Eric Gorfain

Eric Gorfain is an American violinist and founder of The Section Quartet, a string quartet that plays cover versions of rock songs. He is married to singer-songwriter Sam Phillips, with whom he has toured and recorded.

Gorfain studied music at UCLA and won a scholarship to spend a semester at the Sakuyo Junior College of Music in Japan. He worked as a studio violinist and became fluent in Japanese. Beginning in 1991, he toured and recorded with musicians in Japan, then returned to Los Angeles three years later. In 1995, he was hired to work on the reunion tour of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. He followed the tour to Japan where his knowledge of Japanese allowed him to act as translator.

The Section Quartet
Soon after the Robert Plant and Jimmy Page tour, he formed the Section Quartet, which calls itself "a rock band with strings". Gorfain said the quartet was inspired by his time with Plant and Page and by an ambition to play lead guitar in a rock band. He wrote an arrangement for the song "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin and recorded it on the album No Electricity Required (2004). The album includes cover versions of songs by the rock bands Coldplay, Kiss, Iron Maiden, and Queens of the Stone Age.

The quartet's members are violinists Eric Gorfain and Daphne Chen, cellist Richard Dodd, and violist Leah Katz. They are classical musicians who also work on soundtracks and pop music albums, such as Stripped (RCA, 2002) by Christina Aguilera. The quartet's performance on the song "Beautiful" from Aguilera's album caught the attention of the songwriter, Linda Perry, and she produced their album Fuzzbox (2007) for Decca Records.

Gorfain has written string arrangements for Sam Phillips, Ryan Adams, A Perfect Circle, Band of Horses, Neil Diamond, Sean Lennon, and Cassandra Wilson, and has worked as an arranger and orchestrator with producers Jon Brion, Glyn Johns, and Jacknife Lee.

Discography
With The Section Quartet
 * 2004 No Electricity Required
 * 2006 Lizard Like Us
 * 2007 Fuzzboxx

With Ryan Adams
 * 2007 Easy Tiger
 * 2011 Ashes & Fire
 * 2015 1989

With Christina Aguilera
 * 2002 Stripped
 * 2006 Back to Basics

With Neil Diamond
 * 2014 Melody Road
 * 2016 Acoustic Christmas

With Grant-Lee Phillips
 * 2004 Virginia Creeper
 * 2006 Nineteeneighties
 * 2007 Strangelet
 * 2009 Little Moon
 * 2016 The Narrows

With Sam Phillips
 * 1994 Martinis & Bikinis
 * 2004 A Boot and a Shoe
 * 2008 Don't Do Anything
 * 2011 Solid State
 * 2013 Push Any Button

With Spock's Beard
 * 2005 Octane
 * 2006 Spock's Beard
 * 2010 X
 * 2018 Noise Floor

With Al Stewart
 * 2005 A Beach Full of Shells
 * 2008 Sparks of Ancient Light

With others
 * 2004 Seventy Two & Sunny, Uncle Kracker
 * 2005 Back to Bedlam, James Blunt
 * 2005 The Day After Yesterday, Rick Springfield
 * 2006 Friendly Fire, Sean Lennon
 * 2007 Civilians, Joe Henry
 * 2007 Indiana, Jon McLaughlin
 * 2009 Here We Go Again, Demi Lovato
 * 2009 Fashionably Late, Honor Society
 * 2010 Something for the Rest of Us, Goo Goo Dolls
 * 2010 Belle and Sebastian Write About Love, Belle and Sebastian
 * 2011 Sophisticated Ladies, Charlie Haden
 * 2012 After Hours, Glenn Frey
 * 2012 Red, Taylor Swift
 * 2014 You Should Be So Lucky, Benmont Tench
 * 2016 Lemonade, Beyoncé
 * 2016 This Girl's in Love, Rumer
 * 2016 Post Pop Depression, Iggy Pop
 * 2016 The Altar, Banks
 * 2017 Salutations, Conor Oberst
 * 2017 The Far Field, Future Islands
 * 2023 Mercy, John Cale