Chaz Chambers is a Colorado-based drummer, composer and entrepreneur. Music has taken him from small rock and metal shows in the Southeast to cruise ships, arenas, recording studios and eventually into a second career built around music and travel.
Chaz started playing music at seven and spent his teenage years in working bands across the American Southeast. He later studied Drum Performance at Atlanta Institute of Music and Media, graduating in 2012.
After school he worked internationally as a cruise-ship drummer, then joined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. Chaz was the final drummer for Ringling’s Red Unit and performed more than 500 shows during the final era of the production.
He is a Vic Firth artist and an experienced sight-reader with a background that crosses rock, jazz, funk, pop, country, Latin music, metal and production-show work.
Composer and recording artist
Drumming is still the center of Chaz’s musical life, but he has never been interested in making music simply to show off drumming. His writing tends to start with feel, groove, atmosphere and whatever he is actually thinking about at the time.
Earlier releases include Colored World, Apatheia and the full-length album Coastal. His next album, Momentum, is still being written. The newer material is leaning further into ambient and post-rock space, heavier guitars, orchestral textures and some of the metal influence he grew up with.
Music and travel
In January 2017, while still touring with Ringling, Chaz went to Cuba to study Afro-Cuban percussion. What began as a personal music trip changed the direction of his work. It eventually led to Havana Music Tours and later Musical Getaways.
Those companies grew out of a simple idea: if music is one of the best ways to understand a place, then the musicians, neighborhoods, festivals and local relationships should be at the center of the trip rather than added on afterward.
The CreatiVRole Project
Chaz also founded and helps direct The CreatiVRole Project, a Colorado-based nonprofit connected to many of the same long-term relationships. Its work has included instruments and creative supplies, support for music education, humanitarian assistance and recovery projects.
Today
Chaz is currently writing Momentum, taking selected drum and session work, teaching, and directing Musical Getaways and The CreatiVRole Project.