Who am I? Who are you?
When I first decided to take on the alias, Anderhill, for my electronic-music self, I hesitated. Am I not who I was named, my eponym?
Honestly, I have a pretty big attachment to my given name, Daniel Steven Erickson, and why wouldn’t I? I’ve been called by that name for my entire life. It’s not a bad name. I like it. Perhaps, I hesitated to use an alias because I’m too attached to my eponym.
Part of being an artist is discovery. I would argue the same goes for simply being a living, spiritual being. If we are truly making a point to explore our deeper self, perhaps we have dozens of aliases inside of us, each representing a new level of growth.
When I released my album, He called himself Michael the Archangel but he was born to destroy, a small BandCamp record label asked to promote it. I’d been considering yet another alias, A Cult of Lies. The music on He called himself Michael is darker than my work as Anderhill. The record label agreed and suggested I bill the record as A Cult of Lies.
I’ve written an album of underground rap-like bass and drum beats and used the alias, The OWG. It stands for Old White Guy.
I’ve had several nick names throughout my life. Does it really matter what we call ourselves? Putting my eponym and every alias aside, there’s someone deep within myself that has not a name, but is merely spirit. Labels are for life, and the living. Perhaps, in death we receive our true identity and it cannot be uttered in mere words. – dse
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