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Hi, I'm Chris Milam ("MY-lum"). I'm a singer/songwriter in New York City. I'm not a publicist, and publicists tell the story. Half the story, anyway.
So, let's take a look at my career as I write about it in third person!
"Born in Virginia, raised in Memphis, trained in Nashville, and now living in New York, Chris Milam's story reads like a musical manifest destiny now fulfilled. In 2005, he released Leaving Tennessee to critical acclaim and multi-platinum sales. With the release of 2008's Tin Angel EP, Milam cemented his reputation as a pop songwriting force. Milam's subsequent tours across the country have built a rabid and ever-expanding fanbase. Fans and critics alike hotly anticipate his third studio album, set to arrive in the fall of 2009. It promises to go diamond, end world hunger, and steal my heart."
Couldn't have said it better myself! But my publicist only told half the story.
In January 2009, I was exhausted. I had just released the Tin Angel EP, and had been on the road regularly for a few years. I needed a break, a nap, a snack, shower, something. So, for two months in the dead of winter, I did nothing but write songs. I holed up in a spare room in Arkansas. I took no calls, I answered no emails. I took everything I'd seen and heard, everything over the those past hours and weeks and months and days that had built me up and worn me out, and I wrote it down. Some songs were hard to write; others were easy. Some took a while; some arrived fully-formed. Eventually, they all came tumbling out. Song after song after song. Handfuls, then dozens. I tried to keep up.
I came back to Nashville with a stack of songs, a little bit of cash, a window of time, and a plan. Just weeks before I moved from Nashville to New York, I took the songs, and I took the cash, and spent that window of time in a studio with my friend and producer Steve Martin. Nine songs, seven days, two guys, a roomful of instruments, a few microphones, and no sleep.
The result is my new album--the most intimate, narrative, and deeply personal songs I've ever recorded. Its story began in January, but it happened in a flash. It's a little time, a little room, a lot of inspiration, a lot of energy, and a little luck. We hit record, then hit print.
A few weeks later, I moved to New York. Now I've got a new home, a new lease, a new record, a new story, and I tell it every time I step onstage. I also have a new publicist, and a new bio. But she's only got half the story.
You and I got the other half.
