Ed Helms has gotten our attention before when he did a little picking on The Office. He’s got a new movie heading to the big screen, and again he’ll be injecting some music into the role. NPR invited Helms into the studio about a week ago and he brought his band with him. Yes, a bluegrass band, Lonesome Trio. Well, he did bring one special guest with him, Chris Eldridge on guitar!
The February 10, 2011 of Fresh Air, features Ed Helms and Lonesome Trio performing the bluegrass standard Please Search Your Heart.
They discuss his love for bluegrass music, along with his new movie Cedar Rapids. The conversation turns to his singing during his acting roles, and from there to performance in general. Helms shares this little nugget concerning stage fright.
“I get staggering stage fright when I play music. I don’t know what it is. I’ve done stand-up comedy for 15 years, and I can step in front of 2,000 people in a college auditorium and just chat for an hour. But if you put an instrument in my hand — a guitar or a banjo — I desperately want to share it with people, but I have some stage fright. It makes the technical act of playing difficult. That’s something I’ve always struggled with.”
I think most of us can sympathize with his experience. Listen the show and check out his version of Please Search Your Heart and you’ll hear that Ed has no reason to lack confidence.
Here’s a YouTube clip of Lonesome Trio performing a tune call All Gone to Hell.
