Page 13 - ION Indie Magazine NovDec 2018

Erika Cannavino: ION Indie Magazine heard about your move to Nashville, TN. That’s so exciting for you!
Where are you from originally?

Chris Moreno: I was born in Lynn, MA, and then my family moved to Central Massachusetts when I was five-
years-old. I lived there until about fourth grade, then we moved to Northborough. I went to college in
Western, Massachusetts at UMASS Amherst. A couple years after college, I moved to the Greater Boston
Area.

EC: What was your major at UMASS?

CM: Communications. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do once I graduated. I landed in a job in sales,
which I stayed at for ten years.

EC: What type of sales?

CM: Advertising sales. I worked with Monster.com. I enjoyed my work there.

EC: Was there a moment when you knew you needed to leave Advertising? Or was it a gradual pulling
away?

CM: It was very gradual, but always in the back of my mind. I stopped doing music for a long period of time.
I started singing and songwriting on the side. I always saw myself as a singer as a kid. I never really gave it a
shot until my mid to late twenties. I was comfortable at my job with Monster.com, but I started thinking
about leaving the past two years when I was playing more frequently. When I did decide to leave my job, I
was doing five gigs a week in Boston. I saw that it was something that I would be able to sustain, and it got
me thinking about doing music full-time.

EC: How did it feel when you left a 9-5 job to do music full time?

CM: When I was twenty-six-years-old, I had a well-paying sales job. I was content. I had money to travel if I
wanted to. I went through a break-up when I was twenty-eight-years-old. I started questioning everything
and wondering what I really wanted to do with my life.

EC: How did you learn to write music? Did anyone teach you?

CM: That’s a good question. I used to write songs and lyrics when
I was about sixteen-years-old. I was in a few bands later where I
was writing the guitar parts. I started studying other song writers.
It’s taken me four or five years to get to a place where I feel like
I’m writing really good songs. It is a work in progress.

EC: What drew you to playing guitar over any other instrument?

CM: I was obsessed with guitar. The pivotal moment was when I was watching Bush’s music video
“Machinehead.” I saw Gavin Rossdale playing his red Fender. I went out and got a red Squire, which is what
I could afford, that looked similar.