Chris Ward

Born around 1960 in New York’s South Bronx, Chris Ward entered the mid-1990s with precisely the credentials needed to thrive among rugged honky-tonk performers, having previously worked as a rodeo bull rider, a Marine sergeant and a SWAT operative in a California police department. Music had accompanied every stage of those pursuits; he first took up drums during an unsettled childhood shaped by his father’s executive post at IBM. In his teens he admired Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond yet alternated their records with country sides by Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. An early break arrived while he was riding bulls in Spokane, Washington, where fellow rider Deb Copenhaver persuaded him to sit in with Bonnie Guitar at a local club. Guitar promptly engaged him as both her full-time drummer and horse trainer. Military duty in the Marine Corps and subsequent work with the San Diego police followed, though he kept ties to the band Christopher John And The Wheels that he had formed during his army years. Even after qualifying as a SWAT sniper he continued to perform while wearing his police pager. A 1984 journey to Nashville to cut demos produced nothing tangible, so he returned discouraged to club work in Los Angeles. He remained a detective until 1994, when he liquidated his holdings, settled permanently in Nashville and began singing on demos. A contract with Giant Records eventually materialized, leading to the release of his debut album, One Step Beyond.