His father, Claude Serra, was a songwriter and poet during the 1950’s and ‘60s, and so Éric was thus exposed to music and its production at a young age.

In the early 1980s, Éric Serra met director Luc Besson and was asked to score his first film, Le Dernier Combat (1983).

The GoldenEye producers later hired John Altman to re-score the tank chase sequence, which incorporated a traditional arrangement of the Bond theme.

Serra is also a songwriter, notably having written "It's Only Mystery" for the film Subway, "My Lady Blue" for Le Grand Bleu and "Little Light of Love" for The Fifth Element.

In 1998 he released an album of rock music titled RXRA which resembles the artist's name when pronounced as initial letters in French.