Zine 45: Chris Pierce

Everything Chris does is planned. And he does everything poised. Every song is put together like a brick house - even broken down into it’s pieces, they’re still whole and strong. Chris’ vocals would be at home in destiny’s child, in a high end musical theater production or in an underground funk show in the 70’s pioneering DIY. It matches every production level and style, and rather than choosing one or the other, Chris’ songs always beautifully stack thick layers of his range. Every beat is crisp and clean and they feel familiar. Not familiar like streaming services mean, where they’re talking about something that we’re all accustomed to or feel safe inside. Like his latest song, By Myself, the moment the songs start playing, your body starts moving. You’re singing along to lyrics you’ve never heard before because you feel in the moment. Familiar like playing it on loop while making breakfast; moving to the song feels so ingrained that you have to pop back into your own body to remember to turn the stove down or stop waving the knife to the beat. Brick by brick, bop by bop, Chris is garnering a discography that matches the quality of a-list musicians - and it’s just him and his friends. They come together, have fun and try to help you feel empowered in your skin and passion.  

CHRIS ON INSTA

CHRIS ON SPOTIFY

CHRIS ON YOUTUBE

Baby Ballou: How did you first get involved in music?

Chris: I've always been in music since I was little because my dad also had a dream to sing and it kind of just didn't work out for him. I've been singing since church choir as a child. And then when I got to school, I was part of the actual school choir all the way until like high school. And then when I got to college, I kind of gave it up because I had ambitions and dreams that didn't work out with being in choir and yeah, I've just been in music all the time. And I know a lot of people say that, but it's like, it's the truth. 

Bb: What was your experience doing the choir to original music pipeline? It’s not as all encompassing  as church choir but I was in singing lessons and theater as a kid and my teachers attempts to have me learn how to technically sing some of my favorite songs kind of put me off of singing and I eventually stopped cause it felt stifling. Did you have any hiccups or revelations when you switched from the structure and external leadership to your own creative expression and self drive?

Chris: I honestly was in choir for the sense of harmonies. Like hearing harmonies choir was probably my favorite thing to do. And I was always, since I think about third grade, fourth grade, they tried to push me into this being a boy role. So I had to always be a bass, but I was always making my way over to the soprano parts and doing soprano parts and literally singing the soprano parts, learning the soprano while still having to perform as a bass and a baritone, but I was still pushing myself to be a soprano, trying to learn the piano as much as I can, learning how to like skip notes and like the technicalities of music. 

So when it came to transitioning from just singing like choir music to making my own original music. I was always, I would say talented at it. I was always writing music. I knew how to write music, I knew how to make melodies, I knew how to sing. I knew what to do…I didn't really have any hiccups when it came to making my own stuff and coming from like doing like song structure to doing my own, it was kind of easy. It came like secondhand nature cuz I was always into music. I just kind of had to learn the technicalities as life went and I think that’s what life prepared me for.

When it came to the self drive, um, I was a choir, dance, Black gay child in a Christian household. So the self drive kind of was thrown onto me. Like I've always been about myself. I was kind of like bullied into this place where I always was alone. So I always depended on myself. So even right now, I'm in college. I work overnight. I do my music career. Like I do everything. And the way I'm thinking about it is: no one else is gonna do it but me.

Bb: I love that image of “making my way to the soprano,” seems like that’s a theme in your life, to put yourself where you wanna be. I’m sorry you didn’t feel fully supported in your home, it’s a sad but beautiful trait in queer people to turn that isolation into being your own cheerleader. Have you been able to find your own chosen family or is the hustle of being a student and artist too energy consuming to explore that kind of college experience? Or I guess also I’m completely forgetting that college in the pandemic is not regular college so I don’t even know what normal socializing would look like. So mainly just how has your relationship with friends/chosen family unfolded in your life?

Chris: I have friends that I've known for years. And when I say years it's been a while, or it feels like it's been a while. It hasn't even been that long. But, um, I found friends that I met online because online was like safety for me. And we were friends for a long time and ended up being friends out in real life to the point where we met up. And we are now moving in to be roommates. So I definitely have a chosen family because my family kind of exiled me from the family and try to treat me like I was doing something wrong for being like gay. Once they saw that I really didn't care about letting them go. They realized how serious it was when I said that. They took it serious when I said when I make it, if they aren’t on my team, that I will let them go and never talk to them again. They saw how serious the career stuff was getting. They saw how much I was really starting to care about myself that they backed up. And my chosen family aka my friends that I call my brothers, they’ve got my back 100%. I lost people to gain people.

