Spotlight on: Eric Latham

I suppose since Eric and Rebecca got engaged recently, I should tell you about him :-)

Full Name: Eric Eugene Latham
Birthday: March 4, 1990
Method of Creation: #3- I needed someone for the last member of ILEN.

Eric's story starts with the creation of ILEN. After I had all the facts down (band size, trumpets, etc) I needed a fourth person to play the guitar. So far, I had Augustus, Lesko, and Harper and I needed just one more name to add to the end. I thought, "What's a good 'generic' name that sounds cool that I like a lot, that isn't John?" Of course, it was Eric.

He was just a name for a long, long time until that fateful day when I plugged the band into RCT3. I had no clue what Eric would look like but the pictures turned out with him having a wide, square face, purple and yellow basketball attire, and interestingly-textured blonde hair. I also imagined him being very, very short. Isn't he just so cute? You can't tell but in the famous ILEN picture you can see his canine teeth. They make it look like he has fangs, lol. From this I gathered that his canines were like a lot of people's and grew in way too high. Therefore, even today, his big smile reveals his "fangs" to be that way.

Now I had a bit of a problem. His hair to me looked unmistakably Tellish, so obviously he was part-Tellish but his face... His face was definitely Rakian. I mean, look at the shape and the nose! Therefore, Eric is "Tellarakian." He's only 1/8 Tellish and 1/8 Rakian, the rest of him is homegrown Kiillaanian, but those two races certainly came to life in him!

As the story goes, his great grandmother, Ty Vek Tu, managed to escape from West Taigana to East Taigana and sold flowers until she had enough money to take a boat across. She settled in the Lost Islands (Kesly I believe) and met and married Jonas Latham (I think that was his name...). Meanwhile, on his mom's side, there was some Rakian influence. Somehow, one of his great grandfathers was full Rakian who also moved to the Lost Islands and eventually Josie Burre, who would later become Eric's mom, came to be.

This story is (obviously) incomplete. I'll fix it later ;-)

So Anyhoodledoodle, Miles Latham and Josie Burre met in Kennywood and got married and had kids. They sure turned out different! The oldest was Neil (who came about because of the ILEN name game). He was tall and had slightly Tellish hair, but looked Kiillaanian for the most part. Then there was Eric. Wow. He had the full-on Rakian face and 100% Tellish blonde hair. He was very short, at only 5'3'', which came from his dad's side. He looked just like his great grandfather but with Tellish coloring. Probably the most amazing thing he inherited from his Rakian roots was the voice.

Speaking of his voice (haha!) it is one of his trademarks. Because Rakians are very tall and are based off the dogs, they usually have very, very low voices. Like, basso profundo type low voices. Like, they can sing miles below the staff. Like, bottom notes on the piano kind of low. Well, somehow, somewhere, sometime, Eric inherited that voice. Yes, even at 5'3'', he got that genuine Rakian Bass sound and boy can that kid sing!!!! Eric and Neil did everything together. He also has a younger brother named Nicholas that often joins the party. He has a little sister as well. Her name is Geneva. All three of them tower over his pocket-sized frame.

He met Lesko right before the sixth grade and the two of them were fast friends. Just a year and a half later they joined ILEN. In high school, Eric played the trumpet and ironically was able to play high notes like they were nothing. He was what we band geeks refer to as a "screamer." What talent he had with his voice going low he also had for his trumpet playing high. What's also funny is he was never in jazz band and when he finally was in college he played the guitar. He played baseball with Nicholas all through high school and was very good.

I also have to mention this accident that changed his life:
In April of Eric's junior year, after baseball practice, he went outside his house where a bunch of his neighbors were hanging out. His no-good neighbors across the street were being stupid and making dry ice bombs. They had just made one and threw it at Eric. He instinctively caught it, because he didn't see it coming, and it exploded in his hand. Needless to say, his left hand was mangled. An ambulance ride, several hundred stitches, a bloody mess, and lots of cutting and reconstructing later, Eric ended up losing his left pinky and about 1/3 of his left ring finger. His left hand is covered in scars where the bottle just ripped it open.

His first worry was if he would be able to play the guitar still. The answer was yes, but since he lost two fingers he would have to play left-handed. Not a problem! Lesko was a lefty and together they flipped his strings around and just two months later he was back in business. He had to learn to play a little differently but nobody can even tell. He's that strong and that good. He can still play trumpet just fine too. The fingers he lost were relatively unimportant to him in his playing.

OK... now with that out of the way, let's bring you up to date. Eric is now in college at Kennywood University, majoring in Music Performance and Composition. His dream is to make it big in the music scene and with ILEN the way it is now, that will most likely happen!

With that, here are Five Fun Facts:
1. Eric met Rebecca Landon at a concert. She went up to him because she heard he was Tellish, hot, and was missing some fingers... :-)
2. Eric went on tour of Catarika, singing his way across the country.
3. Eric's favorite colors (and his ILEN colors) are purple and yellow.
4. Eric can speak some Tellish.
5. Eric has lived in Kennywood all of his life.