Kerri Chandler Q&A
-Hi Kerri, it’s a true pleasure to have you here. How’re things going for you?
- Very different, but I’m sure it’s like this for everyone at this time. To say the least. So I would say it’s surreal.
-Where did you spend the past year and a half, during the pandemic?
- In the Studio and my electronic workshop.
-We know that your strong connection with music puts its roots back in time when you were a kid. How important it was to grow up in a family where music was a primary good?
- I woke and went to bed with many different styles of music, everything from Rock, Classical, Jazz, blues, Disco, Funk, Boogie, Experimental electronic, Punk, Dub music as long as it was good and I learned from it. My Family had a huge assortment of records to explore.
-Tell us a bit about the music scene you grew up in, that flourished between the 80’s and early 90’s in New Jersey and New York City. We can only imagine how many musical ‘inputs’ you absorbed during that period but, looking back to those days, how much being there and being part of it influenced your career? What’s the first image that comes to you mind when you think back to those days (it can be anything)?
- Immediately I think of my Dad and one of his close friends David pic Conley (from a group called Surface) he would come to the parties with my dad and play flute over the tracks live and improvise across the songs. Or Kool and the Gang, I got to be with them a lot when I was a teenager. It was really incredible to learn from them.
-Could you describe to us the emotions you felt the first time you played on stage? And now, after thousands of gigs, which are the feelings you still feel before the show and how do you usually prepare fo it?
- I have a excited, but happy energy, that I hope I can share and express with the audience I’m playing for, I love when I DJ and can go in many different directions.
-How’s a typical day in Kerri’s life? Which are the little things you always do on a daily basis?
- Before the Pandemic. It would be pack up, Get cleaned up, maybe eat something, go to the airport, maybe fall asleep on a flight but I can’t sleep on a flight, I keep waking up all the time on them, passport control, taxi or transportation to check in to a hotel if the room is ready, if not wait in the lobby with luggage, then check in to a hotel sleep for about 2 or 3 hours go to sound check if it’s possible, maybe if there is time for that, change and get cleaned up for the night, play the venue(my favorite part) get to rest for a couple of hours and repeat the process all over again the next day, the only thing that changes is if something goes wrong with the flights. But being there with the music in so many places with incredible people makes it so worth it, I feel blessed to gather with friends and fantastic audiences to have these opportunities.
