Hello friends! Welcome back for the new 311 fan spotlight! This week we meet the other half of last weeks fan spotlight. Let me introduce you to Chris Wood!
It was thanks to Erika that Chris became a fan of the band. They started dating in early 2002 and she had made it very clear to him how much music meant to her, in particular 311. “She used to have lyrics from her favorite songs all over her room and so I made a point to get more familiar with their albums. Erika ended up buying me a couple of their albums, Music and From Chaos. I remember jamming out in my car to those CD’s and just enjoying the fusion of the rap and rock.”
Show count is at 43 for Chris. His first show was August 12, 2002 at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. “It was one of our first getaways as a couple and I was definitely not quite sure what to expect show wise. But it was made memorable by the fact that we managed to meet the entire band after sound check, which I didn’t think would be possible being that it was Vegas and I was expecting more security for some reason. We stood out in the blazing sun for close to 4 hours with no water along with a couple other fans. At one point, Erika was starting to feel a little light headed, so I went inside to get some water from one of the shops inside the Mandalay Bay. Once we guzzled down our $8 bottled water, the band began coming out one by one and started chatting with us. Erika had never actually met the band before, so it was fun to see her dream come true. We managed to get a few pictures and a couple of cd liners signed. The show itself was fun, we were sitting in the upper level of the House of Blues. I remember at one point, they played Champagne and there was a bubble machine that was supposed to go on. But it never did during the song. It ended up kicking on during Wake Your Mind Up instead and I remember Nick just looking up and laughing. That was one of the few shows that I’ve been to where Nick did his stage dive during Feels So Good at the end of the set.”
Chris & Erika have been to every 311 Day since 2010, on the cruises in 2013, 2017, and 2019, as well as Red, White, & Boom in 2015 and 2016. If he had to pick one of these as his favorite, he’d go with Red, White & Boom from 2015. “It was just a fun weekend of music and actually meeting a lot of people that Erika and I had seen at other events like 311 Day. We both came away with a lot of new friendships and appreciation of the 311 experience as a whole.”
There are many songs that mean a lot to Chris and have resonated with him over the years. A few of those include “Use of Time”, “Stealing Happy Hours”, “Creature Feature”, “Uncalm”, “Sun Come Through”, and “Speak Easy”. However it’s the song “Boom Shanka” that he’s become particularly attached to. “It actually came at a very dark time for me. In the beginning of 2014, I was going through a rough stretch in my life personally and professionally, so I was feeling very lost, angry and depressed. We were close to cancelling our trip out to New Orleans for 311 Day, but in the end we did go since we were going to meeting up with some friends of ours. Shortly before our trip out to NOLA, I had managed to find a leak download for the new Stereolithic album and put it on our phones to listen to on our way there. The track list wasn’t quite in order, but once I got to Boom Shanka on my playlist, it literally made stop what I was doing at the time and I just remember listening very carefully to lyrics in particular. Once I had a chance to really let it sink in, I started to rethink a lot of things and not let my emotions get the best of me. Since then, things have been great and I’ve been a little more appreciated of what life has thrown my way.”
Some lyrics from songs that he love include: “Be positive with love, just see the good in everybody,” and “Now I’m ready to turn the page on yesterdays and forgive them. Now I’m willing to disengage, to seize the day and move on.”
There are two places that Chris grew up: Lake Tahoe and Santa Cruz. His parents divorced when he was just 3 years old, so he spent the first 7 years of his life in the Lake Tahoe area until his mother moved them to Santa Cruz. “I split time with my parents, spending time with my dad during the winter breaks, major holidays and summers in Tahoe. The rest of the school year was spent in Santa Cruz, so it wasn’t a bad way to grow up all things considered. I was there for the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, which was a more than a little scary as we were close to epicenter of the quake.” Once Chris graduated high school in 1999, he stayed for one more year attending college before deciding to move back to Tahoe to live with his dad. “I spent the next two years working and going to school full time at the local community college in Tahoe, where I met Erika. We ended up moving to Reno in the fall of 2002 and we’ve been here ever since. I work for a local family owned paper company in nearby Sparks, which helps to fund our various 311 adventures. And yes, it’s a lot like the tv show, the Office. It’s a little scary just how accurate that show is with my workplace. Recently in the last couple of years we adopted two little shelter dogs appropriately named after 311 songs, Cali Soca and Unity, so they have brought Erika and I a lot of fun and mayhem.”
Interesting fact about Chris is that he has a half brother whom he didn’t know about until he was around the age of 15. “We’ve kept in touch over the years and we actually met up recently in Vegas during the Unity Tour 2017. I got the chance to meet my nephew for the first time and he’s just the coolest little kid. Fun fact, he was actually born on 311 Day 2015, so Erika and I make sure to wish him a very Happy 311 Day each year.” Unique element for Chris is that when he drives somewhere new, he tends to memorize the whole route in his head by looking at landmarks, etc. “So the next time I’m heading to the same place, I don’t have to rely on a map or GPS for directions. It can be something as simple as just going into a new neighbor or just a new city in general. But it’s like a weird muscle memory thing or something like that.”
Guilty pleasure for Chris is comic book collecting. “It’s been something very meaningful to me since I was a kid and it’s been interesting to see how mainstream it’s become over the years with all of the various movies and tv shows. I’ve literally got thousands of books of various superheroes, but mostly Spider-Man books.”
Other music that Chris loves includes The Dirty Heads, Queen, the Skints, No Doubt, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, BB King, and Stevie Ray Vaughn, just to name a few.
To 311, Chris would like to simply say: “Thank you for all that you do for the fans, no matter how big or small the gesture is.”
To the fans:
“Stay true to yourselves and enjoy this wild ride we call life.”
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Thanks Chris for sharing your story! As usual, thanks to all the readers out there. Be strong, be beautiful, and have a kick ass week!
Much Love – The Runt