Meet The Grimm®

Greg Ericksen

Lead Vocals · Rhythm Guitar | Founding Member

Greg Ericksen is a founding member of The Grimm and an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer whose musical history reaches back to his early teens in Bountiful, Utah. He began writing original music at age 12 while attending South Davis Junior High School and became part of the group first known as the Four/Fifths, an early musical foundation from which The Grimm would later emerge.

Contemporary material from the 1960s documents Ericksen’s development as a young performer and songwriter. The Four/Fifths performed throughout Utah and beyond, including touring engagements in the region. Period newspaper coverage identifies Ericksen as the group’s leader, writer and arranger and reports that, while still a teenager, he had written more than 50 original songs. The group also appeared on local television; a surviving Davis County Clipper article documents Ericksen and the quartet appearing on the Eugene Jelesnik talent showcase on Channel 2.

The Four/Fifths’ growing profile took the musicians to California, where surviving historical material documents an audition at Warner Bros. recording studios in Burbank and the recording of original material. Contemporary newspaper coverage later reported that the group had landed a Warner Bros. recording contract. As the musicians’ careers developed and The Grimm emerged, surviving archival records also document industry interactions involving Columbia Records, Reprise Records and Liberty Records, including a Reprise invitation for an additional audition. These records provide a surviving paper trail of the major-label attention surrounding the group during its formative years.

At 17, Ericksen wrote The Darkness and the Night, recorded by The Grimm, pressed by Capitol Records, and released on SVN Records. In 1968, Salt Lake City radio station KCPX selected the recording as a KAY-PIX Preview Record. The song subsequently entered KCPX’s Top Forty and reached No. 14 on the station’s May 24, 1968 chart. Original KCPX promotional material, contemporary press coverage and a surviving copy of the record remain part of the band’s historical archive.

Ericksen later wrote Light Up the Land, a composition associated with the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He served as executive producer of Light Up the Land: An Inspirational Commemorative CD of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, a project featuring performers including Gladys Knight, Donny Osmond, Marie Osmond and Brooks & Dunn. Surviving Olympic-era materials identify Ericksen as executive producer and show Light Up the Land offered through official Salt Lake 2002 online audio materials.

The composition continued well beyond the Olympic project. A later Cedar Breaks recording, released as Light, carried Light Up the Land into an extensive film-festival run. Cedar Breaks’ published awards history credits the music video with 21 screenings and nine awards, including Best Gospel Song at the World Music and Independent Film Festival and Best Short Musical at the International Family Film Festival.

Light Up the Land was also included on the soundtrack to Sweetwater Rescue: The Willie and Martin Handcart Story, where the surviving soundtrack release lists the composition as track 14. The documentary was broadcast on PBS, extending the song’s association into a nationally distributed historical television production.

In 2015, following the death of his youngest son, Adam, in a rafting accident on the Colorado River, Ericksen wrote Life Goes On. The song became a deeply personal addition to a body of songwriting that began when Ericksen was a teenager and has continued across decades.

Alongside music, Ericksen has maintained a long professional career in law, but songwriting and The Grimm have remained enduring parts of his life. Today, he continues to write, record, produce and perform with The Grimm as the band’s lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, carrying forward a musical history that began more than six decades ago.