PNW Troubadour Carves Out A Left Coast Life
This is an article by the freelance Jason Olcott, handsomely from Lake Chelan WA. All photos by Jason. This piece appeared in The Comet, Issue #70, August 2024…a print-only monthly focused on central Washington State. Editor in Chief: Ron Evans. Contact The Comet at [email protected]
Chris Baron is thinking about his friends today.
He’s been on the road for a good long while now, kicking out his raucous, infectious acoustic-powered rock n’ roll to audiences all over this chunk of land. On tour again. Most recently, in his favorite part of the country: right around here.
A scant few minutes after meeting the man, you’re certain to hear the term ‘Great Pacific Northwest.’ He’ll talk about the landscape and the people and the sky and the water. He loves this place he calls home. He’ll tell you that last night, he was around a fire up Icicle Creek near Leavenworth and that he’s heading back there after tonight’s gig. The forest beckons. As does the river.
But just now, tonight’s show at McGlinn’s is getting him excited. Revved up. He’s been here before, he knows these folks. He’s got a standing offer here that he’s linked up with gigs at Munchen Haus in Leavenworth for the past three years running. Both places “are very cultivated, and they really care about what they do,” he enthuses. He’s always stoked about these gigs.
This particular time through has a bit of a different flavor to it: “My friends have been on my mind a lot,” Baron muses, sitting in the warm Wenatchee sun next to the river, a few hours ahead of the show.
He seems a touch wistful, but more so inspired, charged. Maybe a recent dormant streak has tweaked his “normally bombastic self” onto this thoughtful, electric tangent. “Before tonight’s gig I’ve had four days off!” The tone in his voice speaks alongside his words, suggesting “how ridiculous is that?!”
His mind is humming, his eyes alive, his constant grin infectious: “What mood am I in? What do I feel like doing?” You can see the wheels turning. That’ll happen when you’re in this headspace and your friends happen to be some of your favorite musicians. “They write great songs!” He’s psyched. “They’re coming up with brilliant ideas! I’m listening all the time, seeing if maybe there’s an idea I can borrow or steal or use to pay tribute, help it reach an audience it otherwise wouldn’t get to.” And then, almost as if he’s revealing a secret (or maybe something that just dawned on him), he spouts “I’m gonna play songs by friends tonight!”
It speaks to his character that he would think to do this, as the man’s own songs are tremendous layered blasts of songwriter rock n’ roll, well strong enough to grab your attention and vastly overfill any set-list card. His decades-long songbook of original material is bursting at the seams with killer stuff, but today he wants to do both.
And tonight at McGlinn’s Public House in Wenatchee, Washington, he does just that.
From an almost comically small stage, this man and his guitar (with that magical kick-drum!) absolutely fills the air with lyrical and musical thrust and boom and charm – creations from his own guts and those of his friends.
He rolls out his own songs, tightly-crafted interesting lyrical rock n’ roll, and those of his brothers “Ryan Ferris, Jake Riggs, Will Downing,” he’s rattling them off, “Ben C., Shane Brown,” making sure to remind me to find them online. The fact that he can easily command the stage with his own great stuff, and has the memory and skill to seamlessly play his friends’ music, that’s huge.
Despite his introspective nature earlier this afternoon, Chris Baron rocks the joint tonight at McGlinn’s. His aggressive, rousing guitar and soaring voice belies his earlier thoughtful mood. Highly spirited acoustic folk n’ rock n’ roll, an energizing treat to behold.
Welcome back to Wenatchee indeed, Mr. Baron. Tell us, how did all this start? “I was a weekend warrior in Portland from ‘07 to 2015,” he recalls. “I was in five different bands at any given moment.” He squints “I was fronting three different bands with three different line-ups at one point.” Turns out, most of these bands didn’t pan out. The usual suspects, of course: “breaking up, falling apart, bickering, fighting, creative differences. More covers? Less covers? Who’s bored playing what, job offers, transfers…”
The bummer of repeated collapses rushes in on him: “...all that work that we put in with all these bands, which meant the world to me, would just be…over with.”
At some point in 2015, a straw broke a camel’s back. “I decided no more bands. I’m going solo.” He lit a fire under his own ass with his Two-Year Plan, focused and hit it hard. A full six months before that alarm bell rang, Baron found himself ‘all systems go’ “with a bunch of gigs lined up. So I just hit the road.”
He makes it sound so simple. “I recommend this to every pure-blood singer/songwriter out there: start with who you know. Pick a friend of yours who lives in another town,” he advises. Then you gotta work the phones, calling venues. “You get a gig in their town and then you kinda stair-step it.” This approach worked for Baron, a man who greased the skids by being willing to crash wherever he needed: “friends’ houses, guest rooms, couches, campgrounds, hotels…”
His touring was close to home at first, but with his enthusiasm and circle of friends, it grew quickly with him “just filling in the gaps.” He says he still does “stretches like that, where I kinda busk my way forward,” but now he likes to “sit down in advance, plan where I want to go and make those calls.”
Somewhere on that long American West road he’s been on for years now, he came upon a notion regarding what his future could look like; touring and playing and traveling. That notion grew into an idea, which he developed into a concept. It’s currently a loose plan, which Baron is fine-tuning into a reality.
It goes, quite simply, like this: “From BC down to the Bay Area, west of the Rockies. Plus Texas. That’s the thing,” he states plainly. “It feels right to me.”
Alright then. There it is. A nice, tight, touring/life plan that keeps Baron where he thrives, where he feels most at home, kicking ass all over the Western states. Kind of a sweet little program. “It’s not so bad!” he laughs.
“All my formative years are in the Pacific Northwest, which is why I want to center here. I leave a lot, but I keep coming back.” He’ll be doing a whole lot of both into the foreseeable future, as 2025 is already booking up: “I’ve got confirmed dates in Texas, Tucson, across Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. And then I fill in the blanks!”
The image of slugging out a life on the road, town after town, with no guaranteed results, might make some folks queasy, but this guy says “it works for me,” noting that it didn’t play out for some of his original bandmates. “I felt that fear,” of an unpromised future he admits, “but it’s not so scary once you do it.”
And now, the man IS doing it. I asked him about success. What is it? He told me that he views success as “not begging for opportunities anymore; you start getting invited to be a part of something cool.”
When asked to travel to Alaska for a circuit of gigs, he jumped like a hungry trout, bringing along his whole band and winning over audiences all over the Last Frontier. Recently, an offer came back from that same contact to return and play the Alaska State Fair. Kiiind of a big deal.
He realizes my prompting: “It’s hard to see when you’re doing it, you always think you need to hustle harder, try harder. Am I trying 110% Or just 105%?”
Then, after a pause, the magic happens: this West Coast musician, this Pacific Northwest (and beyond) troubadour realizes “yeah! I AM getting those invites!”
This thing might just be working. Do yourself a favor. Go see this man play music.
[Chris Baron is playing live at McGlinn’s in Wenatchee on 8/28 and Munchen Haus in Leavenworth on 8/29. Www.ChrisBaronMusic.com]
Jason Olcott, July/August 2024
