Meet Chris Lorraine

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

Chris, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started my very first band “Massacre” in the 6th grade, only learning fragments of songs. I played them at this little Halloween party we had in the classroom and got bood. It was a pretty traumatic experience. These things are always the cornerstones to your foundation. You realize that as you get older. I think I always wanted to be the best musician I could be so I’d never have to experience something like that ever again. All throughout middle school I spent every lunch period playing guitar in the band room. In 8th grade, I wanted to be in a music-related class, so I joined band. But I couldn’t read music like all the other kids. However, my band teacher, Mr. Swalling, heard me play guitar and heard that I was pretty good for my age, so he secretly let me go in the other room during every class and said “Just keep practicing your guitar. Keep doing what you’re doing. Your gonna be great one day”. The end of the school year my band “Massacre” played “Detroit Rock City” by Kiss in front of the whole school in the gymnasium. It was the first I’m I heard an echoey room light up with shrieks of applause. Ive been addicted to the energy of playing live ever since.

High school was nothing but playing guitar in the lunchroom every day as usual and ignoring everybody. They were all so fake. I was really just trying to keep a solid band going, running through a long stream of players throughout those four years. My main band, the henchmen got pretty good. We played alot of shows in the Palmer and Anchorage areas in Alaska, had a lot of good times, and even released an album. “Undercover”. After high school, my closest friend and Henchman keyboardist, Andrew Bryant, went off to film school in Seattle, so I decided to head down South to Nashville and see what was happening down there. I had heard there was a good music scene at the time. I was 18.

Long story short, things didn’t work out very well in Nashville. So I moved back home and joined this band “Wyte Vinyl” as their singer. Just for something to do and stay in touch with music. I had always been a singer and guitar player, but never just a singer, so that year and a half with them really gave me time to hone in my vocal skills. We all had a great time.

One day after a bad day at work (I was building steel buildings at the time), while staring out the window at the snow, the darkness, and the blizzards of the old folks home I was living in with my dad and gramma during my parents divorce, I just remember thinking some things to myself and then saying ‘fuck this shit’. Five minutes later I bought a ticket to LA and booked an Air BnB. Just to check it out I thought. I ended up falling in love with LA and coming back home to Alaska after a month or so to get my stuff to make a serious move down there.

I had a friend, Alex who said she’d be down to move there with me. She had a small Chevy spark so we could only bring minimal things. The ride down through Canada was great. We drank whiskey and shot Roman candles out of the windows. We had a lot of good times. Once we got to Seattle, we met up with Andrew at his school, stayed for a bit, and then headed down to Oregon to get a motel. Then Alex started panicking due to how close we were getting and wasn’t sure she wanted to move to LA anymore. Horrible timing. She said she was gonna drive to Idaho to live with her aunt instead. I couldn’t believe it. I got all my stuff out of her car (which was quite a bit of stuff due to how small the car was) and just sat on the bed with a mountain of stuff in the middle of nowhere Oregon. Wondering what the hell I was gonna do. How was I gonna get to LA.

I ended up learning that a grayhound bus stopped through Grants Pass Oregon, where I was. I got a ride from this sweet old lady who looked like your standard librarian, but turned out to be, according to her, part of the biggest methamphetamine operation in 1960’s Southern California. So that was interesting. After a few anxious nights, I got a cab, and got dropped off at the station, got on the bus, and headed for LA.

We switched buses in Sacramento where I got in a fight with the bus driver, because of how much stuff I had. But I had no other choice. I wasn’t missing that bus. I had to get to LA. He eventually caved and let me on. I also had to deal with this piece of shit Neo Nazi skinhead guy who wouldn’t leave me alone the whole time while he and his girlfriend creature railed who knows what and went wild in the seat behind me the whole ride. I had to bend around and slug the edge of his seat as hard as I could every 20 minutes to shut him up and get him to quit putting his feet up on my armrest. The ride wasn’t too fun.

I finally arrived in LA and when I saw downtown, I ain’t gonna lie, my eyes got a little watery. It had just been such a long perilous fucking trip. I got all my stuff out, hopped in a cab, and headed up to the motel 6 on Hollywood blvd. to collect my thoughts and plan my next move.

I ended up staying at the hostel I was at when I came down the first time, where I met my soon-to-be partner in crime. Max.

Max and I had an instant bond. We couldn’t afford living at the hostel together after a certain point, so we became homeless. One night in particular, we slept in the dirt up in Runyon canyon overlooking the lights of LA, with this big samurai sword Max had for whatever reason. For protection. That moment changed my life in a pretty profound way.

The very next day, as fate would have it, we stumbled upon this place on LaBrea and Sunset which is no longer there called “The Actors Studio Theatre”. We met this girl, Kodi, (who sort of gasped and could tell we looked strung out and pale) gave us some money for food and told us to meet the owners tonight. When we met the owners, they agreed to let us sleep in the attic of their theatre. With all the cockroaches and mice. Where we spent the next five months. Only thing was, is that we had to participate in the plays when other actors couldn’t make it. Every night there were comics who did their improv shows, so we got to smoke and drink and get wild with them. For five months straight. Almost every night.

While sleeping in the attic (which many people said was haunted) I would wake up with these melodies playing through my head and scramble to get myself situated so I could crawl out the trap door, get my guitar, and work them out. All this time living at the theatre with Max, I was having these intense visions about being in a band and playing these great songs. Lyrics were just pouring into my head constantly. I remember thinking I was actually going crazy.

My time with Max in the attic was a real life-changing experience. I was starving most days. I had no money. I was basically just living off the actresses who would come to the theatre and buy me meals from time to time, or let me crash at their places every once in a while. I remember once it got so bad all I had for three days was one cup o’ noodles and nothing else. Max and I basically lived off Chicken Jr.’s from the Burger King across the street because they were only a dollar. There are countless stories I could tell from that time period. Most beyond belief.

When December rolled around, I went down to Mexico. When I got back, Max had gone to jail. So I was on my own. I stayed at a different theatre in Van Nuys for another four months writing songs, constructing parts of the theatre in exchange for a place to stay, and working on art. That’s when I wrote and recorded my first single as a solo artist “Witchcraft”. I don’t remember writing it. I was sort of in a trance. To be honest, the song kind of wrote itself.

All In all, I finally got it together, got my first two songs “Red” and “Witchcraft” recorded, my next single, “Free Max”, fully written and soon to be released, started making my own money, and got my own place here in West Hollywood. Now I just need to get the money needed to record “Free Max” and all the rest of the songs I wrote during those months and start playing them live.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Constantly being in survival mode and finding time and space to sit down and write through all the LA insanity. This is a hard city to wrestle down and make your bitch. Some can do it, some can’t. You have to be brave.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
The only thing I can say, is that you’d really just have to listen to the tracks for yourself. Once you make music and put it out there, it becomes the worlds property. Anything I have to say about it at that point becomes completely irrelevant. However, I’ve never written a song, nor will I ever write a song, with a set structure or fitting in with any kind of trend. I write what I’m feeling in my heart at the time. It heals me because I define it so eloquently. I tap on the glass of its aquarium. Which materializes it. The pain turns into something you can touch. Something you can hear. It’s not festering inside you anymore. life has been filled with so much tragedy but I haven’t given up on the music and won’t until the day I die. Cause at the end of the day it’s really all you got.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Adrenaline.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: Instagram.com/chrislorraineflame

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