Concert Crap: Why did you form Chasing Chimera?
Christopher Baer: We formed our band because we felt that if we didn’t choose to attempt music as a career, we would suffer from boredom, depression, and regret from choosing a more widely accepted path in life. Living a life with a 9-5 job, 2.5 kids, a wife, a mortgage and car payments would be absolutely dreadful. Compromising by trying to fit music into a “normal” lifestyle would just be cheating yourself out of your true dreams and desires, so we all came to our own conclusions that a primary focus on music is what would make us all happiest in the most desirable universe.
CC: What is the meaning of your band name?
CB: A chimera is something that is hoped or wished for, but is in fact impossible to achieve or obtain. TJ is quite the fantasy/anime junkie, originally thinking of the mythological creature, a three-headed, fire-breathing creature. TJ bounced the idea off of Ryan until they came up with the name Chasing Chimera. We sure hope we aren’t chasing the chimera with our music!
CC: Who do you take inspiration from?
CB: We take inspiration from a lot of things. Seeing someone experience success in their craft really gives us a lot hope and motivation to do our best in our own craft. Not many bands have made it out of our suburban hometown of Gurnee, IL with much success. Sworn In and Chevelle have had some good exposure and they are from our area. We hope to be the first punk band out of our area to make a name for ourselves and inspire others to achieve their goals as well!
CC: How would you describe your sound?
CB: Our EP Hallways To Nowhere is pretty much straight up punk rock with a heavy pop influence. Some people have described that EP as nostalgic, even though the music was written in 2015. After adding Chris as our second guitarist, our sound really took a turn while writing our second EP. The collaborative writing really brought out the influences in each respective member. Ryan and TJ are really into punk rock from the 2000s. Chris has experience playing metal which helped a lot with tightening up syncopation and rhythms in our music. Brad has a background in jazz and funk, which makes for a very interesting take on drums in a punk band! Hopefully that gives you a good idea of our sound.
CC: What can we expect to see from Chasing Chimera in 2017?
CB: You can expect a new EP from us around June, which has not been titled yet. We’re extremely excited to hear the final product. We just got back from Atlas Studios in Chicago to make the finishing touches. We are also absolutely itching to get out of our hometown and experience the country! A tour is absolutely in preparation for the summer of 2017.
CC: What are some goals you’d love to achieve as a band?
CB: Even though it’s cliché, one of our major goals is to make an impact with our music on as many people as possible. Another major goal we have involves getting help from a label or another source. It has been a fantasy of ours to get sponsored by Ripstik or Lacroix since we love ripstiking and drinking Lacroix (the mango flavor is great), but we’re not good at doing cool tricks, so a label would seem more realistic. It’d be great to work with someone experienced that can help us with our first tour, which is one of our more immediate goals. We also want to get some music videos and other video content made for our upcoming EP professionally. We currently self-produce all of our videos (which you can check out here), but we have some ideas we won’t be able to achieve without someone experienced helping. There are so many goals we have, that it’d be hard not to go into too much detail.
CC: What do you want your current fans and new fans to know about you?
CB: We would like everyone to know that if you ever come to one of our shows and want to impress us or make us happy, bring a case of LaCroix. That would be absolutely LOVELY!
Chasing Chimera consists of vocalist/bassist Ryan Holsman, vocalist/guitarist TJ Lamont, drummer Bradley Jensen, and guitarist Christopher Baer.
All questions answered by Christopher Baer.
–
–
Post by Karen Shalev
What are your thoughts on this album? Comment below.
Follow Concert Crap on Instagram
Follow Concert Crap on Twitter
Follow us on Snapchat: @ConcertCrap
Or click the “Follow” link on the bottom right corner and type in your email to get updates sent directly to your inbox.
#ConcertCrap
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]
Leave a Reply