Christopher Dumond
Christopher Dumond started learning guitar because of his dance background and playing guitar hero at a young age. He has since become a professional dancer in the West Coast Swing community and has continued to play guitar for 10+ years. Christopher’s passion for guitar and dance also inspired him to learn about mixing, editing, and producing music. After years of being self-taught, he decided to attend Norco College to better understand DAWs and audio production as a whole. What Chris found was an amazing family of artists who are endlessly inspiring.
Album Credits:
Gravity
My Only
Winter Still
Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24
Louder than Words
Listen
Without You
Used
Before You Go
Listen (Acoustic)
Tell us about yourself as an artist/musician. What do you do?
I mainly mix and write a lot of metal/rock, and it sort of just spurred from editing music for routines at dance events, where I got my mixing chops. I started to implement some of those techniques with playing the guitar, which I've played for years. It sort of just became trial and error. I was just messing around and finding what works for me regarding audio production by implementing both worlds.
I know that editing music for dance recitals had sparked your interest in audio production, but were you interested in music before that?
I wasn't actually interested in playing or making music for a while. I didn't play the guitar until I was sixteen as I only played guitar just to play guitar. I never really started writing stuff until I was probably eighteen as I was just learning my favorite songs. Once I started learning and making music, I started making stuff to dance to for my routines. I began to see all the avenues, and it really interested me. To put it simply, it was a very slow burn. It wasn't an instant thing as soon as I picked up the guitar.
Tell us about your time at NOMU so far?
Norco has been awesome. Coming from a world that is mainly moving to the music, I never thought that I would learn from a community where there are different-minded people but having similar toolsets in making music. That's something that I never really experienced because it was just me in my room collaborating with myself and no one else. So it's been amazing to have that experience.
Do you have a favorite memory or experience during your time here so far?
Honestly, my favorite memory is literally today, which was when we recorded and mixed my song with David Lee and went back and forth with the mixing process.
When you're writing or playing music, what influences constantly inspire you as a musician/artist (specific artist, film, art piece)?
Favorite band, Motionless In White. 100 percent. I feel like a lot of their stuff is kind of like if Journey and Marylin Manson had a baby, and it's pretty awesome. That's for the metal stuff. For the polar opposite, I don't really have a favorite artist. Still, I really like the chill electronic stuff to just play around the house. However, that doesn't really influence me; it's usually songs that I enjoy listening to. For one example, I like listening to a lot of Billie Ellish and Finneas. To sum things up, my main inspiration is Motionless In White because I mainly only write the heavier stuff.
What are your plans or goals in your life now concerning school, music, or just personally, any other pursuits?
I'm knocking on thirty, so I'm sort of looking ahead as far as that. For music, I would definitely want to build a home studio and use it as a creative outlet in the future. I learned in dance very quickly that no matter what you do, it's a job. While I enjoy dance and think it's an amazing outlet, I treated it as a job and it became work for me. I soon started to dread going to these events versus enjoying and getting excited about them. I want to keep that joy and creativity for music and not have it be such a job. My next goal is to find a job within audio but not make music because I want to keep that for me.
So does this mean that you'll be transitioning from dance to music, or do you still have that passion?
I definitely still have that passion for dance. I think what I want to do is treat dance as odd jobs. I'll go here for a weekend and there for a weekend to dance, but if it's my main gig, I can't travel thirty weekends out of the year to make a little over what a school teacher makes.
Any hobbies outside of music that you're interested in?
I love racing. Formula One is my thing. I absolutely love it.
Like do you go racing with other people?
Oh gosh, no. Formula One is one of the most elite drivers on the planet. There are only twenty drivers in the grid. It's very popular basically anywhere, but here. It's almost like soccer, which is actually football as it's popular everywhere else, but not really here. I just love Formula One. Just the technology. It's something that I really like as I even have a sim where I race on at home. Racing has always been my thing.
Is there anything you want to say to people reading this?
The first thing that comes to my mind is super cheesy, but it's "live life with calculated risk." You know what I mean. Here's the thing, if you want to live backpacking in Europe, just know what goes into it, enjoy yourself doing it, and prepare for all things. I think that's something that I learned a little too late as I didn't prepare for a lot of things, and it's come back to bite me, and I had to work harder because of it. When you want to go down a path that you want to go for your life, just make sure you've calculated at least what matters.