Chilly Gonzales

Career

In the 1990s, Chilly Gonzales first made music as the frontman of the alternative rock group Son, alongside Dominic Salole and Dave Szigeti. In 1995, the band inked a three-album contract with Warner Music Canada, a branch of Warner Bros. Records. Their debut LP, Thriller, had a sound reminiscent of Prince and Elvis Costello and saw modest success. It produced a single, "Pick up the Phone," that got heavy radio play and earned them opening slots for the Barenaked Ladies.

The record itself was basically their rushed demo, released as-is with minimal polish. The follow-up, Wolfstein, was cut in a proper Los Angeles studio with help from his brother Christophe. It was a concept album about a man who transforms into a wolf after running one over with his car, and it was darker and more intricate than their first effort. Warner Music found the shift too drastic, especially since none of its tracks seemed fit for Canadian radio—the most upbeat song was titled "Making a Jew Cry." The label offered little support, and soon dropped the band.

Move to Berlin

Frustrated by the Canadian music industry's constraints, Gonzales relocated to Berlin in 1999 without knowing any German. He dubbed himself "The President of the Berlin Underground" and took the stage name Chilly Gonzales that same year. This rebranding came with a major musical pivot. Over four albums on the German label Kitty-yo—Gonzales Über Alles (1999), The Entertainist (2000), Presidential Suite (2002), and Z (2003)—he switched to rap, though his piano skills shone through on instrumental tracks scattered throughout.

European critics and crowds embraced his eclectic, experimental style. His first Kitty-yo single, "Let's Groove Again," was a dance floor hit when it dropped in 1999, and later appeared in a 2007 BBC promo for the show The Restaurant. He kept busy playing clubs and summer festivals.

Solo Piano, Chambers, and classical music

In 2004, Gonzales released Solo Piano, a purely instrumental album. It earned widespread praise, drew comparisons to Erik Satie, and brought him a fresh global audience. It remains his top-selling record. Nine years later, he issued Solo Piano II, which made the long list for the 2013 Polaris Music Prize.

Other work

Chilly Gonzales released the album From Major to Minor in 2006 on the No Format! label, followed by The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales Live with Orchestra in May 2012 on Gentle Threat. In 2016, he hosted Music's Cool, a two-hour radio program on Apple Music's Beats 1, where he broke down the music theory behind various artists. He started his own music school in 2018, bringing seven international musicians to Paris for an eight-day all-expenses-paid workshop called The Gonzervatory.

The program featured coaching from Gonzales, masterclasses with collaborators like Peaches, Socalled, Fred Wesley, and Jarvis Cocker, and evening rehearsals that ended with a finale concert at the Trianon Theater. In 2020, Gonzales released the book Enya: A Treatise on Unguilty Pleasures, exploring his childhood love for Enya through metaphor and arguing that musical taste is shaped by involuntary factors rather than outside judgment.

Did You Know?

• Gonzales began teaching himself piano at age three, when his older brother Christophe began taking lessons.
• He won a Grammy Award for his work on Daft Punk's 2013 studio album Random Access Memories.