Eric Gardner has been Melissa Etheridge’s drummer since 2018, including her 2025 spring tour and the 2026 Raised on Radio tour with Wynonna Judd, and he has a long-running musical partnership with Tom Morello that goes back to Morello’s Nightwatchman project. Those two gigs take up most of his time after some 25 years on the Los Angeles scene.
A Frost graduate, he first toured with Gnarls Barkley and has played and recorded with Garbage, Iggy Pop, Cypress Hill, Morrissey, Steve Vai, Slash, Beck, Norah Jones, The Motels and MC5’s Wayne Kramer. He is also a member of the Los Angeles band Dot Hacker.
Eric, a UM grad, has worked with some of the biggest names in the business and then some! Eric started off touring with Gnarls Barkley, and has since toured and recorded with Cypress Hill, Iggy Pop, Morrisey, Steve Vai, MC5, Slash, Beck, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and numerous Tom Morello projects. He even got a chance to work with film score and Oingo Boingo legend Danny Elfman on 2012’s Oscar Winner “Silver Linings Playbook.”
In 2016 and 2017, he toured with Garbage, where he “became an expert on V Drums.” In 2018, he’ll be performing with Chris Speed.