Karl Eriksson

Plastik Bags was mainly active from about 1977 to 1981, and Eriksson was a guitarist and singer in its original lineup with the singer Gène Bervoets. The band’s album On the Rox came out in 1981, and a retrospective, 1976–2024, appeared in 2024 with Eriksson credited on guitar and vocals among the original members.

His son Bjorn, a former guitarist in Zita Swoon, composed and produced the music for Felix Van Groeningen’s film The Broken Circle Breakdown. On the soundtrack album (Universal Music Belgium, 2012), Karl played banjo and sang in the core band with Bjorn on guitar and Dobro, Nils De Caster on fiddle and mandolin, Geert Waegeman on mandolin and fiddle and Lenn Dauphin on bass, behind the actors Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh. When the film’s success sent the band on tour, he played banjo and guitar and sang on its live album, Unbroken! Live in Concert (2014), whose set included “Sin City,” “The One I Love Is Gone” and “Black Mountain Rag.”

He also appears on records by Bjorn’s group Eriksson Delcroix: For Ever (2014), In Nashville, Tennessee (2015), on which he plays banjo and wrote “Hillbilly Mechanics,” and Riverside Hotel (2019).