Christian French found a way to take his hobby of music and turn it into a successful career. In high school and college, he spent time working on covers and posting them on SoundCloud and Twitter.
“It was pretty much a hobby at the time to get away from the stress of school,” he shared that he would work on covers from music he enjoyed like Gavin DeGraw, The Fray and Coldplay.
“All of those covers laid really good groundwork,” he continues, “just learning all those chords on pianos and all those melodies just kind of shaped what kind of music I make today.” These covers helped him get into music and know that’s what he wanted to pursue. He said he did this for five or so years before anything had happened.
“You can’t really expect to be the best at anything without putting in the 10,000 hours,” French advised, making it in the music biz takes a lot of practice and journaling. He spent a lot of time working on writing lyrics and learning chords. Once he had the base down, he started working with Triegy, a fellow Indiana University student and producer.
“He was actually in my pledge class for a fraternity I was rushing so we were both kappa sig pledges and somehow through the grapevine, I found his Soundcloud,” French explained. From there, they started to make music together. French would do the piano and vocals by sending Triegy acoustic versions of the songs. Triegy would then take those songs and make the instrumental tracks.
French said, “it just came naturally we didn’t have to have a big discussion about sound.” This process helped self-release their first single ‘Fall For You,’ which charted on the United States Viral 50 Chart on Spotify. Since it ended up doing well, this is when the flip switched for French and he knew what kind of music he wanted to create.
French released a string of singles before he released his debut EP, “bright side of the moon,” this past August. This EP came from what French has learned about and wanted to share about life. His EP “has helped him navigate his life at this point,” With the assistance of self-help books and podcasts, he was able to make music that reflected on how he better himself and the feeling it gave him. For instance, his song, “Heavy Snow,” helped share how he copes with his anxiety. However, French wants to focus on creating music that shares the bright side of things rather than falling into the trap of negativity.
“A lot of people are capturing negativity and using that in their music and I’m just trying to take it a step further and get past that negativity and just find some happiness in this world,” French shares that, “what I am most proud of is making the music I believe in. I don’t really care about what a lot of people think about what I’m making because I’m confident in what I’m making.”
He knows he’s no master at looking at the bright side, but he enjoys knowing the positive impact his music has had on people. He wants to continue to have his music show positive thinking and help others and himself grow and better themselves.
French has also started shaping himself as a musician with the people he’s had an opportunity to work with like Chelsea Cutler, who found him from his Twitter cover of one of her songs. From there, she invited him on her sold-out “Sleeping with Roses Tour” with her for his first-ever set of performances in mid-2018. After wrapping up that tour, he was able to keep on that train by going around the country with Quinn XCII for his “From Tour with Love.”
Now, he is going on his first headlining tour and making a stop in Chicago at Subterranean. You can see him Thursday, September 5th at 8 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase here. Get ready to hear old never-played songs as well as his new ones.
