Chad Lore

Artist Information

Biography

Since an early age Chad was involved with as many music programs in school and church as he could, and everybody around him could see not only that he was talented and unique, but also that his connection with the audience was out of the ordinary.

When he got to high school he went to Germany as an exchange student and ended up staying there for a while, busking his way around Europe. He met a great number of talented musicians and learned a lot of the techniques that he would later use when he returned to the US and made entertainment his sole career. He also lived some great experiences (good and not so good) that you can hear about in some of his lyrics.

When he returned home in Wyoming, he knew that music and entertainment were his true vocation so he set up a home studio and focused on building up an audience around the state. While he started only with a weekly show, the list of shows grew to where playing music became his full time job. He performs every type of show from bars to weddings, and for every type of audience, from a small family gathering to large conventions or festivals.

Chad’s live shows are like no show you have ever seen before. He will surprise you with unexpected elements, like his tap shoes or his bottle slide guitar playing. His music is highly improved by his uniqueness and originality, and his sense of humor will keep you interested and laughing in between songs. "I don't tell jokes. I just tell the truth and people can't believe it," he says.

While live music gives him the interaction with the public where he can exhibit his charisma and his wits, studio recording provides him with the opportunity to free his inspiration and experiment with diverse styles of music.

When he is recording his CDs he plays every instrument in every one of his songs confirming once again that he is a gifted musician. He writes songs depending on the feelings of the moment: acoustic ballads that talk about the past, rock songs that will make you dance or instrumental pieces that will inspire you.

He is such a complete artist that he is hard to categorize. But if you have to do it you can say that he is a singer/songwriter, folk/Americana troubadour with a lot of talent to share and a lot of stories to tell.

Instrumentation

Chad Lore: guitar, voice, harmonicas and tap shoes.

Discography

2001. New Year's Tea
2002. Birds on the Ground
2005. Love
2005. Squeaky Love
2009. High on the Hog
2010. Dumpster Dan (with Free Bier)

Official Website

http://www.chadlore.com

Links

• Facebook

Audio

• Got It Bad
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• Free beer and the door
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• Sheep Mountain Wedding
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• Rainy Day Moonshine
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• Señorita
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• I Love You More
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• Beggars Honeymoon
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• County Fair
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• Drink a lil' liquor son
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• The Girls of Aberdeen
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Lyrics

• Whiskey Without You
• Señorita
• Beggars Honeymoon
• As Fantastic as You

Video

Chad Lore (from Wyoming Portraits)

Photo Gallery

Press

• Chad Lore [+ Show ]
  

  An open bottle of Miller Lite wobbles in his shirt pocket. He takes a few swigs between songs and po...An open bottle of Miller Lite wobbles in his shirt pocket. He takes a few swigs between songs and pockets the bottle again. Two more rattle in water bottle holders secured to his microphone stand with duct tape. They go down slow, sipped only during millisecond breaks.
  
  "Ghost Riders in the Sky" barely finishes vibrating on his guitar strings before he pulls his red bandana over his mouth like a bandit and thumps out a hyperactive beat, like a rock band does to introduce its members.
  
  But the man doesn't stop. He thumps and slaps and taps, contorting his face all the while, until the howling laughter from the crowd in the Poor Boy's Steakhouse Pump Room is louder than his beat.
  
  It's introduction enough. Chad Lore is the only man in his band, anyway.
  
  Armed with harmonica, guitar, tap shoes, accordion, duct tape, a massive repertoire of songs and some fierce wit, Lore has become a regular in Casper's music scene. He plays the Wonder Bar Wednesdays, Poor Boy's Thursdays, All That Jazz monthly, Elixirs randomly and dozens of other venues as requested.
  
  If it seems like he's everywhere in town, he is.
  
  If it seems like he plays everything, he pretty much does. A ukulele while riding a unicycle? Yep. An accordion and a harmonica at the same time? Only if he feels the crowd can handle it. Slide guitar with a beer bottle, a tap dance accompaniment and a few jokes? It's an almost nightly ritual.
  
  "The playing's the easy part," he says. But it's not the only part. Lore is one of those rare musicians who does music full-time, 50, 60 hours a week. Before he hits any of his several stages in town, he networks, markets and books himself and side bands, learns new songs, strings guitars and ukes, records in his studio and sets up amps, microphones and accessories for his show. Then he entertains for three or four hours and heads home in the early morning hours to fill his number one role: husband and father of three.
  
  "Is it glamorous? No. Fun? Yes. The second you get people dancing and having fun, that's when it's worth it," he says.
  
  "You get addicted to having people smile."
  
  Back at Poor Boy's, he blows a few notes from his harmonica and hoists an accordion onto his shoulder.
  
  "There's a few dirty words in this German beer song, so if anyone here speaks German and I offend them, I'm sorry," he says. "Of course, just playing the accordion is kind of offensive anyway."
  
  Lore got the accordion as a Christmas gift shortly after marrying his wife, Guadalupe, in her native Spain 11 years ago. They met when he was home from Europe for a summer and she was in Casper on a foreign exchange. Their children are 6, 2 1/2 and 4-months, the youngest being born on the Fourth of July. When Lore "jokes" about speaking only Spanish at home and having, like, 400 Spanish relatives, he is only slightly stretching the truth. (He doesn't have 400 Spanish kin.)
  
  Lore isn't quite sure where he got the humor that entertains people as much as his music.
  
  "I don't tell jokes. I just tell the truth and people can't believe it," he says.
  
  He really was a street musician in Europe for a decade. He worked at a worm farm when he was 16 to save money for the trip and landed in Germany when he was 17. He traveled Holland, France, England, Sweden and Germany on a mountain bike, carrying only a guitar and a blue tarp for sleeping in the forests that surrounded each town.
  
