Chris Clayton Shideler
Chris Clayton is a live looping artist from the Grand Rapids, MI area. Taking inspiration from everything he hears, and using that to build layers of sounds to take his songs on a journey. Using his guitar and pedalboard (which is an instrument in itself), he tap dances around each footswitch, turns his guitar into percussion, while singing out melodies simultaneously.
Chris Clayton Shideler really got into music when he started high school. He grew up with an older brother, and father that played guitar, but didn't get that itch until friends also started playing instruments. His high school years were spent learn how to play, and even how to build guitar. His influence from music was late 90s and early 2000s. He spent a lot of time in a two piece band with a class mate, creating an alternative-grunge sound in the beginning but as his fascination with effect pedals grew, sounds grew into more experimental sounds. He mostly played electric guitar at the time. If not playing with someone, he'd spend hours alone in his room playing along with albums cover to cover. As high school ended, so did playing with class mates, as everyone was heading to college. Music just became a hobby he'd indulge from time to time.
After school, Chris joined a local band that he met through mutual friends. This gave him opportunity to experiment with more sounds and pedals. His favorite of which was delays/echoes. Also at the time, he started going to open mic nights throughout Grand Rapids' bars and breweries. Music became more of a priority to him, playing somewhere every night, so he invested more time and money. That is when he started building his pedalboard. After band members shuffled around, they had to start auditioning bassists, which for the time left only guitar, drums, and vocals. So to help along with practices and the audition process, Chris bought a Loop pedal, that way he could try and cover both parts of songs. This was his entrance into love looping, that he enjoyed playing around with that he started incorporating it into everything he could. As he parted with the bandmates, he realized how much he enjoyed looping, which he hadn't seen too many people do before. So he started playing shows periodically by himself, introducing the loop pedal into his arrangements, and it turned out to be a big hit.
Throughout 2016, Chris was playing so many open mic nights that the bars & breweries started asking him to come back and play shows. It started out as hour sets, opening up for different bands, but as he played more his name began to spread. Chris started playing full nights by himself, and playing places he had not played before. One show would have someone that passed his name to another venue, and so on.
As he played more places that didn't know him, his name began to get butchered. So he decided to not use his last name anymore, and eventually came up with the idea of branding himself. He has always been an artist, in all forms, and though he never pursued visual arts he still enjoys creating pieces. This brand idea sparked interest, and the first cartoon character was born.
He took the Chris Clayton Loop everywhere he could. He played almost every weekend of 2017, meeting new people, performing at new places, any opportunity he got Chris took. Some weekends were a series of shows. A very restless year for him. Between two full time jobs and playing music all night, he stayed busy to say the least.
Then in 2018, Chris and his wife welcomed home, not one, but two beautiful children. This slowed music down tremendously. He stopped playing bars/breweries and started playing to a wonderful crowd of two. After focusing solely on these two bundles, they've started coming out with mom and dad to the occasional evening open mic.
Now you can catch Chris Clayton Loop playing out at breweries again, not as frequent, but that means more energy for each show. And you might even catch the twins out in the crowd. But fewer shows also gives Chris more time at home to work on music, when he's not slinging bottles and changing diapers. So keep a look out for the next CCL performance, but also watch out on social media as he'll be sharing audio and videos.