin Zurflu in the duo The Erins and releasing two solo albums of introspective folk-rock, 2009’s “Talon and Spur” and 2011’s “Big Sky.”

“Till the Feeling’s Right” picks up the long-dormant threads of those two releases while introducing new wrinkles. For the first time, Cole-Baker played electric guitar on the album after her husband bought her a Telecaster.

“He’s kind of suggested it over the years: ‘What about an electric guitar?’” Cole-Baker said. “And I would always be like, absolutely not. But since he got me a Telecaster, I have just loved playing it so much. I guess my writing is taking a little bit of a different direction.”

Songwriting is usually an intensely private and personal process for Cole-Baker, who counts alt-country and indie-folk artists such as Kacey Musgraves, Phoebe Bridgers and Gillian Welch among her influences. Along with the title track, much of “Till the Feeling’s Right” explores interpersonal relationships and, fittingly, feelings of wanderlust. But since having kids, she’s changed her writing style in some ways.

“There’s not a lot of time for alone time really in a family sphere,” she said. “So I learned to write differently where I’d have my guitar just hanging up in between the lounge and the kitchen and I would just grab it when dinner was cooking or something.”

Cole-Baker said she’s hoping to tour the U.S. more next year, and wants to collaborate more with other songwriters. Her band in New Zealand, which features her husband on drums, Emily Benge on vocal harmonies and Sam Benge on stand-up bass, will also join her for some U.S. dates next year, she said.

“I think I have to keep reminding myself to hold it lightly,” Cole-Baker said. “It’s a privilege and a joy.”

What: Erin Cole-Baker

When: 6 p.m. Friday

Where: General Duffy’s Waterhole, 404 SW Forest Ave., Redmond

Cost: Free

Contact: facebook.com/events/1199996863542637, generalduffys.com or 541-527-4345

What: Erin Cole-Baker opening for Grace Caston’s EP release party

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Spoken Moto, 310 SW Industrial Way, Bend

Cost: Free

Contact: facebook.com/events/2418308928433700, spokenmoto.com or 541-306-6689

GO! listen to Erin Cole-Baker’s latest album, “Till the Feeling’s Right”