Swiss Chris   ·  drums

Swiss Chris

Swiss Chris

Swiss Chris has just fin­ished a suc­cess­ful four years as the Music Direc­tor and Drum­mer for five time Grammy win­ner, John Leg­end, and is now build­ing his own career with a forth­com­ing album to be released Inter­na­tion­ally as well as fin­ish­ing his book, Stick­ing With Swiss.  Swiss is also actively involved with his S.W.I.S.S. (Sav­ing With Instru­ments, Sam­ples and Soundz) Orga­ni­za­tion, ded­i­cated to heal­ing and edu­cat­ing peo­ple with musi­cal instru­ments as well as to help in the spread of com­mu­ni­ca­tion through music for bet­ter­ment of the world.

Dur­ing 2006–2008, for John’s “Once Again” album, Swiss con­tributed his tal­ents and did 2 US tours, 2 Euro­pean tours, and 1 Asian tour. With the release of John Legend’s “Get Lifted” album, Swiss played on 3 US tours, 3 Euro­pean tours, 2 Aus­tralian tours and tours in New Zealand and Japan and worked with artists like Sir Elton John, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Com­mon, Wyclef Jean, Miss Lau­ren Hill, DJ Dummy and DJ A-Trak.

Swiss Chris was also the Musi­cal Director/Drummer for the Home School Records/ Bailey’s spon­sored Tour 2008 and video fea­tur­ing “Estelle” Fanta Swaray.
He is cur­rently work­ing with the Live Hip Hop Groups “The Real Live Show,” “Zimbwe Legit,” Mazzi with S.O.U.L. Pur­pose and his own Group “The Dream Team One” (Swiss Chris Freestyle Shows).
Swiss Chris is star­ring in the Hip-hop/Rock Video with Talib Kweli’s group, Idle War­ship on the track  ”Black Snake Moan.” He also recently recorded with the world famous drum­mer Billy Cob­ham, DMC and Chuck D. from Pub­lic Enemy.

Swiss formed a 501c3 Non-For-Profit orga­ni­za­tion called S.W.I.S.S. (Sav­ing with Instru­ments, Sam­ples and Soundz) in 2007. He has already directed and played mul­ti­ple local New York shows.

Com­ing to New York via Boston, Swiss started work­ing with a local Funkband lead by the Jew­ish James Brown, “Milo Z. He also started work­ing with Hip Hop Old School Leg­ends like Chubb Rock, Char­lie Brown from the Lead­ers of the New School, Slick Rick, Grand­mas­ter Caz, the Rock Steady Crew and DJ Johnny Juice from Pub­lic Enemy.

While in the States, Swiss Chris earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Per­for­mance from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts. He fur­ther stud­ied at the Drummer’s Col­lec­tive in New York after gain­ing his paper at Dante Agos­tini in Switzer­land (cer­tifi­cate in Con­tem­po­rary Music). He received mul­ti­ple awards and hon­ors as a march­ing band field drum­mer, big band and con­tem­po­rary jazz drum­mer as well as earn­ing a human­i­tar­ian award from his home­land Switzerland.

Swiss has stud­ied with diverse teach­ers like Bob Moses, Mar­vin “Smitty” Smith, Kim Plain­field, Casey Scheuerell, Ken­wood Den­nard, Joe Morello, Jim Chapin and last but not least, the Drum­doc­tor Dom Famularo.

He has been on BET in a fea­tured per­for­mance as the musi­cal director/drummer for the Ed Gor­don Show with the Last Poets, Jes­sica Care Moore and Mums from the Hit HBO show OZ. Swiss per­formed and/or recorded with con­scious MC’s like Mos Def, Dead Prez, Acro­batic, Afura and Milano.

Swiss was the musi­cal direc­tor and house drum­mer for the leg­endary Lyri­cist Lounge. He worked for mul­ti­ple fundraiser and char­ity events with the polit­i­cal activist group Earth­driver. He’s played at Madi­son Square Gar­den for a Mumia Abu Jamal Ben­e­fit (with a All-star cast).

He was also the musi­cal director/drummer/programmer for Mex­i­cano 777 (fea­tur­ing KRS One and Mad Lion) and Bazaar Royal (MTV appear­ance). He toured East­ern and West­ern Europe with the leg­endary James ‘Blood’ Ulmer (Blues/Jazz). He per­formed at the Apollo The­ater with Billy Cox (Jimmy Hen­drix, Band of Gyp­sies) and Ladell Mclin, Jes­sica Care Moore and Imani Uzuri and Burnt Sugar.

Tele­vi­sion appear­ances included: MTVs Video Music Awards, The Soul Train Music Awards, The Nobel Peace Prize Award Cer­e­mony at Oslo, Jamaican and Trinidad Fes­ti­vals, DTV Royal Albert Hall Show, ITunes Yahoo and Ver­i­zon Pro­mo­tional Tours, Tyra Banks, Ellen, The View, Jimmy Kim­mel, David Let­ter­man, Conan O’Brian, Oprah, Good Morn­ing Amer­ica, MTV Music Awards Japan, VH1 Super­bowl Pepsi Smash and The CBS Early Show, Jay Leno, BET Gospel, Cus­tom Con­cert Oxy­gen Net­work, MTV and Grammy Appear­ances in the US, Europe and MTV Africa, and the Vibe Fes­ti­val with Com­mon and Kayne West.

Swiss Chris endorses Yamaha Drums and Elec­tron­ics, Sabian Cym­bals, Vic Firth Sticks, Aquar­ian Drum­heads, Hansen­futz Footpedals, Alesis/Akai Elec­tron­ics, CAT Mics, Apple, Able­ton and Pro­peller­head Software.