Meet Dylan Chambers | Artist/Musician

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dylan Chambers and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dylan, is there a quote or affirmation that’s meaningful to you?
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer

I believe the first time I came across this quote, I was watching an old PBS special Wayne Dyer did on the Tao Te Ching. It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the world and power of the mind. It’s so true. Perspective is everything. Sometimes you have to reframe the way you view a situation to see it for what it really is (or isn’t). As an artist and musician, I deal with the music industry a lot and it can be very up and down. I was rejected a lot early on in my career and I would spiral when I heard the word “no”. I still deal with it, but I don’t get so upset about it or view myself as a failure when it happens because I changed the way I looked at it. No one was saying I’m a failure. I just thought that’s what they meant. Then I changed the way I was framing it and realized I’m not a failure and I’ve never been a failure. I just wasn’t ready for that specific opportunity at that particular moment. After hearing Dr. Dyer say these words, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I started to reframe the way I viewed all of this. I started to look at “rejection” as a very natural part of the growing experience and a fuel to get to where I am now. A shift in perspective can really turn things around. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Right out of the gate, I was exposed to music. I spent the first nine years of my life in Palmyra, NJ with a single mother who was (and still is) a professional vocal coach and former Broadway actress. Some of my earliest memories include sitting on the stairs of our condo watching her sing and explain vocal techniques to her wide range of students. It was extremely fascinating to an only child who had a lot of time on his hands. When I was four I told my mom that I wanted to learn how to sing. Soon after, she started teaching me and I took from her for many years. I sang everything from show tunes to Elvis. On certain weekends, I’d drive over to Philadelphia or New York with my mom to watch her perform her one woman cabaret. Occasionally, she’d invite me up to close the show out with her by singing a duet of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” from the musical Annie, Get Your Gun. When I’d walk on stage wearing my little plaid shirt and cowboy hat, the audience would always go “Awwww.” (I’m cringing as I write this.)

When I was nine, my mom got married and we moved to Arlington, TX to live with my step-dad. He had played guitar in bands as a teenager and started exposing me to artists like the Beatles, Neil Young, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc. I liked the music but it didn’t resonate with my like it would later on down the road. One day, he surprised me with a little red guitar from a pawn shop that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with for a few years. It wasn’t until I became a teenager and Green Day’s music video for “American Idiot” came on MTV that I had any interest in picking up the guitar. Billie Joe Armstrong was a god to me and I wanted to be like him in every way. My dad was excited when I asked him to finally start teaching me some chords. After learning how to play my first full song, which I believe was Green Day’s “Brain Stew”, I caught the bug completely and I couldn’t put the guitar down. I used fall asleep with it in my arms. It unlocked a whole new world for me and I started finding my way to artists like John Mayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Doors and any act who played Woodstock in ‘69. Especially Hendrix.

I joined a band with some kids from a nearby junior high and we called ourselves The Political Monkeys. We played a bunch of cover songs at all kinds of events from church dances to random people’s parties. Eventually we started writing our own music and booked shows around the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. We built a pretty decent following and stayed together up until the middle of high school. After that, I started a Dylan Chambers trio with two twin brothers from a neighboring high school and we won a few battle of the bands competitions around town. Eventually we broke up and I started doing more solo shows. I remember one of those being the “Hometown Rising Stars” show at Arlington’s Levitt Pavilion that I was invited to play, which featured another young artist who you probably know now named Maren Morris. A few years later, I ended up opening for the classic 70s band, Three Dog Night, at the same venue for about 3,000 people. I started feeling around this time like this was my calling.

After I graduated high school. I ended up taking a year off to figure out the next step of my life. I had gotten accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston for songwriting and guitar but couldn’t afford to go. It was my dream school and it crushed me. I felt like I had missed the boat. Over the next year, I attended community college, worked at Subway and drove to the city to play weird gigs at night. I hated it. I started skipping class, smoking pot and feeling pretty useless. After a long venting session to a friend, he told me about a pretty experienced actor he knew named Todrick Hall (who I’d met a few times) that was moving to LA and was looking for a roommate. I knew this was my ticket out so I got his number, called him and told him I wanted to go with him. A few months later, I was on the road and heading to Los Angeles for the first time to live there.

I spent the first year and half in LA working as a barista at Starbucks and playing songwriter showcases at night. I fell into a small circle pretty quickly where I was rubbing elbows and sharing the stage with artists like Brett Young, Tori Kelly, Shawn Hook and JP Saxe before they became known to the world. At one of these nights, I met and became fast friends with singer/songwriter and guitarist Mark Ballas, who was doing a set of his own music. At the time, he was also a pro dancer on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars”. I wound up visiting him on set a lot where we would jam in his trailer before tapings. We started doing duo shows around town and different parts of the country together in support of his music. Eventually, this lead to me becoming a featured singer and guitarist on the national DWTS tour in 2014. It was my first tour and it was quite intimidating at first. I hardly had any experience (or money), yet I was on a tour bus with people I considered very successful (and famous) and I didn’t see how I fit in. Val Chmerkovskiy used to sit me down in the back of the bus and educate me on the importance of self worth. I’ll never forget that and how supportive and encouraging the cast was. They became like family to me. After that ended, I got a call to back Sabrina Carpenter for a one off at the Radio Disney Music Awards in 2015. Soon after, I met and became close friends with artists such as American Idol alums Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams as well as singer/songwriter BC Jean (who eventually became Mark’s wife). The four of us started playing variety type shows around town where each of us would do a set of our original music and then perform a few songs together. In 2016, I put out a solo acoustic record of original music that I recorded at my friend’s apartment which made a tiny (key word, tiny) buzz. (In one of the songs, you can hear a desk chair squeak. Super professional stuff.) A year later, I ended up on tour with Haley as her guitarist/background vocalist for her “What’s That Sound?” tour and had a lot of fun. I also ended up doing a one off show with Haley opening for Steven Tyler in Chicago for 30,000 people at this event called RibFest which I had never heard of before. (The people over there really like their ribs. I mean really.) It was at that show that I met drummer, Mike Shapiro, who brought me into the studio to come up with and record some guitar parts for a Herb Alpert instrumental he was working on. That session turned into what became Herb’s single “Skinny Dip” off of his 2019 album, Over The Rainbow.

