Musician Gary Eaton is the man behind the soulful “Herman Cain Train” jingle at the end of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s latest web video. Though Eaton has never met Cain, he told The Daily Caller that he “loves” the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO’s political endeavors and is “stoked” that Cain is mounting a campaign for the White House.
“I think it’s great that he’s running, I’m really stoked that he’s running,” the California-based musician said.
Eaton, who belts out the line “The Herman Cain Train” and plays instrumentals in the final thirty seconds of Cain’s clip, says it was a big deal to be featured in a presidential candidate’s video.
“I’m kind of thrown by the whole thing myself,” Eaton said. “It’s actually kind of weird that this is happening…My wife and I looked at each other because we saw his announcement and at the end they started playing the song in the background while he’s walking around shaking hands with everybody. And my wife and I just lost it. It was just the weirdest experience. Some schlub like me has gotten music playing behind a presidential candidate. That’s whack…It’s kind of mind blowing dude, it’s kind of mind blowing.”
A member of the country rock band Kingsizemaybe and The Army You Have, Eaton said composing the “Herman Cain Train” wasn’t a very different experience from his “secular” musical endeavors.
“We’re trying to make a good song, you know what I mean?” Eaton said. “It’s not really much different. You create something. Chris [Burgard] came in with a strong idea and we created off of it. It’s like the same as my other band, it just happens to be political. My other band, I call it my secular band. But the process is the same on both things, we really believed in what we were doing…Art is art. Music is music. I’ve never really thought about it that way, that’s why my answer is kind of circular.”
Eaton says he wrapped up his “Herman Cain Train” musical contribution in just one day at his southern California ranch.
“It just went bang like that,” Eaton said of how quickly he finished the song. “We just knocked it out…We had a blast. Got some takeout, had some beer, it was great.”
On the political spectrum, Eaton considers himself an “independent conservative,” but he clarified that he wouldn’t want to be pegged as the “political guy” of music.
“I do music because I like music, but I don’t want to be the political guy,” Eaton said. “I have some friends who are like, ‘oh, that’s a great political [message], you should write a song about this,’ [but] it doesn’t really work that way with me. My own political songs I write, somebody says something to me, I have this thing where people challenge me…My buddy Larry and [Andrew] Breitbart actually [approached me]…and they’ll say ‘hey you should write a song about that.’ Sometimes I’ll do it as a joke, you know? You know what I’m saying? I don’t take it that seriously, I just kind of like throw something out there.”
Eaton hasn’t yet been invited to join Cain on the campaign trail, but he’d be honored to receive the opportunity.
“I’m not on the inside of the campaign, I haven’t heard anything like that, but that’s be cool,” Eaton said. “That’d be really great, actually. I’d be proud to do that.”
But though Eaton supports Cain, the rocker says he would like to see even more political candidates enter the presidential race.
“It’s really tough…I want the field to get even bigger than Herman Cain because I think we need more voices out there,” Eaton said. “I think Herman Cain is a bad ass voice out there. When I see him speak, I get pumped up, you know what I mean? But you know, he still has to go out there and kick some ass. I’m not totally won over by him because I haven’t heard him that much but I love him and I think he’s a good man.”
Watch: Herman Cain video, cue to 1:20 to hear Eaton sing: