Today we’d like to introduce you to Chase Kuker.
Hi Chase, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in the small town of Lampasas, TX. If you have seen Varsity Blues or the TV show and film Friday Night Lights, you can understand a bit of what it was like there. During High School, all I cared about was sports and trying to make sure I was always fitting in and being “cool”. My twin brother Jordan did sports as well but was always drawn more to the arts, like drama (school plays) and music. Through his music teacher, my brother was directed to an agency in West Texas that would help him develop his talents in entertainment more and to hone those skills; the only catch was that I had to go along with him since we were twins and it’s the only way my parents would allow it. I begrudgingly agreed and we started taking these classes at PS Images in Midland, TX (a 4 hr drive there and a 4hr drive back every weekend) as our first talent agency. We learned how to walk a runway, how to develop our vocal chords stronger (I was terrible, but Jordan could sing), and how to act on camera. I hate to admit it, but it started to become fun for me. After a few months of class and training, our agency took us to a large talent Expo in Dallas, TX, The Mike Beaty Model and Talent Expo. We competed in several different categories against 3,000 other kids in front of agents, managers and other talent reps from all over the US. We did horrible. But somehow, one of the managers, Dino May, saw something in us and as soon as you know it, we were off and moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting and modeling under Dino May Management.
It was the summer before our senior year of High School when we moved to Burbank, CA. I lived out there with my twin for almost a full year training, auditioning and finally beginning to book different small acting jobs, such as a Motor Scooter Samantha commercial, where I was able to get my braces taken off early to film it. Our mom lived with us for a few months and then another mother and her daughter who was also found at the Expo with us, lived with us the rest of our time there. We were signed with some of the bigger agencies around for kids our age such as Osbrink and ACME. The important decision to make towards the end of the year there was to either keep pursuing a career in entertainment or to go to college. I decided to go to college, dragging my reluctant brother along with me. (my parents made him, haha).
A long story short, I went to a smaller D1 school in Tulsa, OK, Oral Roberts University (yep, that’s the actual name) where I ended up traveling to around 16 countries in three years with a major in Travel/Area Studies and a minor in Government as well as pole vaulted on the track team, competing all over the nation against the best D1 schools. My brother graduated on a normal timeline of four years and moved to Los Angeles to continue to pursue an acting career. I had one extra semester to go due to the particular nature of my major, but also, I had zero idea of what I wanted to do in life. I had dabbled in attempting a major at Graphic Design during college but never finished the courses through. A friend of mine found a possible job opportunity for me in Austin, TX to work as a graphic designer for a deck building company even though it wasn’t my degree and I was starting to really think about doing that. I decided to go visit my brother in LA first.
To keep the long story continuing short, in 2008 I officially moved to Los Angeles at Park LaBrea across from The Grove (the place that all newbies were told to come stay and if I understood the prices as I now do, never would’ve happened. The place was a rip off.) Some of the first people I met were all through my brother, one couple being music producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and his wife and singer/songwriter Joy Enriquez, along with her sister Tiffany. Apparently Joy and Tiffany had approached my brother at the LA DreamCenter celebrity charity basketball tournament Rodney was playing in and liked his look, so became fast friends. At this time, I did not know much at all about the music industry, so I failed to see just how important knowing these people was. Rodney was Interscope Record’s new hot producer new to LA and one of the many who helped discover, write and produce giant artists such as Michael Jackson, Destiny’s Child and Brandy. They became like a family to Jordan and myself pretty fast and we all hung out more and more as we continued to pursue acting careers. One day, Rodney told me that his assistant was going to be leaving on tour and asked if I could step in and help fill the gap. I had never stepped foot into a recording studio until I met Rodney, and all of a sudden, I’m in one everyday running random errands and doing impossible tasks, hanging around some of the industry’s biggest writers, artists and producers everyday. When I wasn’t running an errand, which was rare, Rodney would let me sit in on sessions with different writers and artists as songs were being created. I was able to see some of the biggest hits of the late 2000s being made right in front of me. My favorite was watching this writer Stefani (who had become one of Interscope’s biggest writers at the time) come in for a few days and create this song called Telephone. After one session, as she was leaving out the door, Rodney turned to me and said that she was going to be the next Madonna, if not bigger in another year. Well, a year later, she was Lady Gaga, and her and Beyonce were now singing the hit song “Telephone”.
