My name is Chad Johnson, I was born and raised in Northfield, MN. It’s a small town that is known for defeating the Jesse James Gang in 1876. Northfield has two nationaly recognized colleges, St. Olaf and Carleton. And last, but not least Northfield is home to Malt-O-Meal, the best made cereal in the country.
The brand of music that I play is…“Acoustic Alternative.” It’s a mix of Rock & Country. It all started for me back in 1994 when I was in 7th grade. One of my best friends at the time, Mark Grundhoefer was just starting to learn the guitar…And I had always had had an interest in music, but to this point had never learned to play an instrument. Mark thought that I should learn to play the Drums, so that we could start a band…I thought that was the coolest idea ever! For the next week or so Mark, and I were on the search to find an old used drum kit…Well we found one, and a $150 dollars later I was in heaven. I thought it was the greatest kit ever. It included a Bass drum, two toms, snare, hi-hat, and one symbol that used to be part of a hi-hat. I used an old stool to sit on because it didn’t come with a throne. Looking back now that thing was the biggest piece of junk ever, but it’s what I learned to play on, and that’s all that matters. Our good buddy, Russell Franek also showed interest in learning an instrument…So Mark started to teach him the guitar. In a couple months or so we had our band. Mark, Russ, and myself. We were known as the Grundhoefer band. The funny thing is that Mark literally taught both me, and Russ in just a couple months time how to play our instruments.
In my opinion Mark is a musical genius. It’s just natural for him.
Marks Dad Joe, who is the owner of the Rueb’N'Stein – bar & grill, in Northfield. Let us put on little concerts like once a month Up-Stairs at the Rueb. We would make up little flyers and hang them up at school. They would say something like…
“The Grundhoefer Band” – Playing Friday night 7-9pm, $2.00 cover charge. Free pop, and chips all night…
We would have huge turnouts. Joe would let us divide up what ever we made off the cover charge. Which some nights was a pretty good chunk of change. (For 7th, and 8th graders anyway.) We felt like little rock stars! This went on for about two years. Once we got into 9th grade we started slowly going our separate ways. But There’s no question that those were some greatest times I ever had while growing up. Myself, and Russell still remained pretty close through the years though. We would get together, and jam here and there. But now instead of being a drummer, my interest was more into playing the guitar, and writing songs.
In 2001 Russell Franek, Adam Hackfeld, Kyle Heckers, and myself starting a band called –
“Communication Breakdown” I was no longer a drummer. Now I was playing guitar, and singing.
We had a lot of fun playing a variety of different bars, clubs, and outdoor events…We released our first album in January 2002, at The Grand in Northfield. (Which by the way is my favorite place to play) Our old buddy Mark Grundhoefer who basically taught me, and russ everything we know about music, made a guest appearance at our release party. It was great to play music with him again after we had kind of lost touch with him for a few years.
In May of 2002 my son Ethan was born. This changed everything, suddenly it was just getting to hard to be playing shows every weekend. We tried to keep it going for about a year or so after that, but it was just to much. Russell moved on to a new project Called “Flatrate.” While Adam, and Klye stopped playing music all together. In the mean time I was working on writing new songs for my solo project. I went to the Pachyderm recording studio in Cannon Falls, MN. Which is a major label studio, to record my solo album. It was an unbelievable experience.
It has been nearly five years since I recorded my solo album. Although I was very proud of the way it turned out I just didn’t have the means, or the time to promote it the way I wanted to. After my release party at The Grand, in July 2004, which I definitely consider a success, selling over 200 CD’s the first night. I would not play another live show for nearly 4 years. Right before the release of my solo album my Daughter Julia was born, and two years later my wife, and I had another girl named Kelly…We were very happy, but very busy with raising our children. But along with three children, and a wife, also comes a lot of inspiration to write new songs. So that is what I have been doing these last few years. Now with the kids a little older, it has become a bit easier to start playing live shows again. Mainly it’s just myself doing little acoustic shows which is a lot of fun, and a lot less stressful then dealing with a full band. Organizing practices are much easier this way!
Sometime this summer I will be releasing my second solo album…Watch for it.
What a ride!
