Nicotine Dolls Live At Harbor

Many of you know about my work with Nicotine Dolls. They’ve played a major role in my life as a producer and studio owner ever since I stopped touring with Augustines.

I first met Nicotine Dolls through Greg Giorgio at Tarquin Studios. Greg was Peter Katis’s assistant engineer and helped shape countless records we all know and love. He brought in Rob Allen and me to help with the band’s first EP. While working at Tarquin, the band and I instantly clicked, and before long, we were recording together at the original Harbor Studios, just two piers down the waterfront.

Over the next three years, Sam, the band, and I recorded dozens of songs together. During that time, they went from being an unknown local band to signing an impressive label deal and reaching over one million monthly listeners on Spotify. To put that in perspective—when I first met them, they had fewer than 1,000 followers on Instagram. Today, they have 877K followers there and 1.7 million on TikTok.

But let’s take a moment to talk about what that really means. Numbers are just numbers. Yes, these stats are insanely impressive. But what’s truly remarkable is how they got there.

Sam is one of the hardest-working (and kindest) people I’ve ever met in the music industry. He’s poured everything into building the band’s profile—writing, producing, and pushing forward with relentless determination. Nothing about their success has been easy or handed to them. They were not born with a silver spoon. They worked their asses off for every single milestone, and they deserve every bit of the success they’re seeing.

Nicotine Dolls (and Augustines) are proof of what I believe about this industry: magic is possible. If you put in the time and build your foundation on humility, you can do anything. It’s easy to get discouraged. Trust me—I know. But I also know that success is possible. So never give up.

- Eric