Chris Acker And The Growing Boys

"Chris Acker is a Seattle born songman who found a home for the tunes he writes in the talents and dear friendships of the Growing Boys- Craig Judelman, Nikolai Shveister and Zachary Thomas. They play country music. They find inspiration in the Nashville and Bakersfield sounds of the 50’s and 60’s and the songwriting of greats like John Prine, Blaze Foley and Roger Miller. In the spring of 2013, at the age of 19, Chris forgot to register for classes for spring quarter of his sophomore year of college in Bellingham, WA. Smitten with this mistake, he took off to Denver and decided not to stop there. He did the run around off but mostly on for a few years, usually by his lonesome, picking his guitar on street corners around the States, and sometimes in a cafe or bar if he was asked to. At the suggestion of a pal he crossed paths with in North Carolina, Chris first visited New Orleans in the winter of 2014. Though he had a relatively terrible time, he found himself back there the next winter, and then the fall after that, each time finding more reasons to stay. In October 2015, Chris found his best reason yet in what would become the Growing Boys. Lap Steel player Nikolai Shveister and Chris met in the spring of 2015 on Royal Street. Nikolai had only been playing lap steel for 3 months but was honing his skills with long nerdy days at home and on the streets. They met back up after a summer away and met bass player Zach Thomas, who had just come from Santa Cruz, California with some mutual friends. Around sunset on a Saturday afternoon busk in the quarter, Craig Judelman appeared on fiddle, having recently escaped an accomplished ten year career in New York playing country, old time and Klezmer music. And so became the Growing Boys, assembled piece by piece, and always working to develop their take on country music and songwriting in the present day, while respecting the place where those classic sounds come from. Chris writes songs with wit and cynicism, simultaneously laughing and crying at the state he’s in. And the Growing Boys laugh and cry with him."