Keeping your head on a swivel may be the best piece of advice for keeping up with one of Eddie & the Getaway’s stage shows. Watching the band’s 25-year-old frontman—popularly known as simply Eddie—sprint back and forth requires nearly as much stamina as the singer’s sprint skills. While he makes his high-powered performance look effortless, his energy oftentimes brings about light-hearted performance-enhancing accusations, which the singer takes as the ultimate post-concert compliment.
Eddie just wrapped a successful supporting gig for a leg of rocker Dorothy’s Redemption tour, and is now just days from kicking off his own country-fused Tumbleweeds and Nicotine Tour in Scottsdale on Oct. 3, featuring a setlist filled with songs from his recently released album of the same name.
His energy remains increasingly infectious, and his denial in taking anything suspect is convincingly insistent.
“The biggest compliment I ever get is when, after the show, someone comes up to one of the guys in my band and asks, ‘How much cocaine does Eddie do?’” he says, laughing. “I don’t do cocaine,” he adds with a follow-up laugh.
While he’s now running at rock ‘n’ roll redline speeds, Eddie remembers the not-so-distant days when he would be out of breath just walking to the stage to open a show. After taking some time to enjoy the music lifestyle—with a little extra freedom in food, drink, and relationships—Eddie suddenly found himself 50 pounds heavier and frighteningly out of shape.
“It’s definitely not a good feeling when you get on stage and you’re on song two of 18 and you’re dying. That’s a terrible feeling,” he admits.
For the athlete-turned-guitarist who once broke his arm trying to impress a girl and wound up winning an Alice Cooper battle of the bands contest while wearing a cast—feeling exhausted before the first drum solo was an unsustainable approach to long-term success in the competitive business of music.
To keep his impressive 83 million streams and 1.4 million followers on social media entertained and clamoring for more hits such as “Cobain,” “Love Myself” and “Sleep Alone,” scaling back on the partying and taking control of his health was the necessary step. “I told myself that I gotta get my s*** right, because I want to do this for a long time, and I gotta take care of myself,” he says.
Eddie credits the commitment to six-days a week hitting both the pavement and the gym as keys to shedding nearly if not all the excess poundage he gained. He says he also added kept a closer eye on both calories and macros in order to accelerate the process.
Now fully returned to his high-octane self, Eddie says he pulled off the feast-limiting feat while juggling the full-time job that is being an indie artist. He’s put his business entrepreneurship degree from Arizona State to good using, juggling songwriting, production, promotion, and the business side of music.
Eddie’s also been savvy enough to leverage social media to build a devoted following, mainly through heartfelt lyrics dealing with heartbreak and turmoil. It turns out, anxiety and depression can be creative catalysts for music that touches others. “That’s the only reason why I’m talking to you right now is because of social media,” he says.
Photo: Jordan Dziekan
From Running the Point to Running Across the Stage
Eddie—whose full name is Eddie Eberle—attributes some of his energized electric-guitar fused blend of country and rock performances to his early Arizona days of lacrosse and basketball. Today he sticks to a working out least six days a week in order to maintain his fitness levels to ensure every show feels like an NBA finals Game 7.
“[Music] is like a performance to me,” he says. “Having the sports background is like leaving it all out on the field—except now, the field for me is the stage.
Eddie now maintains a solid, lanky 160 pounds, moving with the swagger and confidence of the point guard who once ran the hardwood at Arizona’s Notre Dame High School. But for a brief period, the indulgences of life on the road caught up with him. Late nights, unhealthy food, and one too many good times caused him to balloon to over 200 pounds.
“I had a girlfriend at the time, and it was awesome,” he says. “I was eating a bunch of food, having a blast, and I got kind of fat,” he says. “Although I don’t think I looked crazy different—I had a lot more muscle—but I was also a little pudgier.”
Worse yet, his signature upbeat and uptempo shows, he says were giving way to a increasingly noticeable sedentary showtime routine. Late nights and constant menus filled with fast food to go with the drinking and partying quickly began catching up to him.
“I just was kind of not running around as much,” Eddie says. “It felt horrible, because I wasn’t giving the best show I could.”
Eddie’s approach to losing the weight became relentless. He says worked on weight training for at least 90 minutes a day. From there he would include some form of cardio for another hour. “I was hitting it hard,” he says. “I’m stubborn. So I was like, Alright, I’m gonna lose weight. And I lost it all pretty much in like two or three months.”
To complement his challenging training regimen, Eddie implemented a stricter form of diet that he stuck to throughout the weight loss. He based his nutrition primarily around the carnivore diet—an animal-based, protein- and dairy-dominated plan. “I was in a calorie deficit of, like, 1,500 calories a day in order to achieve that,” he says. “I was trying to get a lot of protein, and pretty much no carbs at all.”
Photo: Jordan Dziekan
Eddie & The Getaway’s Midnight Miles Help Prepare for a Multi-City Concert Tour
To help accelerate the weight loss, and to keep it off, running has become a primary form of cardio in Eddie’s routine. He doesn’t just run the stage every night while on tour, Eddie hits the road for a few miles daily—or, in his case, often in the middle of the night. The runs serve a dual purpose of both keeping the weight off and helping him clear his mind amid the chaos of music and touring.
“A lot of times I’m working out at like 11 o’clock or midnight, just getting it in or going on a late night run,” he says.
