And the Welcome everyone to another edition of the Soda Jaker Podcast. I'm Brian here as always with

Simon and joining us for episode 257 is one of the true Renaissance men a former

football letter and actor who in the last couple of years has turned his hand to you guessed it songwriting.

He made his musical bow earlier this year with his single The Friends We Lost which

also features on his brand-new self-pened four-track debut EP

I'll Make My Own Heaven recorded recorded at La Fretch Studios near Paris with producer

Johann Dahlgaard and recently released on Decker Records. He's also about to embark on a series of concerts in the UK and France, which as this reaches

you is shortly to commence in Manchester in late October 23.

Of course, in a former life he was one of the greatest footballers of the Premier League era,

winning a staggering five league titles

and two FA cups in just six years in England, which earned him the adulation of footy fans the world

over and a place in both the Premier League and English Football Halls of Fame. We're very pleased to welcome the one and only

Eric Cantonard to the show. I have to be honest brite when we set out to make a podcast about

songwriting 12 years ago. This was not someone I had on my list. Nor me, but this kind of twist

in the tale is part of what makes doing the show such fun and I'm here for it.

You and me both. Eric was born in Lake Hyol Marseille in 1966, the middle child of three. He and I share a birthday, incidentally. Small world. His Spanish mum was a dressmaker and his Italian dad was a psychiatric nurse with painterly leanings and the family lived in a hillside house built by his stonemason maternal grandfather, not in a cave as has been reported elsewhere.

His father played a lot of opera music around the house, but the young Eric gravitated more towards

the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, ACDC, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. the flamoyant performance style. A gifted footballer from a young age, Eric flew the family nest

aged just 15 and headed north to join Oxair, where he rose quickly through the ranks to make his professional

debut as a 17-year-old in 1983, returning home five years later to join his

boyhood team Marseille. Towards the end of 1991 he was snapped up by Leeds United, winning

the Premier League in his only full season with the Yorkshire club

...