Upside Down Country: A Q&A with Chase Bryant

Country up-and-comer and Texas native Chase Bryant comes from some respectable musical roots: his uncles founded country band Ricochet and his grandfather, Jimmy Bryant, played piano for icons like Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings. The younger Bryant has a unique method of musicianship – he plays his signature pink Telecaster left handed and upside down. We sat down with Bryant to talk about guitar playing, country radio and his impressive musical lineage.

So you have a pretty unique guitar style. Can you tell me about it? How did you learn to play?

I’m playing a right-handed guitar left handed. I grew up in a musical family where there were always instruments around. My grandfather played with Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Glen Campbell. My uncles were in a band called Ricochet in the ‘90s, a big country band. My first access to a guitar was a right-handed guitar. I’m really predominately right handed, but for whatever reason I picked it up that way and never turned it around. Everybody said I couldn’t do it, so therefore I had to do it. And that’s just the way I’ve been playing it ever since.

How did you learn to play it upside down?

I don’t know. It was kind of weird. I never had a teacher, never had anybody to give me a lesson or teach me to do it so I just had to kind of tough it out and do it on my own. I watched a bunch of videos and listened to a lot of records and ear picked everything out.

Did that ever pose any problems to you when you were trying to learn other peoples’ music?

A little bit. When it came to chicken picking or some country style playing, it got a little rough, and I don’t really do much of that. But I grew up listening to Mike Campbell and Tom Petty and Derek Trucks so that was more what I lended my ear towards, so it was a little easier to get into that than that fast, quick chicken picking stuff.

How important is the guitar melody to your songwriting process?

Huge. It’s everything. For me, it starts with a guitar melody a lot of the time, and mandolin or guitar, whatever it may be, it’s always a hook first. Some kind of musical hook for me, a lot of times, is first. So guitar hooks are the biggest thing to me right now.

So you focus on riffs?

Yeah. Right now the biggest part of my songwriting process is starting with a lick.

Do you prefer to co-write or do you like to write alone?

I love to co-write. I’m starting to get into the mood to want to write alone more. Just depends on how many times I have my heart broken, you know? But co-writing is a big deal to me. I think everybody has a story and I think it helps pull out the best in everybody individually.

Do you mostly draw influence from classic and modern country or do you listen to a lot of other stuff?

When I go to write a song, I never listen to country radio, ever. When I’m on the way to write, I turn on classic rock or something that I know I’m not gonna copy. I don’t wanna go in thinking, “I’m gonna write a hit!” because I’m not. I won’t ever know that until somebody buys that and makes it a hit. A lot of times I’ll listen to something older, and then I’ll go in and write and come back and get in the car and turn on the modern country station and see if it’ll fit the radio.

What influence did your grandfather have on you?

The biggest. He didn’t teach me about songwriting, I think he just used to play the right music to get me involved in it. I heard what I heard and had a huge love and a passion for it after listening to it with him. It’s kinda cool to still feel him with me when I’m playing because he’s the guy who got me started and got me here.