Chris Traynor

Chris Traynor (born June 22, 1973) is an American musician, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Bush since 2001.

Prior to Bush, he started in the post-hardcore scene with Fountainhead and Orange 9mm.

“I got a publishing and record deal when I was nineteen, just super young.” Traynor had an on and off stint with Helmet while overlapping his Gavin Rossdale based projects of Bush, Institute, and Gavin Rossdale's solo album.

Traynor played in two bands with his partner Sibyl Buck, Champions of Sound (as a touring member) and High Desert Fires.

Traynor has performed live with the British rock band Blur, recorded bass and guitars on Katy Perry's "Use Your Love" with producer Junior Sanchez, and recorded guitars for Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and producer Dave Stewart.

Traynor has done studio work with Blue Man Group and indie rock band Rival Schools.

“When I played bass for Blur and had to learn 24 songs in 24 hours or something like that.”

Traynor is currently living in Los Angeles and is touring with Bush.

He continually produces and writes music including soundtrack and television music.

Traynor's family was rooted in Queens, New York where he grew up.

“My father is from Howard Beach, my mother is from Ozone Park, and I was born in Rosedale: the trifecta of Queens.”

His parent enrolled him in the first Suzuki method music programs in New York City.

Shinichi Suzuki was a Japanese music teacher who had a very successful teaching program in Japan and brought it over to the United States, basically teaching music as a language.

He would teach to very young children and Traynor's experience of it was when he was very, very young.

His parents would to take him to the city, have a violin sitting on a blanket by him and they’d play classical music.

“You learn how to deal with music in terms of like a language.”

Traynor has studied guitar with Mark Lonergan from Band of Susans, Richard Lloyd of the rock band Television, Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft, and bluegrass phenomenon Michael Daves.

In addition to his writing credits with Bush on chart topping songs “Flower On A Grave” and “More Than Machines”, Traynor has written and produced tracks for bands such as Grey Daze (Amends featuring Chester Bennington of Linkin Park), BRKN Love and the Los Angeles based band Dorothy.

Chris also has written and produced songs with his former bands Institute, Rival Schools, Helmet and Orange 9mm.

Traynor played with this post-hardcore band in New York City that only released one album titled Drain.

He cut his teeth in the early 1990s post-hardcore scene.

“When we started Orange 9mm, it was like two really broke kids in a tiny apartment in New York City trying to communicate with each other.” As a founding member of the band Orange 9mm, Traynor developed a unique style of guitar and bass in the studio.

“I gotta say looking back in a lot of ways, I think there's a lot of odd time signatures and the tunings are different and modified; the chord voicings are different.

I wasn't intentionally going for that but I do think it was fairly progressive especially for the time.” Alongside Chaka Malik, Traynor went on to record three albums with the band including Orange 9mm, Driver Not Included and Tragic.

For their third album Traynor switched to playing bass.

“All the songs that I wrote for Orange 9mm, I wrote on bass.

I wrote the bass lines off the first record, too.

I bought a 70s stripped down Jazz bass and I would sit in the corner and smoke cigarettes.

When Davide [Gentile] left, I just felt like, well, I'll record the bass and it'll be closer to what the original intention was and we'll find a bass player later.” Before the touring for Tragic began, Traynor departed to play with another popular band, Helmet.

Originally recruited as touring guitarist in support of their fourth studio album, Aftertaste.

“Going to Helmet was an amazing move for me.

I just played with the band and we did a week of rehearsals and he [Page Hamilton] showed up for the last one.

Then we flew to Austria to play a huge festival with Tricky in Ebensee.

I knew those songs and I felt like they were in my blood and Page was happy to not have to pay attention so much to what I was doing.

While on tour with Helmet, Traynor was noticed by producer Dave Sardy and recommended as a potential new guitarist in 2002 for rock band Bush.

He felt comfortable with me.” Traynor had worked on-and-off with the band for ten years throughout the band's breakup and reuniting, before departing himself in 2006.

He later returned in 2010 to help record their album Seeing Eye Dog.

“I think that record was a weird time certainly for Page and I. It's the only record that we've actually talked about rerecording.

In my opinion and maybe Page would be mad at me for saying this but I think that record was rushed and some of those songs are the best songs that he's written.

I went in and I did my tracks and I left so it wasn't as enjoyable as I thought it would be.”