Chris Barron

Chris Barron is many things to many people: the voice of the Spin Doctors, the face of the jamband scene, an MTV superstar, an East Village troubadour, the author of some of the 1990s’ most enduring radio hits, a father and a teacher. But these days, the Spin Doctors singer is most at home when he’s simply playing rock and roll. 

“You tend to write yourself into the places you want to play,” Barron admits. “There was a time when I was writing bedside songs for the walls of my room, but these days I am writing what I like to call ‘bar music for big theaters’—stripped down, honest rock and roll like The Last Waltz meets Exile on Main Street.”    

Bursting out of seminal New York watering holes like Nightingale’s and Wetlands in the early 1990s, the Spin Doctors helped popularize the neo-jam scene with their funky, infectious brand of rock and roll. The group’s marathon high-energy performances— found the Spin Doctors packing rooms across the country.

The Spin Doctors’ multi-platinum debut Pocket Full of Kryptonite became a grassroots success story, spawning ubiquitous hits like “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong,” “Jimmy Olsen's Blues” and the chart-topping “Two Princes.” The group was nominated for a
Grammy, scored the cover of Rolling Stone and shared the stage with luminaries like the Rolling Stones.

Now playing with his current band, The Time Bandits, Barron finds himself with another tried-and-true rock band.

“You go and see a lot of solo acts, and they come off as a guy who pays other dudes to play his songs,” Barron says. “But from the start I’ve always said ‘let’s form an identity as a band.’ ”  

Yet Barron hasn’t forgotten about his best-known hits. “I love those songs, and we continue to play them,” he assures fans. “The cool thing is that we started goofing around with some of those old songs and I said, ‘don’t listen to the Spin Doctors version and don’t worry about remaking certain parts. Let’s make them our own, but make them recognizable.’ We’re not going to do ‘Little Miss Can’t be Wrong’ as a tango or ‘Two Princes’ as bossa nova.’”  

“The reason classic-rock became classic is that it was rooted in the music that came before classic-rock,” Barron firmly states.

“Bands like The Rolling Stones and The Band were standing on the shoulders of giants— guys who weren’t making any money but they knew how to rock. My former teacher, Arnie Lawrence, used to say that the only time anyone really sings the blues is when a baby cries before it knows it is going to get picked up. After that it’s all show business.”