Rising Stars: Meet Chris Childs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Childs.

Hi Chris, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started playing music in the summer of 2000. I was mostly involved in marching band and concert band from then until the end of high school, but I also took private music lessons throughout most of those years. I continued my music education at Georgia State University starting in the Fall of 2005. There I studied percussion performance with a focus on orchestral percussion.

After five years of music school, I dropped out in the Spring of 2010 to start playing music in the Atlanta scene. I sensed there was something interesting happening in the arts/music scene in my city and I wanted to be a part of it. Plus, I had become disillusioned with the prospect of what a degree in music performance could lead to. I realized I did not want to pursue the lifestyle of a classical musician, despite my deep passion for the music. Additionally, I realized that music school education begets (or requires, rather) more music school and I felt no desire to continue spending my time in the proverbial walls of academia. It just wasn’t for me. In 2012, after a couple of years building some music projects with friends (notably, Hello Ocho and Faun and a Pan Flute) and carving our teeth on stages across Atlanta, we began touring up and down the East Coast, eventually traveling as far north as Canada and as far west as Arizona, Utah, and Idaho.

Between 2012 and 2019 we went on a total of 20 separate tours. Hello Ocho and Faun and a Pan Flute are no longer active projects but the experiences we had and the music we made will be deeply special to me for as long as I live. My current band is called Mute Sphere, which is largely an improvisational group and is for the most part, a side-project for all of us. Since 2018 I have been composing film score music, and as of just recently, I was hired to compose music for a true-crime podcast on the iHeartRadio network. Details forthcoming! I have been doing some work for iHeartRadio recently as a freelance podcast editor, which has been a fantastic experience. Podcast production is very rewarding for me in a lot of ways and it’s something I’m very interested in pursuing further. Additionally, I am releasing a full-length album of (mostly) instrumental music later this year under my name, Chris Childs. Although the music is mostly an expression of solo compositional work, the album features collaborations with people from Atlanta and some people who live out of state. Sasha Schilbrack-Cole is illustrating the cover art for the album and so I will use his words to describe the music, seeing that I think his artistic vision is genius and deeply touching, and his words are much better at describing the music than I am. “Beautifully crafted in how it sits at the intersection of a lot of emotions. It’s at times somber and minimal and at times spry and uplifting but there’s a central thread that feels really natural to the whole thing. It’s kind of an enigmatic melancholy or anxiety spread throughout even the more joyous moments.”

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Living in the world of late-stage Capitalism is a difficult road for a lot of people. With the exception of the super famous, our economic system typically does not reward the work of artists, and for almost all of the artists I know, having multiple jobs and side hustles is a baked-in reality. To be real, that’s not exclusive to artists by any means. A lot of people have to hold down multiple jobs to avoid being crushed by debt and to just survive, much less to have money to even consider saving or investing. That being said, I am extremely thankful for the privileges I have and the opportunities I have been given over the years in both musical and non-musical aspects of my life. It’s not lost on me that my gender and the color of my skin have almost everything to do with that. So when thinking of “smooth roads and struggles” in relation to my life and experiences, as hard as it sometimes feels to be an artist in our society, it’s of the utmost importance for me to remember that the road is much less smooth for so many others in our country, whether you’re an artist or not.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
These days I am working in podcast production as an editor and composer. I also score music for film, which has felt like a very natural and rewarding creative space for me to be in. I think my training as a classical musician and my experiences in touring bands and collaborative group-writing gives me a unique style and perspective when it comes to composing music.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Seeing Jurassic Park: The Lost World in theater after my last day of school. I think I was in fourth grade. I don’t know why that’s the first thing I thought of but I just remember being so hyped when I was on the bus ride home after school let out.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chrischildsmusic.com
• Instagram: chrischildsmusic
• Other: www.chrischilds.bandcamp.com