Chris Storey – Musician Extraordinaire.

Chris played his first panorama in 1989 with Eclipse Steel Orchestra playing ‘Nani Wine’. The first band he ever played for was Seven Sisters primary school band and his first professional band that he played for was Eclipse Steel Orchestra back in 1988.

At Seven Sisters primary school when he was in the nursery the music room was above the nursery. So, every week he would always hear the steel band from upstairs coming out the window into the playground, into the nursery. They had a day when they could go upstairs and see the band, and that was his first love, when he first heard them playing, they were playing ‘o when the saints’ and he was in total awe of it. And that was his first love of pan, not even knowing what it was but just seeing this metal instrument being played by these older kids and it just making a sound that he was totally in love with 

Chris has played for Ebony Steel Orchestra; Pan Vibrations; Pantonic, for a brief time; Stardust; CSI; CSO; Pantasia; London All Stars and Eclipse.

Chris is the founder/manager/arranger of the Pan Nation Steel Band. He founded the band in 2009 and with the help of a vibrant committee of parents whose children play and who play themselves run the band. Pan Nation now has three bands, the adults, juniors and children bands.

Pan Nation has performed at numerous iconic events like the Lord Mayor’s Show, charity events including a charity run for diabetes in Greenwich Park and the Bobby Moore Fund’s bike ride for Bowel Cancer. They have also played at the Camden Green fair, Tottenham Carnival and have played at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham a number of times including having the privilege to perform as a guest band at the 11thannual Pan Explosion, Stapleton Carnival, and The Festival of Steel - part of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain at the Royal Festival Hall London’s South Bank . The band has also played at numerous weddings and parties. They also performed at the Rotterdam Carnival in 2016.Pan Nation is now the official Tottenham Hotspurs Steel Band.

Chris stated that he would love to play for Phase 11 in Trinidad. One of the first competitions he ever took part in was in Junior school with Seven Sisters Steel Band and they played at the British Gas Steel Band festival and won a prize for ‘Best Steel Band’. And then they got invited to play at the evening concert alongside the ‘Radcliff Rollers’ and Phase I Steel Band. They were the only Junior School Steel Band to play. 

In 1995, he entered the Junior Solo Panist competition and was victorious. He has taken his schools steel bands into a load of competitions like the Croydon Music Festival, which his steel band won a few times. He was successful to get through to the finals of the Music for Youth Festival with several of his school steel bands who performed at the Royal Albert Hall in the finals. 

He plays regularly at the UK National Steelband Panorama competition and has performed there with several bands. His first panorama win was with Ebony Steel Band. He has taken part in BAS Pan Explosion competition and won four times, three times with Pantasia and once with Pan Nation.

When asked about his favourite pan instrument he said, “that is so hard because every pan has its part to play and every part is important, but, I do love four pan Cello. I loved playing four pan with Eclipse; I loved playing four pan with Ebony. I love all the pans but I would say four pan Cello.”

The most inspirational moments in his life were when Len Boogsie Sharpe came over to play solo at Pan Explosion. “It was early 2000’s and I watched him solo live. I just thought that was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life. Watching him play, the way he just swam over the notes, it was just grace. I can’t remember what he was playing. I just remember afterwards leaving with goosebumps all over my body and then introducing myself to him and meeting him. The second one was when it was my first Pan Explosion when we played at the Pyramid Stand down in Portsmouth. Earl Rodney was playing solo double seconds on the stage and he played a gospel set. It was just such a wonderful thing to watch. Especially as he was just doing all the classic gospel songs. He wasn’t doing runs up and down and all that stuff it was truly the song. He filled it out with the chords; he was playing with four sticks and it was amazing. That truly inspired me. That was one of my inspirational moments to want to play with four sticks, after watching Earl Rodney do that in 2005. That was really inspirational. 

Chris’s musical inspiration is most definitely Chick Corea whom he listens to religiously. Chris thinks that his soloing on his own compositions is just out of this world. Chris feels that the pan community is a lot more unified than it was back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. He relishes musical rivalry amongst bands but it was quite ridiculous at one point. It was quite violent. Everyone would be insulting each other. People hated each other for no reason just because they were playing in another band. Now, there is a lot more interaction with bands and players, there is none of that foolishness any more.

He notes that we still have a long way to go with pan being taken seriously as a real instrument in the UK. It’s going to take time and it is improving but there are still got a lot of hurdles to cross before the instrument is fully recognised, appreciated and given the respect it deserves. People still remember hearing the old traditional songs like, ‘Yellow Bird and ‘Hot Hot Hot’ but, they are not going to inspire the youth of today to be interested, accept and play pan. They need to be able to relate to something. So Chris ensures that his repertoires in the schools and steelbands he teaches are learning modern tunes and every now and then he will include an old one.  

He states that dealing with racism is the hardest thing he has dealt with but that did not stop him. Being told from such a young age that white people aren’t meant to be playing pan and he never really understood why people would say that because he loved it so much and it used to hurt him that people would say he shouldn’t be playing an instrument that he loved playing and knew that he was good at playing. It would have been on a weekly basis as well. He was very young when he was with Eclipse and the racist comments, even though they didn’t really mean it sometimes, when you’re ten years old and because he was such a shy child as well he took everything to heart. He had just had enough by the time I was 11or 12, after playing with Eclipse for 3-4 years, he just decided to stop. The only thing he ever wanted to do was to play pan as well as he could; arrange as authentically and keeping to the traditions that they do and the rhythms to make it sound as authentic as he could. He stills deals with racism but he is tougher now and can take it on the chin and speak up for himself whereas before he did not have much to say in response. 

Now he has plenty to say. ‘I would say that it’s different now and my experience has been not perfect, but a lot better, and I would say it’s thanks to people like you who have shown that white people can play pan and do it well.’

Times have changed. “There are a lot of white arrangers and pan tutors in the UK now and we are doing the best we can. I’m not going to sugar coat it and say they are all doing a good job and keeping it as authentic as I think it should be, but that’s just my opinion. I would never tell another pan teacher or a fellow white pan teacher that they are doing it wrong. I can always say why I think it’s not right but I would never tell them what they are doing is wrong. Constructive criticism isn’t a bad thing and if anyone had ever come to me with some constructive criticism I would have taken it on the chin, but no one would ever do that. People would just want to come with derogatory comments to make people feel like they aren’t doing a good job.”

Chris’s musical inspiration is most definitely Chick Corea whom he listens to religiously. Chris thinks that his soloing on his own compositions is just out of this world 

Chris feels that the pan community is a lot more unified than it was back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. He relishes musical rivalry amongst bands but it was quite ridiculous at one point. It was quite violent. Everyone would be insulting each other. People hated each other for no reason just because they were playing in another band. Now, there is a lot more interaction with bands and players, there is none of that foolishness any more. 

He notes that we still have a long way to go with pan being taken seriously as a real instrument in the UK. It’s going to take time and it is improving but there are still got a lot of hurdles to cross before the instrument is fully recognised, appreciated and given the respect it deserves. “People still remember hearing the old traditional songs like, ‘Yellow Bird and ‘Hot Hot Hot’ but, they are not going to inspire the youth of today to be interested, accept and play pan. They need to be able to relate to something.” So Chris ensures that his repertoires in the schools and steelbands he teaches are learning modern tunes and every now and then he will include an old one.