Education
He studied music at the Berklee College of Music.
He studied music at the Berklee College of Music.
He played lead guitar and sings backing vocals for The Cars. His guitar solos are an integral part of the band"s hit singles. He plays guitar left-handed.
Upon the collapse of The Cars in 1988, Easton played in bands such as The New Cars and the roots rock group Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
He has also played in songs by newer artists such as the power popular band the Click Five, whose guitarist Joe Guese referred to him as "the Boston connection". Easton released one solo album in 1985, Change Number Change, featuring songs co-written with Jules Shear.
One single"(Wearing Down)Like a Wheel" was released and became a moderate hit on the rock charts. A later band project, Band of Angels, was formed with singer Danny Malone, and recorded one album, Band of Angels, which was not released, but selections from which were included in the 1996 Civil Defense release of Change Number Change.
In the mid-1990s, Easton produced and played on the first two albums by Amy Rigby.
He was also the lead guitarist on Jules Shear"s 1994 album "Healing Bones". In 1998, Easton"s playing was featured on Number Cats, an album from bassist Lee Rocker of Stray Cats. He contributed guitar parts for "Rumblin" Bass" and "One Way or Another." According to both Easton and Rocker, the two have known each other since they were young boys growing up in New New York
Easton then joined Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
He has also played with Ric Ocasek as a solo artist. In June 2006, the band released a live album, lieutenant"s Alive!, that includes three new studio tracks.
He was featured and played the solo in the Click Five song "Angel To You (Devil To Maine)". Easton resurfaced in 2013 with his Tiki Gods project
On February, 13th, 2013, Easton"s Tiki Gods released the album "Easton Island" as a mp3 download album only.
lieutenant was made available through the Amazon and iTunes store. A physical Civil Defense was released in May 2013. The band also included The Chesterfield Kings bassist Andy Babiuk, Blondie drummer Clem Burke, The Romantics guitarist and vocalist Wally Palmar, and Faces pianist Ian McLagan.
The band"s self-titled first album was released 5 August 2014 and produced by The Ramones producer Editor Stasium.
In 2013, the Gibson Guitar Company launched the Elliot Easton "Tikibird" Firebird guitar, which is a modified version of their Firebird model. Notable differences from the original model would be the use of lightweight Steinberger gearless locking tuners.
A factory-fitted Bigsby tremolo system, full size humbuckers instead of mini-humbuckers and an upgraded switching system, which allows the player to split either of the humbuckers, to run the pickups out of phase and to cut to a direct feed from the bridge humbucker to output jack, bypassing all of the other controls. The guitar also features a Tikibird design on the scratchplate, in place of the classic Firebird insignia, and comes in an attractive gold-mist finish.
The Cars]
Easton was a member of The New Cars, along with original Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes, singer/songwriter Todd Rundgren, former Utopia bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton, and Tubes drummer Prairie Prince. In 2010, Easton reunited with the surviving original members of The Cars to record their first album in 24 years, entitled Move Like This, which was released on May 10, 2011. Easton next became a founding member of The Empty Hearts supergroup formed in 2014.