Chris Merritt
"Chris never shook hands with a melody that wasn't beautiful. His fingers dance on the keys, a melodic pas de deux, with fantastic results." -Lines Through Lines
Born and raised in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, Chris Merritt began experimenting with songwriting at age 7. Support and encouragement from family, friends, and even an influential babysitter helped Chris have the confidence to further pursue his passion for composition. Piano happened to be the first available means for Chris' creative expression and his talent and technical ability were quickly evident on the instrument. Chris, however, was equally intrigued by percussion, guitar, saxophone, and his own voice. He toyed with as many sounds as were available to him and constantly searched for more sonic possibilities.
During his impressionable teenage years, Chris became heavily influenced by rock and jazz artists alike. The sounds of Weezer, Nirvana, Ben Folds, and Billy Joel were mixed with artists such as Marcus Roberts and Dave Brubeck. Drawing from his musical influences and his own original compositions and ideas, Chris founded the band Paperface in the late 90s, performing often throughout high school and into college. His obvious choice to study music at the university level was complimented with a major in sound recording and engineering which seemed to be the natural next step to pursue as Chris desired to have more creative control over the expression of his musical ideas.
Upon graduation from college, Chris and Paperface made the move to Southern California to more closely collaborate with Takeover Records, to which the band signed in early 2005. Touring throughout the US, Paperface quickly gained a loyal following and hoped to make their mark in the rock world. Their plans were cut short, however, after musical differences and band member disputes broke up the group in 2006. Shortly after the breakup, Chris and original Paperface member Roland Osborne started the band Upperville, named after Chris' home town in Virginia. Conflicting life plans soon ended Upperville as well and Chris made the decision to begin writing and performing under his own name backed by bassist Dave Fujinami and drummer Chris Walvoord. With this trio, Chris recorded his latest album, "Hello, Little Captain."
2007 was a year of more decisions and changes as Chris realized that the atmosphere of Southern California was not for him and made the ten hour drive to Utah reconnecting with childhood friend and drummer, Tim Fellow. Chris quickly found an ideal fit for a bassist in Provo native Dustin Hofheins, and thus formed Chris' current group. The natural beauty and enthusiastic fans of Utah were reason enough for Chris to trade the Blue Ridge for the Rockies as the mountains have once again proved fertile for Chris Merritt's obsessive yet sincere songwriting talent.
Chris and band have toured throughout the nation over the past year hitting both coasts and several markets in-between.
Chris, Dustin and Tim toured Japan in June for a 10-show headlining tour and returned home to release the much album, "Pixie and the Bear" on June 21. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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