I was able to travel around to different studios and meetings with Rodney and after a while, I started taking notes in a notebook and writing out poetry, seems all the music sessions were inspiring me. Through a mutual friend and charity I worked with, Justin Mayo at Redeye Inc., I met a dude named Jon Asher, freshly moved from Scottsdale, AZ. He was an artist with a pretty big local following and was showing me some music at his home studio one day. Now at this point, I had been in many studios, but I still didn’t know how they worked. I asked Jon certain questions and he started showing me how the programs on his computer could capture and record sound. He had an acoustic guitar in the corner and since I could play a bit, he showed me how to record it into a microphone and mix it with some other instruments; I was hooked. We created a song right there and then started writing lyrics. He challenged me to sing them and when I did (they were horrible) he showed me how to tune the vocals so they sounded better. I came home and showed my brother, he liked the song, but not my vocals so he ended up coming over to Jon’s and re-recording with his vocals instead. That was our first song, “Calling your Name”. We were in the kitchen at Rodney’s house with his wife, Joy and her sister Tiffany showing them the newly recorded song when Rodney walks in and asked who it was on the track. We told him it was Jordan and myself and he just nodded and walked out. The next day, all three of them called us into their living room and sat us down. They told us they wanted to develop us as recording artists for their label and that our name was going to be ChaseJordan. And keeping the “long story, short” momentum flowing, just like that we ended up in every dance class at Millennium Dance Complex and Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio there was, in intense vocal training from notable voice teachers such as Seth Riggs and David Stroud and also sent around to different studios to write and record the first of many new songs. Joy and Tiffany took on managing us and slowly, our confidence started building and taking shape in our craft.
As Rodney and his family started expanding their label. Darkchild Records, they begin a talent search to form a girl group. One of the girls who ended up making the group had a boyfriend also named Chase, Chase Stockman. Him and I hit it off and started hanging out a lot. The guy was one of the most talented dudes I had ever met. He could write, sing, edit, act and shoot video like crazy. I knew my brother and I were still struggling a bit to find ourselves as full artists, trying to constantly overcome certain barriers in recording with confidence, so I thought it would be a strength to add a third member to our group. Once we got approval from our managers, we started working with a friend of Chases’s, producer/DJ John Lock and began creating new songs in a whole new way. We continually y pushed the limit of what we wanted to create and we started shooting our own music videos, creating our own youtube channel and even directing and writing different skits and short films involving music. Our team really was guiding us towards being more of a boyband, with us singing and performing without instruments. At the time, only two other boy bands were really well known, V-Factory and Varsity Fanclub, but we had little interest of being another normal boyband. We wanted to play instruments and not be limited on what we could create and do. With more attention on a new girl group from our management, we were able to amicably part ways and be released from our contract in order to pursue music the way we wanted.
In 2010, we decided to create a music video for our first single, “Lose Control: Take A Sip of This”, written by Jon Asher and produced by John Lock. We wrote a storyline treatment with our director and friend, Jeff Moriarty and then had a lot of our friends show up one day to a spot downtown to film the video. Our close friend Lucy Hale (who was on the show Pretty Little Liars at the time) agreed to play the lead role in it without even hearing the song. After we did that and released the video on YouTube, and with borrowed instruments, a hit song, a newly formed band and two rehearsals under our belts, we entered the Wango Tango Breakout Star for 102.7 Kiiss FM competition, competing live against 300 other bands at Universal City main stage. We won, and the winning came with a check for $10k (we bought all brand new instruments) and an opening performance at 2011’s Wango Tango held at The Staples Center. We achieved the interest of Ken Komisar, former president of Justin Timberlake’s record label, Tenman Records. He was currently managing Natasha Bedingfield and a few other talented producers and artists. We began booking shows all over LA, playing main stages at The Roxy, The Viper Room and The House of Blues to name a few while training and rehearsing with one of our musical mentors, Stephen Petree over the next year. I even booked the lead role in the new music video for Christina Aguilera’s “Your Body”.