Bb: “I lost people to gain people.” I love that. With that moment, when your family reached back out to say they understood it was acceptance or losing you. What did you feel? I know we all imagine pure bliss but was there conflicting emotions getting that back track from them after a period of feeling so abandoned by them?

Chris: When it came to them reaching back out to me after the whole like coming out thing, there was a moment of silence where none of us spoke for a while and they kind of came back and apologized to me. And even still today, I still have, I wanna say struggles, accepting that they accept me or like struggles contacting them. Or it's just, it's kind of hard to trust anybody when it comes to family now. My whole life, I've been very friend oriented. Like my friends mean a lot to me. So for my family to have cut me off and kind of let me go for that brief moment of like me coming out, I really kind of didn't care. And it's kind of weird to kind of have them back in my life now supporting me as much as they do, but it's still hard for me to kind of want to 100% trust and give them my all. Because after like 18, 19 years of taking abuse, it's like, ‘shit. how.’ But I can say me and my family when it comes to me and my mom, however  we're like kind of the best of friends. But like I said before, it's really hard. Like it's not easy for me to want to like, do everything for them and give them my all and love them as much as they want me to, because y'all did me wrong for a very long time, like a very long time.

Bb: I can’t even imagine but it sounds like your chosen family has your back four times over, I love that. I find it almost invalidating when people expect “blood to be thicker than water” when a family member is toxic. Choosing to love and support someone is thicker than blood and they’re not mutually inclusive things either. How have your friends been showing up for you as an artist? 

Chris: Literally, it’s kind of crazy because this has been a very humbling experience to be honest. This whole chasing my dream and everything because you would expect your friends to support you as much as they can; especially considering you consider them friends but I’m telling you, I have lost so many people on the way up - so many amazing people, people i thought I would never lose in life. But it was something that I kind of needed to go through to get to a bigger picture because those people were holding me back. But in terms of the people who are still here who help me. This is like a very hard thing to do. This chasing the music industry thing is so hard especially being gay, especially being Black. It’s just so much to go through, so much to do, so many doors and walls to knock down but my friends keep me humbled and keep me sane emotionally, physically also. When I do the things I love, like music videos and make songs and everything, it’s the funnest thing I ever do. I have so much fun doing it. My friends show up by coming to music video sets and jumping in videos, they help me with pre-orders, they spread my music…That’s when I knew I had genuine people there to help me. A lot of them give me feed back on music. Even though I know my stuff is the shit, a lot of them have their opinions and they tell me how it sounds. Because you never know how you sound to someone else, you never know how you look to someone else…my friends Bryvonne, Aubrey, my friend TJ, my friend Kaya, they all literally help me with my music and it’s fucking amazing to be honest. Cause I feel like I have a small little team even though we’re not professionals, we’re fucking best friends so it kind of makes us professionals for each other.

Bb: 🥺😭professionals don’t mean shit when you got friends like that. With By Myself, not to say more than this group can love the song, but who is this song especially for? Where are they in their self discovery or journey and what is this song helping them celebrate or grow from?

Chris: When I think of the song, I really want all those people that are out there that feel alone. Like not even necessarily like just people who are LGBTQ, but there are straight people. There are people who are nonconforming. There's a lot of people out there who just feel like they have nobody else and they feel like they need like the approval of someone or need the kind of someone else to just feel good and live life. And I kind of make this song to make them know, like, you don't need anybody else, especially that chorus, like you're sick of crying and all this other that you're going through for no reason, because someone else is putting you through that. So when people listen to this, I really, really hope they feel like a sense of comfort…When it comes to where people are in their journey, it’s still transitioning into that period of not knowing what they want to do in life and kind of feel like they're already like, kind of failing because they're not already buying how and buying cars, like a lot of people are doing and like following the trends or just blowing up extremely fast and doing stuff. I feel like Twenties are the time where you're the most scared because it's either you're working really hard or you're scared as because you don't know what you're working, working hard and working toward. So I really hope this song kind of helps them because you may be alone, but being alone may be getting you exactly to where you need to be.

Bb: Wowowowowow yesss my favorite answer to that question so far! Wow. I love celebrating loneliness in a positive light. I used to be so scared to be alone, it was genuinely a trigger for my anxiety and bp2 and I’d walk to cvs just to interact with the cashiers to calm down. But the pandemic definitely flipped that on its head and now I’m constantly anxious when I’m not home alone (wooo don’t we just love the plot twists our brain gives us 🥴🥴) what’s your favorite thing to do alone?

