Chris Chiesi puts his royal-style songwriting skills to use with "Prince Harry: Live! At Coachella."
Times of discover News: Cranston and Los Angeles native Chris Chianesi uses his creative skills in a variety of facets. He has extensive experience in the musical theater, improv and sketch comedy medium and in recent years he has turned that towards songwriting. Chianesi has collected an abundance of comedic songs and recently released a concept album about a member of the royal family.
Titled "Prince Harry: Live! Coachella," the Duke of Sussex has reinvented himself as a mainstream pop star. The full-length record was released on October 18, and already boasts Chianesi's massive social media following.
We recently talked about how the idea for the album came about, his theatrical experience in Rhode Island and how he wanted to connect with people upon hearing "Prince Harry: Live! Coachella."
Rob Duguay: How did you originally get the idea to do this Prince Harry-focused musical? Did she find humor in the way the royal family is portrayed in pop culture or otherwise?
Chris Chianesi: It started without the idea of writing a show. Her book "Spares" came out about two years ago and I was seeing it a lot in the news. She did a special on Oprah [Winfrey] and she has this show on Netflix with Meghan Markle, so I'm curious because I see all the clickbait online about the salacious things she talks about in the book, all the family drama and everything it touches upon," he says. I didn't really know that much about the royal family before I read the book, so I started reading. I'm a songwriter and I've done musical comedy and I've been playing in clubs in New York for years, writing songs about pop culture and what's happening now.
When I read the book, I realized it had so many great songwriting moments. It was so full of drama, musicality and musical comedy possibilities, so I started writing songs on my own without any goal. I was hanging out with a friend who lives in Los Angeles recently and she told me she went to the Hollywood Fringe Festival last year. That was the first moment that made me think that I should put these songs in front of me and see if there was anything special in it. By that time, I had written a few songs, maybe three or four, but I had already joined Hollywood Fringe by then.
I got into theatre and everything, but the show wasn’t written yet, so I signed up to join the festival. I did a great job on such a tight deadline and the festival started in June. At this point, it was January when I registered to enter the festival and set a goal to write a song every week and have the track fully produced with lyrics and everything else. While I was writing the song, I came up with the idea of Prince Harry performing as a popstar at Coachella. I organized the show based on this concept and within a few months my show was on its feet at Hollywood Fringe.
Every single one of our performances sold out and I didn't know how it would be received because it was a very weird show. Making Prince Harry a popstar is a stupid idea, but I did it wearing a red wig and acting like myself. It was very well received and it was really great.'
RD: What was the atmosphere like during your performance at Hollywood Fringe and how did you make the album after that?
CC: The theatre is set up like a concert experience at Coachella and the audience is free, having fun the whole time and they're dancing and things like that. After Hollywood Fringe, I performed again at another festival in Santa Monica. I did some rewriting, wrote some songs and performed it in Hollywood last January. Later, I decided I had every song for the show, at that time I had 17 songs. People have been asking me to release an album of it because they love the songs so much, so this summer I started working on it.
I record all of my songs at home. I have a home studio setup with my own microphone where I write and produce everything myself. I recorded the album from May to July, then mixed it and it was ready to go out into the world. I'm excited to finally release it.
CC: Oh yeah, I've always loved Weird Al growing up, I love his music, his vocals and his vibe. I came to musical comedy from the world of musical theater and sketch comedy. I'm not gonna
RD: That's pretty cool. As of November 2018, you've written, composed and produced over 175 comedy songs, including the aforementioned ones, garnering millions of views on Instagram and TikTok. What would you say inspired you to take up this art form? When I think of comedy songs I think of Weird Al Yankovic, so does his career play a role in this?