In 2012, after many shows and recording sessions, our manager Ken decided to put us with one of his other producers, Frankmusik in order to create a whole new album and sound for us. We worked intensely with Frankmusik for three months creating a whole new sound, but more importantly, we were each learning more and more about the reasons of why we wanted to pursue this “dream” of what we were doing. Especially me. Up until that point, I hadn’t really ever thought about it all, I was just along for the ride and adventure of new things, not once questioning why. We became close friends with Frankmusik (Vincent) and it was him that challenged me the most with the “why” of it all. I knew I had grown to love music and looking back, I could only be grateful for a “masters class” in the industry from Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins that most people would envy and also grateful for that platform that came from Jon Asher showing me the way of how to make music. Even with all of that, I finally knew that what I wanted to be doing was not where I could see us heading. I didn’t want to be in a band really. I had to be honest with Jordan and Chase and we all decided it was best to finally end ChaseJordan and pursue other goals we each had. Through being in ChaseJordan, I had learned a lot from Chase Stockman. How to write better, how to use a DAW system like Logic to produce music through, how to build a studio and edit video and music content, all kinds of small tricks of the entertainment trade.
In 2013, I started a little home music studio but still had no direction of what to do now that the band was not together. Back when we were still a band, I had randomly sent out three emails to one of my favorite authors, Cliff Graham, hoping that one of them would be the right email. I got a response from one, and I had let him know how much I loved his storytelling and the way he wrote. He had written this book series called Day of War about the biblical character of David and his men. It was brutal, realistic and reminded me much of my favorite films such as Gladiator, Braveheart or 300. We kept in touch and I would loosely use our platform to talk about his books that were now being made into a feature film. Well randomly, there I was wondering what to do next after the band breakup when I got a call from Cliff wondering if I would like to fly out to Hawaii to a film summit and talk about what I loved of Day of War in front of potential film investors. I went and had a blast, turns out I like speaking about things I’m passionate about and could easily do it in front of a lot of people. When I got back to LA from the summit, I was talking to a friend of mine about it and told him about the book series being made into a feature film. He liked the way I talked about it and wondered if I could come on board his new production company and do the same thing. I agreed and all of a sudden, there I was in rooms with big investors and producers helping passionately convince one party to invest in another parties’ project. I had no idea what I was doing, but I slowly began to learn and over the next two years, I was able to be a part of five different features films made through our company American Film Productions. I remember early on at the company, we had an important meeting set (I didn’t know the details) and I was the first to arrive at another production office from our team. I got a call from my other producer Josh who said they were all going to be late due to traffic and that I should go in and do the meeting myself. That’s all the info I got before he hung up. Well “the meeting” turned out to be interviews for Line Producers for a new film we were coming on board to finance. At this point, I didn’t even know what a line producer was, so as I was in the room with various line producers interviewing for the job one after another, I kind of just let them talk about how they would best do the job. That’s the only way I began to understand what the hell their job even was, haha. So that is how my introduction was to filmmaking, thrown in the deep in and had to learn to swim or drown.
After those two years and five feature films (including Tell, Helicopter Mom, Echoes of War), I decided to really hone in on the music I had been creating at my home studio and focus more on composing and writing music with cinematic sensibility. Ever since I was a kid and heard Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard or James Horner’s score in films, I was in love with cinematic music; especially the epic vibes of trailer music.
In 2015, I ran into another set of twins one night through a girl I had been seeing who was our mutual friend. The twins were Ryan and Chris Wood. I met them six years prior when they were an Alternative Rock Band and my brother and I were just starting out as ChaseJordan. When giving a quick run down to the guys of what we had been up to for the past years and what I was now doing, Ryan was like, “No way, I just graduated with a major in composing from UCLA.” I knew with that said that we should join forces and that is where Chromosomes began. We figured since we are both identical twins and chromosomes has something to play in that and sounds cool, that’s what we will be called for a company. We started making music that week and continued, taking on new feature films to score and also some commercials here and there. Shortly after, I was also introduced to another musical genius, Larry Granite. We were at a little group get-together in the valley at a friend’s house where I had my studio at the time in a building out back on their compound. After meeting, I took him and his fiance (now wife) Malia J to the studio and showed them some of the music I had been working on. They told me that they had been looking for a new music partner for their company Think Up Anger and asked if I would come on board and produce trailer music with them. We booked our first trailer for TNT that first week of working together. The next few years, along with the work from Chromosomes on films and commercials, we also booked some of the biggest movie trailers (War For The Planet of the Apes, Bright, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Godzilla: King of Monsters).
