Chris Conley

For the American football player, see Chris Conley (American football).
Chris Conley

Conley in Philadelphia, 2006
Background information
Birth name Christopher Lane Conley
Born (1980-02-29) February 29, 1980
Origin Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres Emo
Indie rock
Power pop
Punk rock
Instruments Vocals, Guitar, Bass
Years active 1994–present
Labels Equal Vision
DreamWorks
Vagrant
Associated acts Saves the Day
Two Tongues
Razia's Shadow: A Musical

Christopher Lane "Chris" Conley (born February 29, 1980) is an American musician, songwriter, and composer. He is also the lead-singer/rhythm guitarist in Saves the Day. He is the only remaining original member as well as major artistic contributor.

Background

Conley formed a band with a group of classmates at Princeton Day School.[1] The band was originally titled Indifference, but later renamed the band Sefler. Conley has cited some of his early influences as the Smiths, Led Zeppelin, Billy Joel, Superchunk, the Smashing Pumpkins, Sunny Day Real Estate, Archers of Loaf, Screeching Weasel, Jawbreaker, Gorilla Biscuits and Lifetime.[2]

Sefler was originally composed of Conley, Bryan Newman, Chris Zampella and Justin Gaylord. They recorded a 3-track 7" entitled "13 Hours of Everything" one afternoon in a friend's basement. They then recorded a nine-track demo at Trax East Studio in New Jersey. While recording, a friend of the band (and later bassist), Sean McGrath, suggested that they change their name to Saves the Day, which they did.

Saves the Day

Saves the Day signed to Equal Vision Records and recorded their first album Can't Slow Down, which was released in 1998 during their first US tour alongside bands Bane and Countervail. Lyrically the album included idealistic dreams, feeling inadequate, honesty and unhappiness, which reflected Conley's life at the time. The style of music is often considered very similar to that of the band Lifetime.[3]

In 1999, the band released their second album Through Being Cool. With this album, Conley's lyrics started becoming morbid and corporeal, and the style of music changed into a more pop punk sound. Aged 19 and 20, he started listening to the Beatles and has cited them as the main influence for In Reverie.[2]

During the writing of Sound the Alarm, Conley was heavily influenced by Bad Brains, The Damned, The Misfits and The Stooges. Conley, with Saves the Day, has released four other albums. Lyrically, all are considered similar except for In Reverie, which is a more positive album. Conley cites a lack of turmoil in his life at the time as the cause of the change in tone.[4] He commented in Rolling Stone magazine that Saves the Day's release Sound the Alarm, is "about the black clouds inside my mind, It was these intense fears and paranoia and diluted thoughts that were eating me alive. It was utter insanity." in regards to the failure of In Reverie and subsequent release from DreamWorks.[5]

Solo touring

While there are no plans for any solo recordings, Chris and David Soloway have toured throughout the USA, playing acoustic versions of Saves the Day songs.[6][7] Conley, and an army of committed fans recently have posted performances via the band's website, the band's official YouTube account and elsewhere on the YouTube site. Conley also finished up a solo three week acoustic tour with Matt Pryor of The Get Up Kids. Beginning in 2009, Chris joined fellow front men Dustin Kensrue of Thrice, Matt Pryor and Anthony Raneri from the band Bayside to form the Where's The Band? tour, where each play acoustic renditions of fan favorites. On December 1, 2010, Conley announced he would be opening as a solo act for Dashboard Confessional, on the West Coast end of the "swiss army romance tour" In January. This is Following his East Coast touring on the "Where's the band? Tour" in December.

Razia's Shadow

In 2008, Conley lent his voice to Forgive Durden's musical project Razia's Shadow: A Musical as the character "Toba The Tura".

Two Tongues

Main article: Two Tongues

Two Tongues is a collaborative project between Chris, former guitarist of Saves the Day David Soloway, Max Bemis and Coby Linder of Say Anything. Their debut album hit shelves February 3, 2009. Three tracks on their album releasing in February 2009 are available for listening on their Myspace page.

In Fall of 2010, Two Tongues made their first performances as a surprise in the middle of Say Anything's set each night of the Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, and Saves the Day tour. They performed the song "Crawl". Arun bali (current guitarist of Saves the Day) played guitar, Kenny Vasoli (of The Starting Line, and Person L) played bass, Jake Turner (of Say Anything) played guitar as well, Coby Linder played drums, while Chris Conley, and Max Bemis sang.

Work as a producer

Conley worked with The Promise Hero to record a demo at his home studio "The Electric Ladybug". Conley has also co-produced albums such as Dr Manhattan's album Jam Dreams.

Select discography (Conley as primary composer)

Compilations featuring Conley's compositions

References

  1. ↑ "A perfect world Princeton's Chris Conley puts life's imperfections in perspective", Home News Tribune, March 26, 2004; accessed August 19, 2007. "Saves the Day — also Eben D'Amico, bass; David Soloway, guitar; and Pete Parada, drums — was formed in the halls of the Princeton Day School high school in the mid-1990s."
  2. 1 2 "Band 'Saves' day with solid new effort", CavalierDaily.com; accessed September 1, 2015.
  3. ↑ Wilson, MacKenzie. "Saves The Day: Equal Vision Records". Equal Vision Records. Retrieved 2007-08-10.
  4. ↑ Change what you are, Aversion.com; accessed September 1, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Article about Conley in Rolling Stone Magazine", RollingStone.com; accessed September 1, 2015.
  6. ↑ Chris Conley Tour Dates
  7. ↑ ReadJunk.com article announcing Chris Conley solo tour
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