Chad Lewine Autobiography
Chad Lewine followed the same path that most aspiring talent does. At 5 years old he knew he wanted to be a rock star. But the reasons for the dream have shifted throughout his life.
Early Life
He grew up in Montgomeryville, PA, a wooded suburban town 45 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. His mom was a huge fan of music and gave him the classic rock and pop baseline with her vintage vinyl collection. There was often music playing, whether at home or in the car. Chad quickly realized music was his thing, as opposed to acting or other performing arts.
His parents supported his musical and performance endeavors throughout his childhood. They gave him the freedom needed to craft his own artistic expression as he grew up. He took saxophone and guitar lessons in elementary school, performed at school talent shows and attended the local theater camp from age 6 to 18. In 6th grade he tried to start a band with his best friend but it broke up before it started. Early on he knew this was going to be a solo mission.
His first exposure to music production was through elective music tech and audio engineering classes in high school. He had a great teacher, Mr. Tumolo, that validated music as a possibility in the real world. Chad’s first productions may still be living on the internet somewhere.
Pittsburgh / 2008 – 2010
In 2009 Chad started taking his own music seriously while attending college at the now defunct Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He was writing lyrics on anything he could find. His job at Kay Jewelers was often slow, so he had ample time and lax oversight, which allowed for constant writing and improving.
During this time he began rapping over beats from popular artists at the time like Mario, Sean Kingston, Lil Wayne and Kid Cudi. His boyfriend at the time was very supportive of his musical aspirations. With his support, Chad built up the confidence to post on Craigslist and found a local hobbyist audio engineer to record vocals and create a bunch of mixtape-like tracks.
After several of these rudimentary tracks and moved into his first apartment of his own in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Chad quickly learned how to use Ableton and whipped up a colorful and varied eight track album called Demoesque – his first ever original release. The production and lyrical content is a far cry from what you’d expect Chad to talk about now. Songs like Grab a Pack, which is a letter to his mom about smoking blunts, and Applause, an early, somewhat ego-driven proclamation of where he saw his career going.
The Human Link 2009 – 2011
At the same time Chad was traveling back and forth to South Eastern PA and making some headway in popular New Yorker hideout, New Hope, PA. He connected with Dwayne Dunlevy, a local entertainer who introduced Chad to Spin Doctors’ rocker Anthony Krizan.
Chad recorded his first single, “Life is a Ride” at Krizan’s Sonic Boom Studios in Raritan, NJ in 2010. (He was going by Chad D at the onset of his career.) After a string of local shows including the New Hope pride parade and Philly’s OUTFEST, he recorded his first full length album, The Human Link. Released in June of 2011, The Human Link gave him a repertoire of material to perform, and for good reason, as he had just moved to Brooklyn, NY the same month.
Early Brooklyn/NYC / 2011 – 2013
For the first few years he did local open mics and shows supporting the club-themed single Life Is A Ride. Other songs like T.G.A. (The Gay Anthem) and Michael, about the suicide of a friend from college, proved out-the-gate that Chad was not just here for entertainment. He wants to move you.
In the summer of 2013 he renamed himself as HoneyChrome and reoriented his music to the EDM and hip hop of the time. He connected with a young Arkansas based producer, SubKrim, who’s tracks for music technology class homework turned out to be perfect for Chad’s mash up of genres.
SubKrim produced 8 original tracks for Chad, who released them as the album Life as a Student. The hip hop album features tracks ranging from the gentle and sea-faring Regatta, to the chunky groove and philosophical lyrics of Ancient Flow. Life as a Student was a declaration from Chad that he was no longer just a student of life, but going to share and practice what he has learned about being human on Earth.
While he was working with SubKrim he was simultaneously working on a collection of club inspired tracks. Featuring tracks like the dark instrumental EDM banger OK!!! to the somewhat aggressive and flirty Fog Machine, The Chocolate Album, was his first fully self produced release. It was released at the end of 2013 and came with 8 songs paired with 8 chocolate truffles created by his baker friend Travis Tribolet of Pittsburgh. There were only a handful made.
It was during the writing of this album that Chad descended into the nightlife of the New York rave scene. Drugs abound, he learned how to feel the grooves that the human mind and body responded to. Deep subs, thick synths and hypnotic beats. This would become the basis for most of his sound moving forward. Chad credits DJ Sliink and Matty Glitterati for introducing him to trap and bass music at Webster Hall.
Artist Loft Life / 2013 – 2014
Also in 2013 Chad moved into one of the last real artists lofts in Brooklyn at Bedford & Myrtle in Bed Stuy. This creative environment, led by actor and director Lin Lauren, was the first time he had ever been surrounded by and immersed in art. Here he wrote and recorded most of his second self-produced album, the 14 track new-age, spirit-science laden and anthemic Daylight Animal. He was heavily into the Law of Attraction at the time, a bit overboard, as there is such a thing as toxic positivity. But the lessons and grooves on the album are a testament to Chad’s commitment to an idea.
