Casey Chandler

I have no doubt you all miss articles about inspiring people. I continue interviewing young and talented americans. A huge thank you to Casey Chandler, a great musician who was very nice talking to me.

This guy is living in Austin, Texas, but he was born in the little hippie town of Woodstock, NY. An hour from where the original Woodstock '69 festival was held!

He started being interested in music probably before he even had memories. Anyway Casey remembers when his oldest brother (who now is a member of the band Midlake) would play music on the piano and he and his toddler friends would dance around in circles. Also Casey‘s older brother is  basically a piano prodigy. So he suggested Casey to take piano lessons. He started when he was 5 and was doing pretty well, but stopped taking lessons at age 9 because he hated practicing and just wanted to run around outside with his friends and dig up worms. Casey‘s brother told him that he was making a big mistake and of course he was right, but what 9 year old really knows what's best for him?

Now Casey plays six instruments, although he'd say technically five because he stopped playing saxophone a long time ago. He also sings as well, so you could say six if you consider that to be an instrument.

Casey Chandler

Music holds a lot of meaning in his life. „It shows the purest, rawest emotions of human beings in a very intimate way. As someone who has a hard time expressing all of those feelings in everyday life, sometimes music is the only way for me to express those feeling. It's the only thing in the world that I know that I'm good at and the only thing that never feels like work to me. Ever. It's just the part after the music is made that feels like work to me. Hard work. Trying to be original when almost every great riff, style, and chord progression has been taken makes it very difficult to get noticed if you don't have many connections like myself. It'll be something that I'll always love, but if someday the music dies, it'll be a sad day, but I'll live. Music isn't everything in the world to me, but just one a few true passions in my life“, admits Casey.

The only big name artist that Casey has worked with so far in his short life is John Grant, whom gave him the opportunity of a lifetime when John asked Casey to tour with him last June. The only other artist that you might know that Casey has worked with would be the guy Grasshopper from Mercury Rev.

Casey  played at a couple festivals this summer with John Grant, both in the UK. One was main stage at Latitude and the other was Green Man Festival in Wales, which was the best show of Casey‘s life! The most beautiful festival he has ever been to first off and they played right as the sun was setting, which was amazing. They played to around 10,000 people for each of these festivals and previous to this tour, the most people he‘d ever played for was 200! It was a great experience. Casey met a ton of amazing people and grew up a lot over the past 6 months of on and off touring.

Casey doesn‘t hide that he likes playing in Europe MUCH better because it seems that they support music and musicians way more than in the states. People in the US for the most part don't give a shit about you unless you're on a big indie label or a major label. Hes thinks people in the states just want instant gratification and are only willing to give a band a minute of their time and if they're not impressed in that minute of listening, then they're through with you. He doesn‘t say that as a typical jaded and bitter musician because he‘s honestly not one at all, but that's just the way it is. Or at least the way it is in New York. It's the reason why all of these American bands go overseas and make it big because they know that people will at least give them a shot because they don't obnoxiously high standards like how we do in the states.