Over the past year, I’ve been taking the time to record and release my own music. The pandemic really gave me some much needed time to sit down and focus on what’s been in my heart for a while. My long time friend and recent collaborator, Stefan Litrownik, have been hard at work together on this new iteration of my music which has got a much more fully produced sound focused in pop, soul and funk. Since 2020, I’ve put out 6 singles which have been doing pretty well. My latest single “Retro” came out on March 16th and has been picked up by Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music. I’m grateful that people are responding to it so positively.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My rituals of showing people around LA have changed through the years. I used to hit all the spots everyone wanted to go to like the Hollywood Sign, the Chinese Theater, Runyon Canyon, etc. I still take people there if they want to go but I usually take people to Ojai, Malibu or the Palisades now. I love the stillness that some of those locations provide for me and I want others to experience them too. Food-wise, I’ve taken guests to Beachwood Cafe in Hollywood, Hank’s Bagels, Swinger’s on Beverly, The Dresden on Vermont, Felix Trattoria and Great White in Venice, Malibu Farm Pier Cafe, etc. I also like to take my friends who are into music to places like Amoeba Records, the Record Parlor, Good Times at Dave Wayne’s, the Troubadour, the Greek Theater and the Forum.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d like to shout out my friend, mentor, and legendary record producer from the 70s, Richard Podolor, who we just lost on March 9th of this year.

I met him about 5 years ago at the Dresden in LA where I used to play solo sets frequently. Unbeknownst to me, the man running sound there was his nephew and invited him in to hear me one night. After my performance, we were introduced and I sat down with him and his friend, Bill Cooper, in a red booth where we talked for a while. During that conversation, he mentioned that he and Bill had produced and engineered most of Three Dog Night’s catalog as well as albums for Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, The Monkees, etc and I was blown the hell away. I’m talking songs that will live in the cosmos forever like “Joy To The World”, “Born To Be Wild”, “Magic Carpet Ride” and more. When I told them my first ever “professional gig” was opening for Three Dog at a benefit show when I was 16, they seemed to be pretty shocked that I also had a connection with them. Rich then invited me over to Danny Hutton from Three Dog’s house a few months later and we got to reconnect and record some music together.

From then on, Rich, Bill and I became very close. They’d often drive from Encino to my apartment in Hollywood with guitars, mandolins and a Costco pizza and we’d hang out for hours. We would also frequent Cheesecake Factory at the Glendale Galleria often where Rich would say “Why do you always order a salad here?”

Since I met him, he was very supportive of me as a musician and I appreciated it immensely. After I’d finish writing a new song, he always wanted to hear it and discuss it with me. When Rich spoke about music, I listened carefully and made mental notes. Sometimes physical ones. I was fortunate enough to spend many nights in the studio with him and Bill as well. They taught me so much about guitars, equipment, recording, and what matters in songs and what doesn’t.

While in Maui for a big New Years gig a few years ago, I chatted with Alice Cooper backstage and he shared some fond memories of working with Richie on the “Special Forces” album in ‘81.

There were many days where I’d hang out with Rich and Bill on their boat in Playa del Rey discussing aliens, the 70s, motorcycles and what makes for a good cookie. Rich called me “Captain Pickle” and taught me how to drive a dingy.

When his cat, Boomer died a couple years back, he and Bill held a funeral for it at a pet cemetery in Calabasas. I was the only other person there. I brought flowers and we buried Boomer together.

I will forever be grateful and honored that Rich befriended me and took me under his wing. During a very transitional period in my life where I was dealing with bouts of loneliness and identity crisis, he appeared out of nowhere and became an important figure to me.

Richard was a very talented, sweet, corky man and I loved him a lot. He changed my life and he changed yours too whether you know it or not. His contribution to music is extensive. I’m gonna miss him so much on the physical plane. I’ll miss getting phone calls from him late at night pretending like he had something important to tell me even though he just wanted to talk. I’ll also miss him saying things like “Wow. I don’t even know what to say to you because your hair looks so cool.” He remained childlike his whole life and never lost his creativity. Do yourself a favor and google the great Richard Podolor if you’re unfamiliar. He was such a gift to me and I want to do whatever I can to keep his legacy alive. Thank you

Website: www.dylanchambersmusic.com

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/dylan_chambers

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dylan_chambers https://youtube.com/channel/UC-nlG–akDSEWSS8iVEaTYw

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dylanchambersmusic

Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC-nlG–akDSEWSS8iVEaTYw

Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@dylanchambersofficial?lang=en

Image Credits
Joshua Shultz, Alex Lang