Today we’d like to introduce you to Dylan Chambers.
Hi Dylan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Hi. Thanks for talking with me. Right out of the gate, I was exposed to Peppers, Ramones, Nirvana, The Doors and any act who played Woodstock in ’69. Especially Hendrix. I joined a band with some kids from a nearby junior high and we called ourselves The Political Monkeys. We played a bunch of cover songs at all
kinds of events from church dances to random people’s parties. Eventually, we started writing our own music and booked shows around the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. We built a pretty decent following and stayed together up until the middle of high school. After that, I started The Dylan Chambers Band with two twin brothers from a neighboring high school and we won a few battles of the band’s competitions around town. Eventually, we broke up and I started doing more solo shows. I remember one of those being the “Hometown Rising Stars” show at Arlington’s Levitt Pavilion that I was invited to play. It featured four local artists. One of which was another young artist named Maren Morris. You’ve probably never heard of her. A few years later, I ended up opening for the classic 70s band, Three Dog Night, at the same venue for about 3,000 people. It was around this time that I started feeling like the following the artist’s path was my calling.
After I graduated high school, I ended up taking a year off to figure out the next step of my life. I had gotten accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston for songwriting and guitar but couldn’t afford to go. It was my dream school and it crushed me. I felt like I had missed the boat. Over the next year, I attended community college, worked at Subway and drove to the city to play weird gigs at night. I was very unhappy. I started skipping class, smoking pot and feeling became like family to me and I had a lot of wild adventures with them… After that ended, I got a call to back Sabrina Carpenter for a one off at the Radio Disney Music Awards in 2015 which I did. Soon after, I met and became close friends with American Idol alums Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams as well as singer/songwriter BC Jean (who eventually became Mark’s wife). The four of us started playing variety type shows around town where each of us would do a set of our original music and then perform a few songs together. In 2016, I put out a solo acoustic record of original music that I recorded at my friend’s apartment which made a tiny (keyword, tiny) buzz. (In one of the songs, you can hear a desk chair squeak. Super professional stuff.) A year later, I ended up on tour with Haley as her guitarist/background vocalist for her “What’s That Sound?” tour and had a lot of fun on the road with her and the rest of the band. I also ended up doing a one off show with Haley opening for Steven Tyler in Chicago for 30,000 people at this event called RibFest which I had never heard of before. (The people over there really like their ribs. I mean really.) It was at that show that I met drummer Mike Shapiro, who brought me into the studio to compose and record some
guitar parts for a Herb Alpert track he was working on. That session turned into what became Herb’s single “Skinny Dip” off of his 2019 album, Over The Rainbow, which you can hear my guitar on.
Over the past year, I’ve been taking the time to record and release my own music. The pandemic really gave me some much needed time to sit down and focus on what’s been in my heart in that way for a while. My long-time friend/recent collaborator, Stefan Litrownik, and I have been hard at work together on this new iteration of my music. It’s got a much more fully produced sound focused in pop, soul and funk which was very intentional. Since August, I’ve put out five singles which have been doing pretty well. My latest two singles “Some Kind of Happy” and “Breakdown” were written about in American Songwriter and I was very honored when they approached me to do a write up on the project. I’m flying up to Washington to shoot my very first music video for the next single “Me Vs Me” which will be coming out in July.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s been a smooth road. I think anytime you put an artist’s journey under a magnifying glass, you are sure to find struggles along the way. It just seems to come with the territory. I remember when I moved to LA, I only had $1,000 to my name and no real plan. I was anxious all the time and worried about how I was going to survive. My parents would send me money sometimes which helped and I was obviously very grateful for, but I so desperately wanted to be self-sufficient and independent like the people I was around. I almost felt embarrassed that I wasn’t, but looking back now, I was 18. That’s a tall order for anyone at that age. Especially a musician. I also struggled (and still struggle at times) with feeling like I “fit in” or was “worth it” for a long time. I guess one could classify this as “imposter syndrome”. The voices in my head can be ruthless at times and say things to me like “You don’t deserve to live a happy life. You come from a long line of struggle and hardships in your family so you should get used to it. It’s just the way it is,” or “What gives you the right to stand on stage and sing songs to people? You’ll never be as good as your idols.” I’ve been working very hard on separating the voices in my head from who I really am through lots of spiritual work over the years. I know those voices are just an illusion.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a singer, songwriter and guitarist that specializes in those three things when it comes to music specifically. I’ve offered each of these skills to other artists throughout the years and have been combining them together to focus on my own solo music more recently. I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve never given up on my dreams and ultimately
myself. There were many times when I could have thrown in the towel along the way but I never did. I just can’t. I love what I do too much to abandon it for any reason. What sets me apart from others is to have been born in the early 90s, yet have a random, undying love for classic soul and funk music. I incorporate these styles into my own music a lot. I idolize people like James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Al Green. I don’t know why it resonates with me so much but it’s buried in me somewhere. I so desperately wish I had a time machine sometimes so that I could experience the world in which these artists lived and breathed in when they were in their prime.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I remember being very curious with a vivid imagination. I liked Spider-Man a lot and was always looking for him, especially when my mom and I would drive to New York City. I’d sometimes yell “Look! There he is!” when clearly, he wasn’t there. I loved Harry Potter books and Jim Carrey movies too. Especially “Ace Ventura Pet Detective”. Musically, I remember having a strange, contrasting fascination with both Elvis and John Philip Sousa. My mom bought me the Mickey Mouse hat from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and a conductor’s baton to which I would conduct an imagined orchestra to JPS’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” in the living room. I think growing up without my birth father in my life subconsciously made me feel like I was always searching for something to fill that void. I filled it with music and I’m glad it was and has always been there for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.dylanchambersmusic.com/
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/dylan_chambers
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dylanchambersmusic
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dylan_chambers
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2jP4GO0BDgY15BqUcUVhG9?si=6Ff7zHBTS_6WX9dnhPgLgw&dl_branch=1
Image Credits
Photos by Josh Shultz, Alex Lang and Emma Marie Jenkinson.
