Andre Chrys

Andre Chrys is a Vancouver singer-songwriter who delivers roots rock songs that blend eclectic influences from rock, classic pop, Americana, blues, and soul. Andre Chrys began his music career in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He paid his dues in hardworking bands that toured across Canada, playing clubs and festivals. Life, love and reality took him down a dozen different roads since then, finally drawing him to the west coast.

Window to Nowhere is a new record, with an old soul.

Window to Nowhere introduces colourful characters, and themes of love and loss, layered into a classic roots rock style that Andre’s known for around Vancouver.

"I've always responded to music with a timeless quality to it," says Andre Chrys. "That's something I wanted to achieve in my music, to put in the kind of attention to songwriting that you see in some of the real greats: Tom Waits, Townes van Zandt, and Steve Earle...really putting the song first."

Andre wrote the songs on Window to Nowhere on his 60-year-old Gibson acoustic.

Andre explains the inspiration for the title track: “I have a room at home where I do most of my writing and recording. It has a window that looks out onto the wall of the house right next to mine. It’s East Van, and the houses are built really close to each other. I’m not even sure why they put the window in the room in the first place. It’s literally a window to nowhere. I’m trying to capture that desperate, out-on-a-ledge feeling you get when the walls are closing in around you. I’m sure that most people who live in shoebox-sized digs in Vancouver can relate.”

“Old Volvo,” an ode to the boxy and utilitarian Swedish car, came to him after his ‘79 Volvo saved his life. Andre was rear-ended by a delivery truck while stopped at a red light. “I knew the accident was bad when the auto insurance adjuster looked at the Volvo, then looked at me and asked me if I was a religious man. He said I’m lucky to be alive.” Andre was banged up, the old Volvo was written off, but it lives on immortalized in song.

Other songs include the hard-hitting “Get Away With It,” the swampy, folk-noir “Don’t Disappear on Me,” and the swinging “The Velvet Rut,” that will have you kicking at the lid of your own coffins and confines.

Window To Nowhere was recorded and mixed by John Raham at Vancouver’s Afterlife Studios, using vintage analog recording equipment.

Accompanying Andre on Window To Nowhere are long time bandmates Jeff Younger (guitar), Bill Briscall (bass), and Mike Magnusson (drums). Guest musicians lending their talents to the record include Aiden Briscall (Wake Owl) on violin, and Tyson Naylor (Dan Mangan) on organ and accordion.

Catch Andre Chrys playing live in the hardest-working music venues in Vancouver, Canada, and beyond.