Chris Sagan

Who Is Chris Sagan?

Chris Sagan (Born Graham Parker) is a London based musician, born in Hayes.

Chris has been playing music since he was around 13 years old, concentrating predominantly on the guitar. The story goes that his older brother brought home a really shoddy £90 guitar, but something about it attracted it to Chris and he ended up playing it for hours every night after school, “The action was so bad on this guitar. The strings were so far away from the fret board that my fingers would actually bleed from playing too long.”

A completely self-taught musician raised on Michael Jackson and Prince as a child, then later a bit of Stevie Wonder but he found the real love for the music scene when the Brit-Pop invasion came with The Verve, then Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene and Stereophonics. He learned every song he could, then afterwards bands like Coldplay began to rear their heads – he says that these were his music teachers.

However, in an odd turn of events, it was a night when he’d broken up from his first long-term relationship when his best friend came round with a big crate of beer and a CD of Jeff Buckley. “I was sat there with my heart on my sleeve. I was young, naïve and broken, drinking beer with one of my best friends listening to the angelic prodigy that was Jeff Buckley. Hearing the ecstatic melody of his music, this was the moment I went from wanting to be able to play the guitar to wanting to be an artist.” He started writing his own songs and lyrics, learning that the guitar can serve as a communicator of heart, mind and deep emotion and is the best way to show how you perceive the world. Chris has been gigging all over the country, working on his craft and getting into the London Music scene. For now it’s just him and his 12-string guitar… and he’s “loving every minute of it”.

Chris is in the mixing stages of his Debut EP; ‘This Machine’ which is being produced at the famed Abbey Road Studios.

What makes Chris Sagan so different?

Chris used to work in Television, where a radio DJ from Radio 1 said “with your type of music, you have to hold back – live a bit first, because lifes experience will be the material for your songs.”

He was right. The thing that separate Chris from the rest of the musicians out there is the way his lyrics tap into his varied passions, his experiences and his views, “I steer clear, to a point, from outright statements of religious or political views and motivations but I pay close attention to the results that I’ve seen personally, for instance, Africa where I was commissioned with a group of friends to fly out and film a documentary about Malawi, or when my good friend’s father was fired because he was an Indian.” Chris jokingly calls himself a ‘grown up Ed Sheeran’ but also writes very few ‘Love Songs’ as he is of the opinion that there are “…too many bloody love songs. It’s not that I don’t like them or wont write them anymore or anything, only that I’m a young but grown man (I’d like to think) that has dealt with so many more things in my life as well as love. I don’t believe in churning out song after song about love – British Music and it’s audience deserves more than that and they respond to this.” It seems to be working as the range of ages that have given Chris so much great feedback has been so varied, he seems to appeal to all ages and walks of life as there’s always something they can relate or tap their feet to.

Musical Influences?

Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Lamontagne, Damien Rice, Oasis, OCS, Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Neil Young along with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Verve, Aretha Franklin. More modern influences from Mumford and Sons, Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth and John Mayer… to name a few…

Why Change your name and Why to Chris Sagan?

“I just got really fed up with going to gigs and people always saying, before I’d even gone on stage that they were expecting Graham Parker of ‘Graham Parker and the Rumours’. Everywhere I went I’d get the same thing EVERYWHERE. Then there was an ‘incident’ at a venue in Bristol. This ‘incident’ was the moment I eventually just decided to call it a day and change the name to Chris Sagan.

Chris – because my dad wanted to call me Chris as opposed to Graham – He has been such a massive supporter of everything I do, which for a while was the only thing keeping me going and I wouldn’t be at Abbey Road Studios without him.

Sagan – because I wanted to make my entire career one big dedication to life and mind of Carl Sagan, the famous Astronomer. His work serves as the moral basis for a lot of my work and it didn’t feel right to name just one song after him.