Here is the first single off of the Sorrow & the Spire EP. 

Navid Rashid, singer of Iron Maiden tribute, Eyes of the Nile, and singer/songwriter/guitarist of Iris Divine wrote 6 songs in 2020 that I recorded drums on. Jeff Teets from Mindmaze played bass. We all recorded our parts separately and was mixed/produced/mastered by Steve Brown (Trixter/Tokyo Motor Fist/Def Leppard. The complete EP will finally all be released later this year (2022). 

Here is the video we made-

https://youtu.be/FhOfvHn-Law

Enjoy!

My Misery Calling

Here is the second single off of the Sorrow & the Spire EP. 

Navid Rashid, singer of Iron Maiden tribute, Eyes of the Nile, and singer/songwriter/guitarist of Iris Divine wrote 6 songs in 2020 that I recorded drums on. Jeff Teets from Mindmaze played bass. We all recorded our parts separately and was mixed/produced/mastered by Steve Brown (Trixter/Tokyo Motor Fist/Def Leppard. The complete EP will finally all be released later this year (2022). 

Here is the video we made-

https://youtu.be/r2KW-hJggkg

Enjoy!

In The City Tonight

Here is the third single off of the Sorrow & the Spire EP. 

Navid Rashid, singer of Iron Maiden tribute, Eyes of the Nile, and singer/songwriter/guitarist of Iris Divine wrote 6 songs in 2020 that I recorded drums on. Jeff Teets from Mindmaze played bass. We all recorded our parts separately and was mixed/produced/mastered by Steve Brown (Trixter/Tokyo Motor Fist/Def Leppard. The complete EP will finally all be released later this year (2022). 

Here is the video we made-

https://youtu.be/fKqAO2yPru0

Enjoy!

Castles in the Air

Here's a quick little mix of the James Brown classic, Super Bad. If you'd like to see the full video version, check it out here-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkFlnWihFkA

Super Bad-James Brown

This is a live performance in 1999 at the Schlesig-Holstein Music Festival, Christoph Eschenbach conducting somewhere in Germany. I'm manning the cymbals.

La Valse-Ravel

Live from New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall. 

Lawrence Lesser, cello
Conductor, Frank Epstein

Very challenging piece for cello solo and percussion quartet. I played vibes, rototoms, gongs, paper (yes, you had to rip paper) and probably more. I remember this being very challenging to put together as the percussion parts are individually challenging and have to fit together at times perfectly in order to be effective.

Elegy: Snow in June-Tan Dun

It was fun to finally play this excerpt that is on every single orchestra audition. 

At auditions, it's usually played on a small snare, something like a 14x5, etc.-something that's very sensitive so the committee can hear all the soft playing. But in the "real world" it's played on what Prokofiev actually asked for-a field drum.

I used a 14x9' Slingerland drum: Evans Orchestral head on top, Remo Ambassador on bottom, Rogers curly wires.

I should also add that this chamber orchestra is self conducted!

Lt. Kije, Mov't. 1

It's been way too long since I've made a video like this and I've been meaning to do this song forever.

This one is close to my heart as I even played it on my grad recital (along with Take the Time) at New England Conservatory in Boston. It was quite the surprise.

This has all the Mike Portnoy-isms you hope and dream for and some great grooves in multiple time signatures as well. Might be my fave of I+W as it has so many ups and downs leading up to the climactic "whoas" in the middle.

I think of all the drum parts on Images and Words as "Neil Peart parts" where you wouldn't want to change a thing. I tried to get all the notes MP plays without any changes (except for adding one cymbal accent if you can find it-it works I think!) and hope you all dig it as much as I did putting it all together!

Special thanks to Boyan Bo for playing one of the great (my fave) solos!

Learning to Live

Having some fun in Studio One while on tour.

Loop #2 (Bus Ride)

Here is the audio from our tribute to the Guitar God, Eddie Van Halen!

Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW-Y0Ok2HIM

THANK YOU to Bill Whitney, Zink Hossain, D.J. Sparr, and Matthew Everhart for completely killing possibly my #1 song. What a bunch of freaks! 

Chris DeChiara: Drums, Video
Matt Everhart: Bass 
Zink (Sammy f-ing Hagar) Hossain: Vocals
D.J. Sparr: Guitars
Bill Whitney: Keys, Mix/Mastering

Dreams has been one of my favorite songs of all time and lately I'm wondering if anything really beats it. 5150 is one of my Top 5 albums. This is a perfect example of how the SONG overshadows anything - the fact that it doesn't contain much of EVH's virtuosic playing. The keyboards. There's no band in the video, only the Blue Angels, which ended up becoming iconic. Sammy always said this was the hardest song for him to sing. The vocals are the obvious stand-out and Zink does an absolutely amazing job. With every move I made in Final Cut, I couldn't believe what I was hearing!

Drum-wise, the sound on 5150 is...different! Simmons drums and AVH's acoustic, signature sound. I used a 6x14 Ludwig Supraphonic (I believe he used a Sensaphonic) and taped the underside of a silver dot head (he used black dot but I was lucky I had any dot at all!) exactly as he did, spelling out "A" underneath,  and cranked it up. Pretty impossible to achieve the exact sound, but I got semi-close. The main thing for me was getting the bass drum and tom sounds. I have Steven Slate Trigger 2 for sound replacement but there were no electronic sounds. For the first time, I found sounds online, downloaded them, and figured out how to get them in my DAW. Eureka! Then it was a matter of finding the EXACT right Simmons sounds. And then I realized that some sounds don't even work well because the waveform doesn't start exactly when you click it. So that messed with a lot and I ended up downloading other ones that worked perfectly. I think the bd and toms are pretty close!

This was a blast of a collaboration and our individual history is pretty interesting. Just a quick synopsis:

-The last time Matt and I did anything at all was Frank Zappa's "Black Page" back in 2008.
-Zink and I have only played some awesome covers together locally on no rehearsals:)
-D.J. and I actually go back to around 2004 with the modern classical group, Great Noise Ensemble. We played some of his compositions and he was also a soloist. When he's not winning Grammies, he's composing like a madman!
-Bill and I have never played together! I only got to see a spot on Genesis tribute he was part of at Iota. Give him a hand for making this cover sound pretty freaking incredible.

**Don't forget to click the highest quality and wearing headphones always sounds best!

Dreams - Eddie Van Halen Tribute

I had this piece lying around for sightreading and thought why not record both parts? This has some great lines and making me want to listen to more Telemann. These guys were writing crazy harmonies a long time ago!

Chris DeChiara

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