Toxic Positivity / 2014 – 2015
Upon moving into his first studio apartment in Bushwick, which was all of 200 sq feet and a shared kitchen with the neighbors, he had his first heartbreaks in NYC. These hopeless love stories inspired his All The Right Places EP. Released in late 2014, it features tracks like Baby Coming Back to Me in which Chad laments about his crush going away for two weeks on a work trip. Or the cavernous drum beats of All The Right Places – a lyrical twist on “finding love in all the wrong places.”
2014 slips by and the further away from the corporate world that brought him to NYC, the more Chad leaned into living the starving artist badge. In early 2015 he defaulted on rent and was verbally evicted, then, perceivably out of options, chose to drain what was left of his college money and move into a posh luxury apartment with a friend of a friend for a few months. Songs like Night Time Flight Time and several unreleased records were written and recorded in this serene environment. But that sense of success was short lived and the prepaid rent ran out.
Artist Loft Life pt. 2 / 2015 – 2017
Briefly staying in a room with just a skylight, Chad found his way to another artist loft in Brooklyn. This time it was in Clinton Hill, near the Navy Yard. He lived there, with up to 14 other people, from June 2015 – December 2016. Here he met a whole new group of artists. The constant tenant turnover and fluid energy inspired his rebirth-themed single and consequent album, Sprout, released in 2016. The album includes songs such as the ambitious single Sprout and the trap drum and guitar-driven We’re Here, which is an homage to John Lennon’s & Yoko Ono’s “Give Peace A Chance” with a little nod to Rihanna in the second verse.
During his time on the first floor of the same building, he began a new era that would become the songs on his fifth release, Feeling High. A blatant play on the high school theme, Chad’s Feeling High is all about applying what he had learned over the last several years, both sonically and lyrically. This album was produced mostly using sounds from the Korg Kaossilator Pro, a rare and strange synth that was designed to accent DJ sets. Chad mastered it as an instrument and made use of it in a different way.
Feeling High, which was mostly produced during a turbulent time in his life, sparked vulnerable and dark money related songs like Cashing Out and See Through Me, which he wrote when he was struggling with anxiety & depression, and Finding Freedom, a haunting pop slow jam about, well, finding freedom in the shadow of bureaucracy and societal expectations. A music video for Finding Freedom was produced with local filmmaker Peter Espinal.
The album also spawned songs like the spiritually/romantically ambiguous Protector, featured in his most popular Instagram reel, and arena-ready protest tracks like Machine, which he hopes to one day reproduce and remaster.
Boomerang / 2017 – 2020
At the end of 2017, Chad’s homemade demo for Boomerang, also featured on Feeling High, caught the ear of a radio promoter who connected him with Mike Rogers, mixing engineer of the 90s global hit Groove is on the Heart. Rogers ended up producing Chad’s biggest track yet, Boomerang. Released in the summer of 2018, Boomerang is a sticky and infectious pop record, with sonic accents that just feel like Chad. During this recording process, Rogers helped extract and refine the character and vocal stylings that instantly identify Chad’s voice today. Boomerang has recently surpassed 100,000 streams as of August 2022 and is climbing steadily.
After pushing boomerang, on the guidance of a close friend and advisor in the industry, Chad decided to focus solely on getting better at songwriting for the next few years. Upon leaving Brooklyn at the end of 2019 and the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic shortly after, Chad harnessed his special method for songwriting during this time.
COVID / 2020 – 2022
Chad spent the quarantine part of Covid happily alone in a 3-bedroom house in Rochester, NY. The reason he moved there ended up being almost like a cult, which did some damage and greatly affected Chad’s mental health. Though, through the experience, he had plenty of alone time in a place where he could be 100% creatively free. Key releases from this era are singles like Breaking The Bond, one of the first of many of Chad’s songs that address narcissistic and emotionally abusive relationships, and Higher Ground, a protest song with an ascendant electro pop/rock vibe.
Finally getting the courage to leave the cult in February 2021, he moved back to his hometown of Lansdale, PA to reset and lay a foundation for the next era of his life and career.
The hometown comfort and years of practice laid ground for his latest pop / trap anthem, 35. Teaming up with LA based producer Mark Evich (Universal Productions) and Catapult Sound, Chad released the big bop about wanting to buy a house on June 1st, 2022.
During the second half of 2022, Lewine’s mission fully crystallized. Through the turbulent end of an abusive relationship and a renewed and confident sense about his music, POP, FOR GOOD was born and the first proper brand was developed for his artistry. With an image that matches his outspoken, somewhat existentialist and controversial perspective, Lewine has fully owned his mission and has released the single Dark Nights, on February 15th, 2023.