Advance graduate explores love of music

Tuesday, February 24, 2015
submitted photo Chris Welch, 25, hopes to help others through his love of music.

Chris Welch is a 2008 graduate of Advance High School, but he's currently living in St. Louis and writing and singing his own music.

"When I first started playing I was playing red dirt country and Americana, so I guess you could say that's what my genre is," says Welch. "It's really just my own stuff."

He got his first guitar at age 14 and a friend convinced him to start playing.

"I just played here and there and never took it seriously," he says.

But at age 18, Welch started to become more interested in music and when he was 20, he began writing his own music.

"The main country theme is heartbreak. I've got a lot of sad heartbreak songs and several lovey-dovey songs. Mostly I just write about the truth: experiences I've had or seen somebody go through," he explains. "There's a verse in one of my songs that's related to my mom having cancer."

Welch has never been formally trained to sing and in the beginning, didn't even know that he could sing at all.

"The first band I ever played in just played at parties on the weekends. I didn't know I could sing; I just played guitar. Then the band wanted me to sing a couple of songs. Everybody liked it and it just took off from there," he says.

Once that band's singer left, all of the singing fell to Welch. He explains that he would get a bar or venue to let him play for little or nothing the first time, and if he drew a crowd the venue would ask him back and pay him more the next time around.

Currently he's working on a new album for which he is singing and playing guitar and his producer is playing drums and bass guitar. He has the support of his family.

"My mom was a little iffy about going to bars to watch me at first," he says. "But she saw that I'm not into it to drink or party."

Welch would like to make a career of music and it sounds like he's doing it for all the right reasons.

"I want to play every night, and I want to travel. I want my music to help someone the way music has helped me in the past. I just want to bring a smile to somebody's face," Welch says. "I've thought about this a lot. Some people can't write and can't make music so I feel like I'm doing it for them. I'm doing it so that the regular people have a voice."

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