ORIGIN STORY.

Chapel of Roses are a post-punk band that started out in Nashville in the mid-80's. The four original members - Kelley, Greer, Rutherford, and Parker - started out playing a skate-punk house party and soon were playing at Nashville's home for alternative music, Cantrell's. They released a single that got a lot of local college radio plays, were discovered by Television's former tour manager, and toured all over the US Southeast while in high school. Then all of the sudden they broke up.

GROWING UP.

Chris Kelley

Singer Chris Kelley formed the band St. Christopher with Texan Jim T. Graham in Los Angeles while they were both working terrible but awesome PA jobs in the Hollywood film industry. After the band broke up, Kelley continued releasing songs online while living a nomadic existence in Bulgaria and South Africa, and when he finally settled in Spain, he started his band Lost American. He released one record and many singles. His grasp of foreign languages (and some would say, his memory) is so poor: he apologizes often.

Houston Greer

Soon after Chapel of Roses disbanded, guitarist Houston Greer, bass player Preach Rutherford, and drummer Colin Parker formed the band Swing. Coincidentally, Houston has become a great golfer. Houston is so zen at this point that he only has to look at a guitar and it will wail.

Preach Rutherford

Bass player Preach Rutherford played with the band Stella, who released a record on Beggars Banquet and toured extensively. He now plays in Raelyn Nelson's band. Preach is a musician's musician; Kelley looks up to him, and not just because Preach is so much taller than him.

Colin Parker

Drummer Colin Parker is really good at dangling precipitously from high places, yet is the most grounded member of the band. He will always be the band's big brother. Singer Chris forgives Colin for calling him Bix - after the cereal Crispix (we substitute B’s for P’s in our neck of the woods) - but wishes he had nicknamed him Captain Crunch instead - a far superior cereal.

Jim T. Graham

Lap steel player Jim T. Graham started the first online country music label after settling in Nashville. If there had been a Nashville version of the movie 24 Hour Party People, his label would have been Factory records. This Texas boy has some stories!