Chris Carmack and his wife, Erin Slaver, are part of the new duo, Life on Eris. The two multi-talented stars, who also have a little girl, have been working harder than ever, even amid a global pandemic. For all its struggles COVID-19 has caused, it has allowed Carmack to do the two things he loves the most: act and make music.
“Juggle as much as you can juggle,” Carmack tells Everything Nash of the secret to their success. “It’s just down to time limitations. The pandemic of course, has crippled the music industry and has been so terrible. But I guess for me, the one silver lining is that I don’t have to turn down gigs at the moment. I know it’s not a silver lining for anybody, so don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to put a positive spin on it.
“I’m just saying, in terms of me trying to juggle the two things at the moment, live music is just crushed by the pandemic,” he continues. “We wouldn’t be able to do more if I was available to do more. I think it’s going to get hard once live music and touring starts back up. If I’m shooting Grey’s Anatomy, it’s going to get a whole lot harder.”
Life on Eris already released their EP, Stonewall, as well as their autobiographical single, “The Risk.” While they would like to perform their new songs live, they have yet to be able to plan many concert dates, due to COVID-19.
“It’s frustrating,” Slaver acknowledges. “We can’t figure out what to do six months from now, because we just don’t know what the future is going to be like. It’s stressful.”
Carmack and Slaver moved to Los Angeles for his role as Dr. Atticus Lincoln, after initially trying to balance his job with Life on Eris, and their own family, while separated by thousands of miles.
“I had taken the Grey’s Anatomy job and was going back and forth to my family,” Carmack recalls. “She was in Nashville with my daughter, and I was going back and forth. It was just a total grind, and we decided we needed to come out here. So we rented an apartment and we did that for a while. And then it looked like Grey’s was going to stick around. So we bought a house, and now we’re in our house in Los Angeles, but we still have our place in Nashville, and we don’t know if we’re going to get there. We are wishing we could go back one day. Our future is very uncertain.”
Carmack got to sing and act while on Nashville, a perfect role for him, whose first love has always been music.
“If I had to answer a question right now about what Chris loves the most, it would be playing his guitar, making music, producing all of those things,” Slaver maintains. “But at the same time, he has this amazing career he’s built his whole life with acting. So we can’t just say ‘Throw that to the wind.’ And also it’s a lucrative career compared to music right now for anyone starting out. So I feel like he’s torn in that sense.”
Carmack is grateful for his role on the hit ABC drama, while still feeling the pull to make more music.
“I love my job on Grey’s,” Carmack insists. “I love working. I love acting. But it’s not as fun as creating your own music and recording your own music, and performing it in front of crowds. Any actor will tell you that they would pick a stage over television acting in a second because they like the thrill of the live performance. It’s the same with music.”
Carmack was on Nashville for all six seasons, soaking up every minute of the once-in-a-lifetime role.
“It was a dream job for me,” Carmack says. “For somebody who had been in the industry, not forever, but as long as I had been in — I had several jobs. I would always look at Sam Palladio and be like, ‘Just drink it in, man. It’s never going to be this good again,'”
Find all of Life on Eris’ music by visiting their website.