During that time, I had also been creating narrative short films and shooting them with various friends so that I could easily score to content I owned. Through this, I was able to reconnect with my old bandmate Chase Stockman and also work with my other roommate Chase McKendry. We created a short proof of concept film called The Rat that we shot and ultimately sold to Direct TV but wanted to shape it into a feature film. We needed a screenplay writer. Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to Michael Schilf, a college professor for screenplay writing. He came on board to help us shape our idea into a more cohesive narrative for a feature and right away, I knew this guy had something special. We thought very similar about characters and world-building and I felt it was an easy understanding between the two of us. After we were done on creating a feature script for The Rat, We quickly begin working on other ideas we both had, even creating a giant new fantasy world for a TV series called Sworn that we came up with. Over four years during my work as Chromosomes and Think Up anger, Schilf and I created several different TV series ideas as well as feature films, while also shooting a couple more proof of concept short films that went on to win many awards, such as The Fixer, starring Danny Trejo.
After the success of The Fixer (over 80 awards and over 30 nominations), we decided that it was finally time to form our own production company, Lunar Door and start making all these projects we had been developing. All of a sudden, we found ourselves with a whole team that were all talented in their individual crafts that crossed over the whole entertainment industry. Our team could write, produce and execute a product, score it, add soundtrack music with artist, create a trailer, basically everything you need from ground up in order to create a film. It was nuts to see how this had all come together with our team. I knew that’s what all the preparation during the boy band days on into the filmmaking aspect, all the way to learning to compose and create trailer music all was for, this; a new way to create content that deserves to be put out into this world.
See our mission is to create content that challenges perspective, inspires one to be better and take action on important subjects, and to raise awareness of different topics in the world. The medium of film and music is a powerful tool and we have a responsibility to handle it well. We recently completed principal photography (wrapped filming) on our first Lunar Door feature film, The Fall, this past December of 2021. We are currently in the post-production phase, creating the music, hoping to have a release in the summer of 2022. It was amazing to be able to really put our beliefs into action and see just how good it can work for a film, especially when not making one that adheres to the “normal” Hollywood protocol of filmmaking. I always believe that when you treat people with respect, and when you give a crew and cast an atmosphere and platform with that respect available and with full transparency, you get a far superior outcome and product. Good returns good, so if we never stop trying to do good and make things better, all of that goes into what we are making. We want a film atmosphere to be full of people doing what they love on set and in the career they choose. We want people’s passions to come out and to give their all for what they are making with us. It’s about the people and the project first, everything else can work itself out from there. We don’t necessarily lean on just sales numbers for actors when casting, we want the best actors to be the best for the role that serves the story best and a great film can come from that and be sold. It’s definitely not a normal way of doing things, but we like to take responsible risks in order to help change the narrative of how filmmaking can be accomplished.
Lunar Door currently has a slate of 22 feature films and 5 TV series in development, while Chromosomes continues as our post-production operations and Think Up Anger keeps snagging the big movie trailers. I can say that it has been one wild ride to get here, but it was all worth it, I was just along for the ride.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The main obstacles and challenges stemmed from egos and personalities. Everyone in my story was on their own little journey and we were all learning different things at different paces while also trying to work with one another. It was hard learning to balance all that out and have patience and grace for one another. It was hard, especially for me to ever accept grace from others. I would say that a lot of the reasons of why my journey towards where I am today changed around a lot was because I would start to dislike the person I was becoming in certain places of life and I was open to let that change. When I did music as a band, I didn’t like who I was becoming, I started to see ego in a lot of places where I usually wouldn’t have one. That was definitely one of the factors that helped me decide when to stop the band.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Based in Los Angeles and Austin, Lunar Door is an independent production company that produces scripted original branded content, feature films, TV series, and graphic novels. We are a creative collective of purposeful, imaginative and socially responsible artists, producing visionary content while addressing controversial yet essential themes that pervade society.
As filmmakers, we are acutely aware of the intoxicating allure of a story. Humans are sensory beings, and visual stories have the power to inspire, create, and deliver lasting societal change. Good visual content speaks for itself; great content outlives its makers. We strive to make content that engages audiences to consider diverse viewpoints by offering a new lens.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I was hired to be the best man at a Chinese/American Wedding once.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lunardoor.com & www.chromosomesmusic.com & www.thinkupanger.com
- Instagram: @chasekuker @lunar.door @chromosomesmusic @thinkupanger
Image Credits
Chris Wood
