"Whatever you want to know about Nashville , I’m an open book."
Born in Huntington , West Virginia , while his parents traveled by tour bus with some of country music’s most revered performers, Chance began a journey through a musical odyssey culminating in the unlikely alliance of Hip-Hop, Rap, Southern Rock and Country Music.
“My first toy was a microphone. Most kids want to be a fireman or a policeman. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a performer. I always wanted to do the talent shows in school and, when my mom was a bartender, she hosted talent shows down on Printer’s Alley.”
Traveling in an old 4104 motor-home bus until the age of 4, Chance found his roots when his parents divorced and his mother settled in Nashville . His father, Tim, followed them to help raise his son.
“My mom actually invented the guitar-pick earrings. She started putting those together. The country music industry actually supported us growing up. Tanya Tucker was one of my mom’s good friends, one of the reasons she came to Nashville . Tanya was her first client. Everybody saw the guitar-pick earrings, liked them, loved them. Next thing you know, we got everybody you could possibly imagine in the country music industry. That’s pretty much where my history comes from in Nashville .”
All the while, Pauline Smith attempted to make ends meet and raise her young son, she was also facing another more personal struggle. She finally lost her battle with cancer when Chance was thirteen.
"My mother found out she had cancer when I was four. She fought it and lived every single day like it was her last, treated everybody like there was no tomorrow. She was an absolute angel."
Her passing eventually led Chance to write the song, Pauline, that later drew the attention of The Muzik Mafia, a group of Nashville musicians organized in 2001 by Big Kenny and John Rich (who make up the duo Big and Rich), along with Jon Nicholson and Cory Gierman. Chance signed with their Raybaw label in 2005.
The Muzik Mafia prides itself on inclusion and fanfare. “It’s such a spectacle that you have to look at it, you know you have no choice. Not to say that not everything in there was good, but there’s a lot of gimmick involved, but there has to be in order to, you know, you have to have something you can market."
But, the self-named Freak Parade soon proved to be a place Chance could no longer feel at home. The ‘love everybody’ theme tried, but failed to harness such strong personalities. There came a night where words heated to a fever pitch. Chance received an email the next day releasing him from his contract.
“That’s how they ended my record deal with that last email. ‘You’re no longer on Raybaw’.., and that’s it. No phone calls, no letter, no sit-downs, no face to face, no nothing.” he says, but looks to the positive side, "You can find good in everything. The good in this situation is that now, love it or hate it, it gives me great conversation. It’s a great source of motivation for me."
Silver linings sought from sources of motivations and inspirations are old hat to Chance. As with most situations where he seemingly feels the need to be grounded, his thoughts turn back to his mother. “I watched someone who had nothing, who literally fought every day for her life, that would never once complain to anyone about anything, that would stand for a complete stranger like it was her best friend. That’s how I was raised. So to see the other spectrum, someone who has everything in the world, but has nothing compared to someone who has nothing, yet everything that mattered...” he trails off, his point made.
If all else fails, Chance relies on his friends and family to be his safety net. To take a leap and just trust someone is below to catch you.
“My best friend in the world’s name is T-Roy, we used to perform at this little bar, and we’d throw parties every night. I start off the show free style, I’ve got a wireless mike and I’m up on the bar just rocking out, getting everybody into it. At the end, I’ll have a couple of friends at the end of the bar and I’ll jump off the bar and they’ll catch me and I’ll walk up to the stage and start the show from there. I get to the end of the bar one night and I look down and nobody’s there. The place is freakin' rockin', but nobody knows I’m coming down. There’s three or four people that are supposed to be there, and I’m looking through the crowd, but they’re just not in the room. T-Roy, though, is down there, open arms, saying 'I got ya!' I’m like not sure, I got one friend down there guaranteeing he’s gonna catch me. Sure enough he caught me. Well, not really caught me he broke my fall. That’s the story of my life.”
"A true friend is someone who loves you, regardless. Who’s man enough to stand up for you when you’re in the right no matter what, even if you’re facing something that could be a little challenging. They’re gonna be there for you and be man enough to tell you you’re wrong when you’re wrong. And still to know that the next day that you’re still gonna be there for each other. That’s what a friend is.”
He continues, “There’s too many people, specifically in the music business, that aren’t your friend. They want you for one thing, or they want you for another. They could care less about your well being, about who you are. They’re just in it for the business. They are in it for themselves, and at the end of the day, those are the people, that, no matter how much success they acquire or how much material they acquire, they’re empty inside. It’s the people like that in the music industry that I stand against. There’s gotta be a balance between that. For me, money is nice, we’ll make a ton of money when the times right, but there’s no trick to making money. You get up early and you work hard. That’s what making money is.”
If he can make it in the industry, this 26 year old holds that anyone can. "I’m a white rapper from Nashville . Who’s got a shot with them odds?”
Though snake eyes or lucky sevens, he is determined to keep rolling life's dice for the chance of succeeding with his dreams.
“The one thing my mother never found was ultimate success in the music business. She was a songwriter, she was a singer; she was a performer. That was her dream. For her to not find the level of recognizable success that people classify it with in the music industry, to not find that level, but to find so much happiness with herself and in her life is one extreme. For someone to find ultimate success and the ability to be on top of the music industry, making things happen at will, there’s a comfortable balance in there somewhere, and that’s kind of what I represent. Finding that balance between ultimate success and ultimate happiness. That’s the ultimate challenge. There’s no reason why you can’t have both."
| written by Joshua Schrader
and Debbie DuBois Miller
