Eric Hofmanis tours nationally in ‘Johnny Cash Experience’

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Exactly a year ago, Fort Edward’s Eric Hofmanis and partner Megan Houde were wowing us at the Strand Theatre in Hudson Falls with the debut of “A Man Named Cash,” their tribute to the life, love and music of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.

Today, Mr. Hofmanis is filling 2,000-seat and larger venues as lead singer-guitarist for “Johnny Cash: The Official Concert Experience,” a nationally touring multi-media show co-produced and overseen by John Carter Cash, June and Johnny’s son.

“The show is insanely complicated,” Mr. Hofmanis told The Chronicle by phone from Olympia, Washington.

Centerpiece of “the experience” are clips from the Johnny Cash TV show, 1969 to 1971, including sketches and stories from the Man in Black himself.
On some songs, the band plays along live to just Cash’s voice, “stripped out from the videos,” Mr. Hofmanis explains.

“Then we do some of the songs live, too, and I sing.” There’s live narration from the band, taped stories from John Carter Cash. “It goes back and forth.”

How he got the gig

Hot into their own, original touring Cash show last spring, Mr. Hofmanis was tipped to the Cash Experience by a fellow musician, Saratoga native and Elvis tribute artist Matthew Boyce.

With just a few days to the deadline, and still healing a broken collarbone from a mountain bike accident, Mr. Hofmanis says he threw off his sling to tape the video submission that earned him a live audition in Nashville.

“It was chaos,” Mr. Hofmanis recalls. “Johnny’s son was there, all these singers and musicians.”

“Three weeks later the producer just called and said, Do you want to do the show? It was just that simple. I had little idea what I was getting into.”

Spokane, Utica…maybe the world?

After Olympia, Washington, Mr. Hofmanis was headed to nine cities over 11 days. If all’s on schedule, today, February 8, he’s playing in Wichita.

This is the second leg of a tour that started last October in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It continues through March 24, ending with a five-day stand at Fallsview Casino at Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The closest the tour gets to us is at The Stanley Theatre in Utica. That’s Sunday, March 10, for any road trippers.

Ms. Houde joined the tour for a week, subbing in for the June Carter Cash role. She tells The Chronicle she may have the chance to do it again in Niagara Falls.

There’s also hope for a third leg — potentially in Europe, Mr. Hofmanis said.

Their same lead producers did “The Simon and Garfunkel Story” that is touring the U.S. — including at Proctors on Wednesday, Feb. 28. Then it heads to England, Germany, Hungary and other international cities.

Helps to be easy-going

Performing alongside Johnny Cash’s live performances, Mr. Hofmanis says, “The whole thing, the lighting, the videos and music, everything is all connected. If one thing goes off the rails, the whole show falls apart.”

He says “audiences also have to get used to — it’s not a usual tribute show,” where they perform as the star.

“He’s already there, up on screen. Our attempt is to bring back memories for people, and also that energy that he had.”

Mr. Hofmanis says the tour folks told him it was his seeming “handle anything” nature that earned him the gig as much as his talent on stage.

That came to play when the cast member who shared singing duties unexpectedly left the show. Now he sings it all. “Megan will tell you, I prepare for the worst. You just do what you need to do.”

Touring’s not easy

Mr. Hofmanis says, “After a while (touring) beats the crap out of you.

“You have to find your routine,” days of rest and days of “adventure,” he says, “drinking gallons of water and just endless teas.” He compares it to waking up in a different house each day, learning what’s where — and then moving along.

“Every day is the same thing. But it’s completely different.”

He says he’s had to learn, too, “Just worry about singing.”

On his own show, he and Ms. Houde do all the arranging. Here, there’s someone for every job, even tuning his guitar.

“My job is to not get sick, just sing and play the same way every night, no matter where we are, what time of day, how many people are in the crowd.”

“At first, I’d feel guilty,” he says. “The tour manager would ask, what do you need for backstage, and I’m just like — Water. Bananas.”

“No, what do you need?,” Mr. Hofmanis quotes. “Doritos? Okay, what kind of Doritos?” He realized, it matters.

“The more this goes on, the more you try to eke out any kind of comfort you can when you’re backstage.”

In Johnny’s footprints at Folsom

On the fun side, he and a couple other crew members finagled a private tour of the museum at Folsom State Prison — site of the 1968 Johnny Cash concerts.

Mr. Hofmanis recounts entering under pointed machine guns, with a friendly prison guard waving them through; paging through a Bible that Johnny Cash read; getting permission to take pictures in front of the gate where Cash was photographed for his album.

They could have met an aged lifer who’d witnessed the Cash concerts, Mr. Hofmanis adds, but declined.

“You have to sign a paper that says, ‘We take no hostages.’ Meaning, if somebody decides to grab you and holds a shank to your neck, ‘We will shoot right through you to shoot him,’” the prison warns.

‘Almost Famous’

Coming out of Nashville, the convoy paused for a tour bus repair at a place that houses and services such vehicles.

“There we were, all these famous people’s tour buses sitting there, also old-school tour buses from the 70s.”

He said he and another guy went exploring while others on the crew rested.

“One of them, the whole tour bus was pink, pink leather, a king-sized bed in the back. I asked the mechanic, ‘Is that Pink’s tour bus?’ He’s just said, ‘I can’t tell you, but who else would want a bus like that?’

“It reminded me of the movie Almost Famous. One old bus, it was all leopard skin, there was a bar, there were still empty Jack Daniels bottles all over the place. We’re roaming around all these tour buses, like, This is just unbelievable.”

In Nashville, they performed while family members of Johnny Cash and bandmates were in the audience.

Mr. Hofmanis, now 50, says, “I criss-crossed the country probably 100 times in bands, in my 20s,” playing his original music, “but nothing of this level,” more like “four guys in a van, taking turns driving.”

He grew up in New York City, but moved as a young teen to a small town in Florida — where he truly got into music and Johnny Cash, finding 8-track tapes for a string of classic cars he owned, specifically 70s Lincolns, another love.

This love, he parlayed later, here in Fort Edward, to a short-lived classic car dealership called E’s Wheels that he opened during the pandemic.

“I thought mistakenly it would be a good idea,” he says, but says he hated “everything about the car business” — adding, he did put the gained business knowledge into producing their touring “Man Named Cash” show.

“In a way, everything I learned from that, the hard way, led to within less than a year, getting to this point,” he says.

“All these amazing venues I’m seeing, in all these parts of the country, it gets a little emotional for me.” He says, “It’s very easy to get bitter,” wondering why that big break never came.

Now on tour, he says, “I’ve had some very sobering moments, walking on trails behind the theatres, where — whether you want to believe there’s a God or not — just, emotionally, going to my knees and saying, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t believe in the path that I was on.’

“It happened, you know?”

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