Chris Merritt @ Radio Radio

Raised in the dense Blue Ridge Mountains of Northern Virginia, Chris Merritt started playing the piano at the age of seven. Since then, he has written and recorded over 1,000 original songs and performed across the U.S., Canada and Japan. Even as an independent artist, his jazz-influenced, quirky style has gained him a steadily growing cult following across the world. Merritt "plays the piano like a guitar," and combines keyboards with eight-bit Nintendo sounds, catchy melodies with layered vocal harmonies, and eclectic subject matter with personal lyrics. As a child, Chris was obsessed with jazz and blues.

By age 12, Chris was recording next to jazz legend Marcus Roberts and playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on a float in the Rose Bowl Parade. He spent two years in Los Angeles as the lead singer of his band, Paperface, signed to Takeover Records, and another year performing independently under his own name. In 2007, Chris moved to Salt Lake City under the encouragement of childhood friend Tim Fellow, who assumed drumming and managing duties. Chris Merritt and his new trio were soon drawing local crowds of over a thousand. They played together for the next two busy years, performing over 100 U.S. shows, being chosen for the "Top Six" in Billboard Magazine's Indie World Series, opening for rock legend Ben Folds, doing a ten-stop tour of Japan, lending songs to two independent films, recording the double-album, "Pixie and the Bear," and having the album reviewed in the Weekend section of The Washington Post.

Recently, Chris returned home to Northern Virginia and is playing to growing crowds along the East Coast, with college friend and former band member of Paperface, bassist Jacob Thro, and the newest addition of drummer, Brett Ripley.