Chris Ritchie (b.1981) is a Toronto based Singer-Songwriter, Composer and Producer.
His music has been featured on an International Compilation called Rock 4 Life, produced by Quickstar Productions, which was a benefit CD to raise money for a Liver Disease known as Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis or PSC. Released in 2009, the compilation features a variety of music by unsigned artists from Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Australia.
His Debut EP, The London Session (2004), was recorded in one night at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. Produced by Dougal Rodgers, a student at the time and done largely without permission after the school was closed. The story behind how these two talented young people met and how they came to collaborate on such a beautiful album is one for a later time. The EP is composed of 5 tracks recorded mostly in one take, and features Ritchie on Grand Piano, vocals and string accompanyments. Production was a collaboration of Ritchie and Rodgers. The Album was manufactured for Reo Musik and is available from the artist directly.
In 2005, Ritchie worked with fellow musicians to form the band Aminus, during which period he wrote the songs Dead Hill and Or Else. This group was limited to just jamming inside Ritchie's house, in an upstairs room that used to be a kitchen. It featured Sam on Bass, Peter on Drums and Ritchie playing rhythm guitar and singing. The muisic was a pop-punk, Blink-182 meets System Of A Down mix.
Also sharing this house was Devon Golding, another solo singer-songwriter and co-frontman of the band Being Eugene. The friendship between these two individuals and multi-instrumentalists continues to this day. Ritchie and Golding regularly support one another's careers and have been known to appear at a show to join their friend onstage.
Since 2005, Ritchie has volunteered with the North by Northeast music festival as a Stage Manager. This gave him the opportunity to work with many bands, both new and known in a managerial capacity as well as give him great insight into the current state of the music Industry. He has worked closely with other volunteers in the past to promote and organize Charity Rock shows such as the Reo Rock Show in 2006, which was a benefit for Sketch Working Arts, a non-profit Charity in Toronto that works with At-risk and Street-involved Youth and teaches them artistic skills such as painting, woodworking, cooking and music.
Chris Ritchie has played in and around the Toronto area since 2007 when he began performing with Production company Supernova, which hosts a number of Battle of the Bands concert series around the country. Since then he has worked with other musicians to develop several other musical projects including Being Eugene and Go Go Cadillac.
Playing Guitar, Bass, Piano, Drums and providing vocals seems to come naturallyt to this Nova Scotia native son.
"I've always loved to make songs. I used to overdub Beatles cover tunes when I was a kid using this old Karaoke machine my mom gave me. That developed into making my own songs, which is why i started playing guitar in the first place. I used to record them on piano, and add vocals along with harmonies and stuff. Eventually I just got tired and taught myself guitar so that I could add guitar parts to the songs. Drums followed, and before you knew it I had these casette recordings with very basic songs and ballads on them that I used to give to my family as Christmas presents...I had no idea that what I was doing was actually what I would end up doing as a career. It was just fun to me then, and it still is!"
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Chris Ritchie was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in March 1981. His father, an accountant by trade and his mother, encouraged their son to pursue music from an early age. His first performance was at the ESSO Talent Show in Dartmouth, during Natal Day Weekend. He was 11. He spent his teen years learning to play the piano, but soon added the drums and guitar to his list of instruments. As a teen, he used to make home recordings on a dual-cassette karaoke system. He would make complete tapes as a variety show in which he was all of the acts. He even used early overdubbing techniques to create all the announcements and commercials, too. Like a home-made radio version of the Ed Sullivan Show, where Ritchie was the musical guest. At 16, he performed at the East Coast Music Awards. During the 76-hour jam, a then 16-year old Ritchie played piano and sang for a voracious room full of 4am drunks and passed out partygoers. At one point a lighter was thrown and bounced off the Grand Piano, hitting Ritchie in the head.
Though originally from the East Coast, Chris Ritchie has lived in Toronto since the Summer of 2004, when he left the comfort and security of Nova Scotia behind to pursue his dreams of being a Professional Musician and touring the world.
When he arrived that summer, he arrived with little more than a backpack of clothes and personal items and a 12-String Guitar. With no friends, no family and no place to stay it was to be a game of survival from day one.
"When I arrived at Union Station on June 9, 2004 I remember having just over $55.00 in my pocket and half a deck of smokes. What stood out about Toronto for me right away was how dense it was. Within the first 10 minutes I had seen more different types of people pass by than you could see in a whole day back in Halifax. I had already been asked for smokes more than 10 times. As I wrote then, 'arriving in Toronto was [in fact] like turning a blank page in the book of my life to where the future was this huge unknown.' The reality of that was pulling me in. I had to explore if I was to ever have a chance to grow."
But the culture shock was just the beginning. A sudden betrayal by a close friend in the city turned the tables on him during his first month and he soon found himself out on the street. Without any family or friends who had accomodation, he resorted to sleeping in parks and wherever else would be safe enough to sleep for the night. At one point even living out of a friend's U-haul rental for three days. Before the summer would end, Ritchie would experience more than two weeks of homelessness.
"Make no mistake," he says during a recent interview. "I had a hard life growing up, and what I experienced in Toronto has shown me so much truth about the real world. But Everyone's life is [expletive] hard. I'm no different. I just write about it."
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Today, Chris Ritchie is an avid Producer, Singer-Songwriter and Studio Musician living in Toronto, Ontario. He is currently working on his next independently produced EP, titled "Far From Perfikt", to be officially released in 2012 through host label Reo Musik.
Though he has already seen real hardships at the hands of both himself and his loved ones, his spirit is seldom broken. It has become one which is strong, one that perseveres and overcomes. His experiences and his heart are the forces behind his unique music.
"Rich, Raw and Real! " -Independent Reviewer, 2008
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