Episode 111: Having a Can Do Attitude & Being Performance Ready

Chad Jeffers began his music career guided by his Singer-Songwriter Dad. At the age of eight, he was already playing drums in a band with his father Doc Jeffers and older brother Michael. A year later, Jeffers switched to guitar when he and his brother formed Raney Nickel, a country top-40 band. They played fairs, festivals, and theme parks throughout East Tennessee (including dates at Dollywood).

After high school, Jeffers moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University where he later would receive a scholarship. He double-majored in music business and marketing. When he wasn’t in class, Jeffers spent his time interning/working at Starstruck Entertainment, Reba McEntire’s in-house company which handled her booking, management, publishing, promotion and touring. It was a one in a million opportunity for him to learn everything about the music business from the ground up, and he used the time working on his songwriting, pitching songs and recording.

Shortly after graduation, Jeffers was hired by Canadian country act The Wilkinsons as their Dobro and acoustic guitar player. Two years later, he came off the road to focus on his own group, Pinmonkey, an acoustic country/bluegrass-flavored band that was attracting considerable notice along Music Row. RCA Records signed Pinmonkey and in 2002, released the group’s first single, “Barbed Wire and Roses.” The song reached #25 on Billboard’s country chart, but despite critical acclaim and a loyal fan base, RCA eventually dropped the act without a second album.

Since then, Jeffers has worked steadily as an artist/musician/producer backing up some of the music’s biggest names. In his travels, he’s played Live 8, appeared on nearly every major awards show from the Grammys to the American Music Awards to the CMA’s, and performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people around the world from Afghanistan to Japan.

For the past few years, he’s been an adjunct professor at Belmont University. He then went on to tour with Keith Urban, Kenny Loggins, Jamie O’Neal, and many others.

In 2007, he started touring with country superstar, Carrie Underwood. In 2008, he authored and published his first book, 25 Notes for the Successful Musician, which started a speaking career for Jeffers.

In Fall 2019 he released BackStage Notes, which is an intro course into the careers of Music, released by his publishing company. All along, he’s been giving talks and lectures on many different stages.

When he isn’t in the studio producing other artists or touring the world, he focuses on inspiring others and helping people with their creativity and music careers through speaking on stages around the world.

“Music has the power to change the world. I feel that my role is to entertain, inspire and educate others on exactly how they can express themselves through music. Being on stage with world-renowned artists as a musician is my passion, but being on stage as a speaker to inspire others, is my purpose.” ~Chad Jeffers

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