Chris: My favorite thing to do alone is probably something a lot of people like to do alone, which is sleep because I work overnight. So it's just, I'm always tired, like literally tired. And I was gonna say, write music alone. However, I feel like working with other people is actually like incredibly fun. Like I have the best times with my friends when I'm writing my music. But yeah, I think the best thing to do alone for me in this current state of life is definitely go to sleep because I am exhausted. I have been working my off for this thing while also still being a student while also still trying to have a social life. It's just, it's a lot. I just start this thing where - cuz I tried therapy before and it's just like talking to somebody else about my problems kind of wasn't working. So I don't know. Maybe it'll get better. Like I'll find a better therapist like in the future. But like at this current moment it just wasn't something for me - but I've started to talk to myself and like my um, voice memos, my computer, like my fucking photo booth. I literally will sit and record and talk to myself when I have an issue now, because I feel like the only person that kind of understands me or understands yourself is yourself. And I had a talk to myself like I've started talking to myself and it's become very beneficial for me. And I think that's all I do like alone other than sleep and talk; that's about it.

Bb: For me personally, speaking out loud to myself can help me cut through the adhd and memory issues. Also, sometimes I’m high alone and I do something dumb and roast myself out loud for it and those nights, I laugh hella hard. I love that you do like your own reality show confessional moments. Speaking of shows, what tv and music have you been consuming recently?

Chris: Oh, my freaking gosh, not you seeing it exactly how I see it in my fucking life; like a whole confessional moment for no reason. I'm actually quite crazy at this point. But when it comes to shows and music, I've been listening to let me go look at well, obviously shows I'm gonna get the other way. I've been watching euphoria a lot. I love euphoria. The acting is I was gonna say subpar, but that's not the word.. superior? Superb!!! It's just all around amazing. And I've delved into Abbot Elementary and keeping up with the Kardashians.

I love the Kardashians…Like I can't wait to one day meet them…I really feel like it's because I'm genuinely getting closer to what lifestyle that they're living. And I see them like running from paparazzi and I see them getting like ambushed by paparazzi and I see them going to big events in Milan and it's like, that's my life? But like when I watch them, I see myself. Like I see the luxury. I see designers sending me like peace is and getting custom design outfits. 

And I just see me doing that and flying to different countries and everything. Like that's the life I really look forward to. So I think that's why I'm actually quite hooked on them right now… artists that I've really been diving into and like having fun and listening to on a daily basis is like Sinéad Harnett, like this new band Similar Kind. I like Aminé... I listen to my friend's music all the time. Like I listen Brivon, I listen to Jamareon and I listen to myself a lot. Like I listen to my album every day. My album has been done for a very long time and I've just been strategic about my whole career ever since I finished it. And it's been done for about a year now. And I keep like adding onto it, but also taking away from it. But I think I finally found the perfect list of songs that I wanna release.

Bb: I love love love that you openly admit you listen to your music all the time. I feel like people associate that with ego in a negative light when it’s just a matter of positive enjoyment. To round out this chat, if you were in an elevator with the Kardashians and only had those few moments to persuade them to listen to the album, what would your pitch be?

Chris: Before I even answer that I really have to commend you because of it. You're really good at this. Like I just woke up and I haven't even brushed my teeth or anything. And reading that question made me sit up… I literally been watching the show thinking about what I would do, but I honestly don't know what I would do because I really act off impulse. Like I don't know. I try to like assess the situation many times and put or say what that I feel would best get these people in that moment. So it really depends on the situation that I'm in. If I just saw them in the elevator and say, we're going to like a performance, obviously, I'm about to talk about my performance or something like that. Like, bitch, everything I try to do is strategic and smart. So I wouldn’t know how I would do it, but I know that I would be able to accomplish it.

And I think I got it - considering they're all like fashion icons and literally into fashion. The people I would attack first really. I mean, I'm pretty sure they'll all be in there, but I'm attacking Kim and Kylie, especially, oh and Kendall because they’re models like fashion and Mix It. It has a very fashionable walk like walking beat to it very much makes you feel like a bad bitch, So Mix It would be the one that I pitched to 'em. How I would say it, I don't fucking know. I just know that's how I would go about it.