Chris Merenda

Chris Merenda got his start in the music business in 1993 as a drummer/vocalist in New England's most well hung Ska band, Skarotum. The band found success in the Northeast playing with Ska favorites, The Toasters and Burning Spear – along with personal favorites such as Bim Skala Bim and The Pilfers.Then in 1996 Merenda founded Chewbacca, a garage rock band comprised of only two other fellow Skarotum members, and it acted as a formative vehicle for Chris to exercise his songwriting/guitar playing/band fronting abilities. As he evolved, so did the band, and eventually it would come to be comprised of its current members and be renamed Chewy by late 1998.Chewy went on a tear for the better part of the following five years (chewyrocks.com) producing two potent releases: the Super Spin Punch EP (1999) and the full length Chew thousand Chew (2002). Eventually the band came to a point where a hiatus was required for a brief time though. In the interim, Merenda continued maturing as a songwriter and musician as he produced two impressively diverse solo records, The Regimen in 2003 - and more recently – Hello Freedom in 2005, both featuring his expanded musicality and broadened palette influenced from concurrently touring as the drummer for "subversive acoustic traditionalists..." The Mammals during the same timeframe.Touring with The Mammals since 2004, Merenda won the opportunity to share his unique music with audiences around the country and also had the benefit of being a band member of not only the Mammals, but of Arlo Guthrie’s backup band during the Alices Restaurant 40th anniversary Masacree Tour. He played in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and enjoyed opening for musical icons such as Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, and Nickel Creek.As Merenda wound down the remainder of the Mammals 2007 tour schedule this summer, he looked to the future in working on new Chewy demos and a new solo record. Select Chewy and Chris Merenda shows are planned for the Fall of ’07 and Winter of ’08. The rest is yet to occur… stay close.