Bending the traditional form of Singer-Songwriter music, Chris Bendt blends soul elements to his already groovy, passionate and lyrically complex songs.

5 MP3 Songs
BLUES: Acoustic Blues, FOLK: Folk-Rock

Show all album songs: Being Free EP Songs


Details:
Chris Bendt pushes the singer-songwriter envelope by writing about anything and everything occurring in his ever tumultuous life in the City of Broken Dreams, Los Angeles, California. Bendt's self-produced debut EP entitled, Being Free, captures the spirit of his internal struggle for freedom from the politics of the corporate world, his father's expectations, and abandonment by the love of his life, while grappling with loneliness and questioning the presence of a higher being. This collection of storied songs supports the premise that everyone has skeletons in the closet, and until identified, they cannot be expunged. Being Free beautifully captures the internal and external struggles Bendt endured over the past four years with straightforward lyrics and scattered innuendoes expressing universal topics.

In the song "Refer to We," Bendt tells the story of a lonely little boy searching and yearning for companionship, and his own questions on the presence of a higher being. Capped by the lyric, "For Eternity he'll wonder if he made the right guess to accept one as his savior and condemn all the rest." The complex and emotionally resonant subtleties allow the listener to find something new at each listen.

In addition to his eclectic lyrics, Bendt's sound combines elements of great singer-songwriters, including Ryan Adams, Jeff Buckley, Ben Harper, Nick Drake and Damien Rice, and the passionately soulful intimacy they brought to every song. Chris Bendt strives to bring new light to new topics and at the same time, showcase a sound that's highly relevant and full of soul.

Chris Bendt was born in St Paul Minnesota, but lived the majority of life in Washington, sharing time with each parent who divorced when he was four. During his childhood Bendt found himself following his mother's life-long passion for music through scummy bars and underground blues clubs, finding a passion to sing and perform along the way. Unfortunately, Bendt suppressed this desire once puberty hit and his voice dropped a few octaves. He quit singing and performing for almost 10 years, until discovering Radiohead's Ok Computer and Ben Harper's Burn to Shine in College, inspiring him to pick up the guitar and begin teaching himself how to play.

Soon after graduation, with no idea of what he wanted to do besides surf and hang in the sun, Bendt moved to California. Bendt found himself alone and depressed and unable to express it, except through alcohol.

"I was drinking a lot at that time," Bendt remembers. "I just didn't know how to express the things that were happening to me, so I drowned them and suppressed them until they finally boiled over." Fortunately Bendt's feeling finally boiled over into acoustic songs with passionate lyrics. Bendt found music as the outlet to his overwhelming emotions and inability to deal with things straight on.

Bendt viewed music purely as a hobby and quickly settled into a corporate job and again found himself complacent and suppressing his true love for music. After a 10-day spiritual journey to Peru, he realized his destiny. A month later he quit his corporate job with one of the largest conglomerates in the world and went to work on his debut EP. Although the songs were written at various times over the past 4 years, they mysteriously started to crystallize and define this moment of clarity and breakthrough.

The month following was dedicated to recording, producing, mixing and mastering in his tiny home studio in his Santa Monica apartment. The self-produced result is a raw, but real emotional journey to his current state of existence. Bendt explains, "I just hope that my detailed experiences will help others come to grips and overcome their own circumstances. I just want everyone to be happy about who they truly are."

Deep down Bendt knew that if he really wanted to pursue music, Los Angeles was the place to begin. Bendt is finally ready to share his heartfelt, true-to-life songs with the world.