Up-and-coming rocker Chris Lee is on his way

Smells Like Records Chris Lee isn’t sure if he
likes the way he parted his hair, but he knows that All Tomorrow’s
Parties is going to rock.

By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

North Carolina isn’t known for breeding rock stars. And
Chris Lee isn’t a bona fide rock star — yet.

The native of the South now lives in New York, the prototypical
rocker town, but he’s driving back down to the homeland to
perform, in a rock ‘n’ roll show.

He has 10 hours of driving ahead of him before he makes it home
to mom’s, where he can crash before the next night’s
gig. He is nothing if not enthusiastic about his place in the music
business, and on the road.

“I just went to the Dairy Queen, so things are looking
up,” Lee said in a phone interview from the road.

Chris Lee is a busy man who is only getting busier. Last year
the singer-songwriter released his sophomore album, “Chris
Lee Plays & Sings Torch’d Songs, Charivari Hymns &
Oriki Blue-Marches.” He just finished a tour with Starsailor,
in which he got the chance to play to packed houses of around a
thousand people. And this Friday, thanks to his friendship with
Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, he gets to play in All
Tomorrow’s Parties.

“I’m definitely gonna be a fan when I’m not on
the stage,” Lee said. “I’m totally blown away.
Obviously, I probably wouldn’t be there if it weren’t
for Steve and Sonic Youth, but that’s just the way it goes.
Mostly I’m looking forward to seeing Television and Big Star
and the Boredoms and Cecil Taylor.”

Lee met Shelley after his move to New York and Shelley quickly
took an interest in the younger singer. He was so impressed, in
fact, that he got Lee signed to Sonic Youth’s label and
co-produced and played some drums on Lee’s latest record.
Shelley is also a part of Lee’s current touring band.
According to Lee, it’s an honor to get to know the Sonic
Youth guys and be exposed to the unique place they have in the
music business. Their whole program is an inspiration to him.

Lee went to New York hoping he would meet someone who could make
a difference in his career. Shelley filled that void, but not
before Lee could take in a bit of New York City life. When he first
got to town, according to Lee, he became preoccupied with all of
the great theater, art and film available in the city and, as a
result, was slightly distracted from music. The first music scene
he got into was the free energy style, and he has taken advantage
of exposing himself to as much as he could since moving to the
city. While he knows that New York has given him millions of
opportunities he couldn’t have found in the South, Lee still
feels a strong and even growing affinity for his home state.

“It has a history and tradition and a heritage that I find
pretty inspiring and I would think sort of influences me,”
Lee said. “Whereas New York is sort of the quintessential
cosmopolitan place, where there’s this really beautiful
cacophony of voices.”

A graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Lee
still gets excited about ACC basketball and felt that his time in
college was too short. He took summer school every year, and
graduated in three years, realizing too late that taking it slow
might have been more fun.

College was also the time in his life when his musical
influences began to broaden. Working as a DJ at a radio station led
him to discover an abundance of new music. Lee was destined to
become a professional music maker.

“I double majored in art history and philosophy, which is
ridiculous,” Lee said. “It qualifies you basically to
be a rock ‘n’ roll singer.”

While at the radio station, Lee wrote for a fanzine that ended
up in the hands of people at magazines like Spin and Wire. Lee soon
found himself in the world of rock journalism, and he enjoyed
writing. Unfortunately, when he started trying to write songs
himself he couldn’t stop overanalyzing everything, which
resulted in an inability to finish anything. He gave up journalism,
but still thinks of himself as his harshest critic. And with two
albums under his belt, he deals with the finished product in a
slightly more realistic fashion.

“I’m proud of both records. I’m glad
they’re out there,” Lee said. “There’s
nothing I regret. I don’t listen to them. That’s really
painful to hear the stuff taped for eternity, and I’ve got
miles and miles and miles to go before the sound in my head is
fully realized, but they’re definitely steps along the
way.”

On “Chris Lee Sings & Plays,” he creates a more
stripped down sound with an emphasis on the singing and a more
panoramic background. The album includes some horns and keyboards
to broaden the range of orchestration. Originally, there was to be
no drumming at all on the record, but Lee and the producers decided
to make some of the tracks a bit more uptempo, so Shelley went in
and worked his magic.

For the live show, Lee and his touring band, which consists of
himself, Shelley and a bassist, have re-arranged all of the songs
on the album. They are thinking of doing a recording of the live
show to get these new versions of the songs out there for the
public to consume.

Lee is excited to bring the show to UCLA fresh off the success
of the Starsailor tour. He is intent on exposing as many people as
possible to his songs.

“I’m just trying to turn on as many people as
possible,” Lee said. “I’m trying to write hit
songs, but I just don’t know what a hit song is in this day
and age, whether it’s just at the radio station in my head
that they’re hit songs on. I don’t know if that has any
basis in reality or not, but that’s definitely the
goal.”