Douglas Erekson is a maverick-musician in every sense of the word. He breaks with tradition and mainstream-conventions in order to blaze his own trail in music, creating new interpretations, and offering new perspectives in gospel music. Standing apart from the norm, he has become an innovative, new voice in the world of music.

His unique sense-of-being is found in every aspect of his life. He drives a rusty, 1964 VW Bug. He does not own a cell phone. He does not have cable or satellite TV, and the only clear signals he gets on his television are from 3 local public television stations.

Douglas is a mild germ-a-phobe, he is partially blind in one eye, and he has a slight walking disability. Nearly killed during a gold-mining expedition at age fourteen, he has no spleen, and shows scars that could be interpreted as two belly buttons.

Growing up as the middle-child in a family of ten children, he had to fight for attention, food, clothes, and space on the mattress at bedtime. Competing against all the loud, sibling voices sharpened his creative skills. He learned to survive and forge his own way.

Douglas Erekson was born in Aurora , Illinois , and though he lived there thirteen years, he never met Wayne and Garth of Wayne’s World fame. Moving to Billings , Montana , for his high school years, he studied drums from Len Droste, an accomplished professional who recorded with Count Basie. Douglas performed with several rock bands as well as with his high school marching band, pep band, jazz ensemble, symphony orchestra, choir, and more. Also, during his high school years, he did gospel-rock recording sessions with Chas Romero (of Hippy Hippy Shake fame, 1958). Chas happened to live across the street and heard Douglas banging out some great grooves on the drums while rehearsing his rock band in his parent’s garage. Included in Douglas’s rock band was Vernon Black, who later went on to perform with Maria Carey, Herbie Hancock, and many others.

After nearly completing a BA in music, Douglas Erekson switched his studies, and his creative efforts, to film production and screenwriting. After earning a BA in theater and film production at Brigham Young University , he went on to earn a Master of Professional Writing in screenwriting from the University of Southern California . He sold a screenplay, his master’s thesis, as a development deal to McKee Films of Robert McKee Screenwriting Seminars fame. (See Robert McKee’s character portrayed in the movie “Adaptation”.)

Eventually seeking something more authentic than a life in Hollywood along with its compromises to creativity and more, Douglas moved back to the Rocky Mountain region (Montana and Utah), but more importantly, he moved back to music as a career.

Douglas Erekson spent six years working for Musician’s Friend, earning Administrative Employee of the Year 2001, and corporate-wide Employee of the Year 2003. A leader in quality control, he saved his employers more than a million dollars by stopping numerous fraudulent orders during a three year period.

Douglas Erekson has played guitar, Dobro, bass guitar, or drums at clubs, festivals, casinos, hotels, and resorts, as well as churches and sanctuaries in various gospel, blues, bluegrass, and jazz ensembles throughout the Rocky Mountain region. When not working on his next two albums (The Electric Tabernacle and Every Day Is a Gift), he teaches guitar at the Park City Conservatory. Every month at the Bountiful Community Church , he debuts a new song for their children¹s choir. Also, once in a while, he still plays on street corners for pocket change. His current release, “Back Porch Believer" is a fresh, toe-tapping rendition of old-time favorite hymns. In deference to bluegrass purists, Douglas Erekson, the arranger and vocalist, describes this CD as more of a blue-grassy, “O Brother, Where Art Thou” interpretation of hymns. For the rest of us, calling it "gospel bluegrass" is close enough, and it encompasses the lively fun that each rendition brings.