  At first, he just played guitar on the street corners. Actually, he just played "Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones over and over. But other street bums taught him more songs, and he eventually saved enough money to buy a harmonica. Problem was, every other street musician played harmonica and guitar too. So, in a desperate attempt to set himself apart, he taped a couple European coins to the bottom of his shoes and started tapping. He threw in some wit in the people's tongue, and Chad Lore, the one man band, was born.
  
  "He's an entertainer," says Jason Beck, friend and co-owner of Poor Boy's, the Wonder Bar and All That Jazz. "He's got a list of songs in his head that will blow you away. I don't even know where they're coming from. I never see a show turn out the same as any before. He just goes with the crowd."
  
  Poor Boy's is mellow. The Wonder Bar gets wild. His band, Free Bier, is like Lore triplets. And the singing telegrams with fellow musician Tom Price as part of The Valentiners are just silly.
  
  "It was one of those crazy ideas, but people love it," he says. "We sat around wondering what does Casper not have and thought, 'Well, they don't have singing telegrams.'"
  
  And that's pretty much how Lore works. He sees a need for things to be better and fixes them however he can, be it with duct tape, singing telegrams or love.
  
  In Europe he would take his coins and exchange them for bills and store them in his shoes.
  
  "By the end of the summer I was walking on like $500," he says.
  
  Here in Casper, which, he says, is the best place on earth, he walks through a life that is beyond his expectations.
  
  "I wake up in the morn and it's like a dream. I have a beautiful wife, three kids and I play music full time," he says.
  
  "I'll be rich in the next life. I just want to have fun in this one."
  (Hannah Wiest - Dec. 21, 2007)

• One-Man Show [+ Show ]
  

  During my whirlwind visit to Wyoming, I stopped at a bar called Karen & Jim's to see one of my favor...During my whirlwind visit to Wyoming, I stopped at a bar called Karen & Jim's to see one of my favorite performers. Chad Lore puts on the best one-man show I've seen in any town, anywhere.
  
  Lore usually stands on a slab of wood and tap dances a rhythm as he plays his guitar and sings whatever request is yelled from the crowd.
  
  Within the time it took me to drink one 12 oz. Fat Tire, Lore sang a song by The Cars, sang in Greek for the Greek bar owner's wedding anniversary and strapped a bicycle helmet to his head with duct tape before riding a unicycle around the room while playing a ukulele and singing "Cotton-Eyed Joe." (Autumn Phillips - Sept. 9, 2005)
  

• Casper's one-man band [+ Show ]
  

  Traveling has always been sort of a second nature to Casper musician Chad Lore. Whether it has been ...Traveling has always been sort of a second nature to Casper musician Chad Lore. Whether it has been on the streets of Europe or in a bar corner in Casper, Lore has sought to entertain, and if that fails, incite audiences with his eclectic repertoire of country, rock and folk songs.
  "I know-know about 400 songs," Lore laughed. "I can fake about 750, but they're mostly like from the 1930s, so nobody knows any of them."
  Lore plays regularly at the Parkway Plaza's All That Jazz and at the Wyoming Cattlemen's Club Tavern. His take on standard drinking songs includes full accompaniment with his tap shoes, guitar, and harmonica - and to his wife Lupe's chagrin, the accordion.
  With a boyish smile on his face and an Alan Alda-like twinkle in his eye, Lore delights in finding the most obscure song for the occasion, whether it be a German drinking song or a cover of "Hang on Sloopy" sung "Hang on Lupe" encouraging his wife to bear with him during the football season.
  In fact, Lore draws on his family's eccentricities in his act. Several of his songs are dedicated to his parents, who regularly attend each of his performances with the best of humor.
  “Today is my parents’ anniversary, so I want to dedicate this song to my mom,” Lore announced at a recent performance at the Cattlemen’s Club. “It’s hard to believe they’ve been married for 10 years.” Hard to believe, indeed, seeing as how Lore is 33.
  Songs in Lore’s repertoire range from early country and Western tunes by the likes of Hank Williams Jr. or Tennessee Ernie Ford to classic rock in the vein of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed. And when Lore comes up blank on what the audience wants to hear, he encourages – no pleads – for requests.
  “Now it’s time for request hour,” Lore laughs. Request hour usually lasts the full four hours he usually plays. “All right,” he says when no requests are made, “I guess it’s time for some German beer drinking songs.”
  Part of Lore’s charm comes from his well-travelled demeanor, sometimes singing in Spanish or Dutch. He claims that his six years in Europe trained him as a street musician.
  “It took about five years of playing before I started to make money playing on street corners,” Lore said. “Mostly, I would play songs American tourists were wanting to hear. Some days, I’d make over $100. Others, I’d not make a thing.”
  Lore used his earnings to fund his travels to the next city, even to pay for plane tickets back home to Wyoming.
  “If you don’t have any bills to pay, you can use that money for other things,” he said. “I have earned enough to buy plane tickets several times.”
  On several occasions, Lore is joined on stage by a loin cloth wearing, masked and painted character named El Capullo. The character played by one of Lore’s closest friends, Derek Green, accompanies Lore on the Australian instrument, the didgeridoo, and draws strange looks from the audience.
  Although it’s not an award-winning musical performance Lore is seeking when he takes his one-man band to the stage, there is one area in which he always succeeds; he entertains the audience and has as much fun as possible doing what he loves.
  (Zachary Schneider – July 20th, 2000)
  

Setlist

Length varies depending on needs. Anything in between 20 minutes to 2 hours per set depending on what type of gig.
Also variety of songs (both originals and covers) depending on situation (children gig, bar show, wedding...). Mostly originals but can play covers if requested or if needed for the occasion.

Basic Requirements

Calendar