There are many benefits to late-night runs, Eddie explains. With the streets emptier, he finds a peaceful moment to collect his thoughts.
However, the nocturnal ritual can sometimes get a bit nasty and hair-raising. “One time I got chased by two dudes in a car, and I had to jump over some fences and stuff and then run back to my house,” he says. “So I’ve had a couple of freaky scares like that. Once a gunshot whizzed by my head. That was wild. I don’t know how that happened. It’s a stray bullet. But other than that, it’s been great. Just don’t run in those areas and you’re fine.”
Despite the risks, running remains a staple in Eddie’s fitness regimen. In addition to cardio and weight training, Eddie has incorporated a twice-daily stretching routine to help increase showtime flexibility and mobility. The social media star turned to the internet to create a program that consists of arm stretches, trunk twists, hanging dead arms, and knee-ups.
“There’s this kind of ancient Japanese stretching routine thing that I found on TikTok,” he says. “It’s really weird…but kind of loosens you up. So that’s something I do every day, in the morning and at night time, if I don’t get to do a workout that day.”
Now he’s back to his full-throttle performances, Eddie is hitting cities such as Scottsdale, Denver, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, and, of course, Nashville. “My shows are so tiring that I basically get to do, like, a great cardio session every day when I play a show.”
From Hustling to Honing His Cooking Skills
As a sophomore at Arizona State, Eddie sensed the looming impact of COVID. He made the bold move to Nashville to pursue his music dreams, ultimately finishing his business entrepreneurship degree online while working a variety of jobs—from waiting tables to running merch stands for various artists—to acclimate to an unfamiliar city. “I knew one dude who’s from Arizona that had a couch that I could crash on,” he says.
Eddie approaches his music career with the same strategic mindset he gained from his business degree. “It’s very beneficial. I feel like just understanding that there are so many different ways you can get screwed over as an artist, songwriter, or producer in music, it’s good to have a basic understanding of contracts and law,” he explains.
Where the degree doesn’t apply, he and the band rely on life skills to navigate the realities of life on the road as independent artists—especially when it comes to staying healthy and safe, with budget hotels being the norm for up-and-coming acts. “We were in Baltimore and we got there at one in the morning,” he recalls. “There was a pimp with an ankle monitor on. We fell asleep, and then midway through the night, we heard this dude screaming outside our window, and then about an hour later, we heard him screaming inside the hotel, punching the doors trying to break into a door. That was not a good one.”
Despite the chaos, Eddie is relentless about keeping up with his training and nutrition, but he tries not to be obsessed. With fast food and gas station snacks as the norm, he’s learned to adapt. “It’s not possible to eat great all the time on the road,” he says. “Half the time we’re eating McDonald’s and just trying to get to a grocery store and get a pound of turkey slices.”
When the band does find a Whole Foods or any store that carries fresh food, he and his bandmates have come up with some simple DIY recipes in their temporary kitchens. “We were making chicken thighs and rice the other night,” he says, while admitting that his culinary skills as a 25-year-old are still raw. “I’m trying to get better. I only really know how to cook eggs, and that’s because I watched Gordon Ramsay.”
From Broken Bones to Breaking Musical Barriers of Mental Health
Years before Eddie & the Getaway began headlining their shows, Eddie was an Arizona teenager at a crossroads—torn between continuing to play sports in school or committing fully to music. The decision became easier after a friendly arm-wrestling competition, intended to catch a girl’s attention, went painfully wrong. “I broke my arm, snapped it,” he says. “Then it was like, I gotta pick music or sports, so I picked music,” Eddie recalls.
The injury could have sidelined his musical dreams—especially since Eddie and his bandmates had already entered Alice Cooper’s “Proof is in the Pudding” battle of the bands. With his arm still in a cast, he and his father engineered a makeshift guitar stand that allowed him to play guitar on stage while his arm was immobilized. “My dad and I figured out how to basically get it to where I could still play guitar with a broken arm. So we had this little contraption that would sit the guitar up and I’d walk up to the guitar and play as I sang. It was really funny.” The ingenuity paid off—Eddie’s band won the competition, and the experience gave him the confidence to pursue music full-time. “I didn’t get the girl, though,” he adds.
Since that win, Eddie has gone on to perform with Cooper, as well as Dorothy, and has co-written songs with artists such as Jay Webb. As his career has progressed, so has the depth of his songwriting, which has been heavily inspired by his own battles with mental health and anxiety. Early on, he gravitated toward rock, but after a devastating breakup, his music took on a darker, more introspective tone, as heard in songs like “Cobain.”
Taking an emotional dive into his lyrics came naturally to Eddie, but was also prescribed by a family friend in the music business. “I remember him telling me, ‘You got to get your heart broken.’ And I was like, I already did, man, I already had girlfriends. But my second real girlfriend, we broke up, and that wrecked me. So I wrote those kind of songs. It wasn’t about her necessarily, but it was about the emotion that, you know, I just wanted to write something that was so extremely raw and that I felt.”
Eddie now uses his platform and the performance stage to connect with fans facing similar struggles. “I think if I don’t use that platform for good, or just, you know, letting people know that, you know, people go through these things. You’re not the only one dealing with anxiety or depression or a bad breakup or anything like that. I think that’s the coolest thing about what I get to do.”