SEAN “BARNEY” CHRISTOPHER BIO
Calling Sean “Barney” Christopher a veteran in the music industry is an understatement.
The Weatherford, Texas native has toured all over the world and worked with some of the top influencers and icons in the industry, but now is returning to his roots of country music.
Sean grew up in Weatherford, Texas with his mother, father and younger brother.
His father was a drummer and his mother played piano for their church. His younger brother is now the drummer for Snarky Puppy.
He started to develop a love for music at a young age – by the age of six he started playing the drums, and at fifteen taught himself how to play piano at a local junior college near Weatherford.
Country music has always been Sean’s favorite music to write and sing. Although he started singing and playing keyboards for an unsuccessful metal band in his teenage years, he eventually moved to the front of the band because he had a distinctive voice. This was also the beginning of Sean’s love for piano and started playing keyboards in the band. All during this time he would sneak into his grandfathers old truck and listen to his cassettes of Hank Williams Sr., Charley Pride, George Jones and many more. Being from a small Texas town Sean already had a natural “Texas Twang”, and when he would use it to sing people would get so excited about it.
Sean would go through some old family belongings at their home and came across material of his mother singing country music. It fascinated him and furthered his passion for country music and the stories behind it.
After that moment Sean began to hone his style and seriously started writing country songs.
He wrote almost everyday but never let anyone hear what he was working on, nor never sang in public.
When he was seventeen he was asked by his school choir director to sing a song for a large function that was coming up. He went home and wrote his first song entitled “I’m a Dreamer”. It was also Sean’s first live performance and he ended up receiving a standing ovation from all his teammates and the entire crowd. It let him know in that very moment that he was getting good at this.
Sean graduated from Weatherford High School in 1986, and in the fall started attending Weatherford Junior College to pursue his Associates Degree in Music Performance.
During his college years was the first time he performed at the state fair.
His band Country Gold was going to be singing the song ‘Let Me Be There’ and everyone was begging Sean to sing. Once he started singing the place became enamored with his voice, so much so that it drew a huge crowd of people and the police came.
Sean and his band Country Gold were able to sing one more song, and to his surprise everyone loved and complimented him on his authentic love for country music.
He decided after that stellar performance he would find a way to record his own music.
In the same year, Sean had gotten a call from Epic Records, but conversations with executives didn’t get much traction.
Shortly after he got signed to Get Live Records as an artist, writer, and producer.
Sean had two major singles in rotation – one by a female group by the name of All Access entitled ‘Missing You’ and his own single entitled ‘Waited So Long’.
His song was featured on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and played on the radio alongside Tony Terry, Johnny Gill and Bobby Brown. Sean’s records were selling out of record stores, kickstarting his career in the music industry.
In 1989 Sean graduated from Weatherford Junior College and afterwards would sign with Cedric Williams Talent Agency. He became the keyboardist and later lead vocalist of the WPE Variety Band – touring in countries such as Japan, Russia, Malaysia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Tokyo, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Ivory Coast for four years.
In 1993, singer Kim Dimes from female group All Access – who’s like a sister to Sean – knew the founder of Death Row Records (Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg). They coincidentally crossed paths meeting at LAX and the founder mentioned he liked the music he was making with Deion “Erotic D” Gabriel from Ft. Worth, TX.
The founder had mentioned that he started a company – not yet named Death Row Records – with his investor. He also stated that he was working on getting Andre “Dr. Dre” Young out of his contract with Ruthless Records, and wanted Sean to meet Dr. Dre.
Sean went to go meet Dr. Dre at a club owned by the late iconic singer Prince called Glam Slam. That in-person meeting led to him being groomed to become musical director for Michel’le’s touring band. This led to many days and nights in the studio with artists and staff from Death Row, prompting Sean to stay in California.
Sean was playing ‘Portis Head’ at the studio when walked in Dre, who was very impressed with his song choice. From there, he started working on some of ‘The Chronic’ remixes, and later working on ‘Doggystyle’ for hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg.
In 1994, Sean signed to Death Row/Interscope Records as an artist, keyboardist, drum programmer and producer.
From years 1994-2000 he became Dr. Dre’s go-to keyboardist, performing on major hit records such as ‘California Love’ as well as Tupac’s remix of the mega hit record, Tupac’s ‘All Eyes On Me’, The Twins ‘Round and Round’, Snoop Dogg’s ‘Ain’t No Fun’, ‘21 Jump Street’ and ‘Ladidadi’.
He also worked on film soundtracks including Gang Related, Above The Rim, Murder Was The Case and Gridlock’d. As well as albums such as Warren G’s ‘Regulate’, Nate Dogg’s ‘Essentials’ and an extensive list of others.
During this time Sean also did records for Special G, boy band O-Town, as well as athletes such as Shaquille O’Neal and Deion Sanders.
Sean’s tenure at Death Row Records was a special time but also coming to a close.
He ended up signing to Jungle Records. His time with the record label was brief due to the label owners going their separate ways. After that time Sean signed to Qwest Records.
The recording company was cleaning house at the time, so Sean made a deal with the new president of Qwest Records to be released out of his contract with no animosity.
During his time with the record label, Sean did the remixes to ‘Stomp’ and ‘Hiroshima’.
In 2001, Sean had the opportunity to perform lead vocals and keyboard for 43rd President George W. Bush for the September 11th victims.
During the same year, he had re-located to Stockholm, Sweden to work while he waited out his publishing contract with Death Row. Sean had reached out to a major songwriter for acts such as Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera.
He was signed to Reactive Music and Warner Bros UK as a producer-writer, producing an album for Australian R&B singer Tanika Turner.
While in Stockholm, he started listening more to country music and realized how much he missed writing in that genre (his first music love). When he came back to the states, he started to purely focus on writing his country album.
Sean spent a few weeks in Nashville singing live in various venues with him receiving an overwhelming response, securing his passion to take country music up full-time.
In the midst of practicing his chops for karaoke, he met the love of his life Joslyn who’s been his partner and inspiration ever since.
Sean was also part of two bands during this time period – one called Kontroversy, who played at the Rumba Room with SueAnn Carwell at Universal Citywalk. The second band named The Real Deal band that played live shows in desert casinos.
He has written over 4,000 songs, creating music for different genres including Hip-Hop, Contemporary Jazz, R&B, Pop-Rock, Country and Standards.
Sean is now partnered with Higher Ground 44, releasing his anticipated debut country album ‘A Small Town Daydream’.
Everything Sean has done from then until now was all a catalyst to fuel his country career as a writer and producer. Country music is his first love and where he can express himself vocally as well as lyrically in the most organic way. He categorizes his music as ‘Country Soul’, which is deeply rooted in traditional down-home country, Western and old school R&B.
Meshing these genres together pulls out the sound of love and harmony like no other.
