Christopher Patrick Maloney is an American singer-songwriter, bass guitarist and music educator. He is widely known for his work with instrumental hard rock band Cosmosquad, his stints in Hardline and with Dweezil Zappa, as an independent solo artist, an instructor at the Musicians Institute, the co-owner of Absolute Music Studios and the co-creator of the online music education site Practice Warriors.
Biography
Early life and education
Christopher Maloney was born in Syracuse, New York on March 22, 1969. Both his father and mother were from families of Irish descent, the former from Limerick and the latter from Kilkenny. After failed attempts at the recorder and drums, Christopher discovered the bass guitar at age 13 and began performing in local bars and clubs. While attending East Syracuse-Minoa High School, he won a citation from the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE), the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award, and performed for then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. He attended Oswego State University from 1987 until 1991 graduating with a double major in Music and Broadcasting. It was here that he was mentored by jazz composer Stan Gosek, who helped shape Maloney's skills in composition, odd meter, reading, performing and music business.
Maloney relocated to Los Angeles in 1993 to attend the Musicians Institute. He studied with many notable musicians, including Jeff Berlin, Steve Bailey, Scott Henderson, Joe Diorio and visiting artists Victor Wooten, Gary Willis and many others. He graduated with Vocational Honors in 1994 as the bass program's Outstanding Student of the Year.
Bass career
Maloney spent much of the mid to late 1990s working as a freelance bass player in Los Angeles. His first major label recording was with drum prodigy Jacob Armen on his Drum Fever CD, which was released on Prince's NPG Records/Warner Bros. label. In 1996, after a lengthy audition process, he was asked to join brothers Dweezil Zappa and Ahmet Zappa in their band "Z" to promote the album Music For Pets. Maloney spent much of 1997 recording dozens of songs for a Dweezil solo album. From those sessions, only "Automatic" (featuring Blues Saraceno) and "Dick Cinnamon's Office" (featuring Lisa Loeb) were included on the Favored Nations release, Automatic. He concluded the 90's by doing recording and performing with Jon Stevens (INXS), Donnie Vie (Enuff Z'Nuff), and jazz keyboardist Lao Tizer.
Maloney's recording and performing career continued to rise in the 2000s. He performed or recorded with Hardline, featuring Journey guitarist Neal Schon, Gilli Moon, Chieli Minucci, UFO singer Phil Mogg (in the band $ign of 4), Lao Tizer, New Kids on the Block singer Joey McIntyre, Jack Avalon, and Cosmosquad among others. Maloney's work with Lao Tizer netted two albums (to which he is credited as co-writer) and numerous US festival tours, including shows with Wayne Shorter, George Benson, Al Jarreau, Spyrogyra, Chris Botti, The Rippingtons, Average White Band, Jethro Tull, Tom Scott and others. His work with Cosmosquad, and its guitarist Jeff Kollman, brought him to Europe and Japan and produced three albums. Cosmosquad released their first live DVD Light...Camera...Squad! in 2008, with Maloney also handling all the video editing duties. During this time, he continued to record and perform as a sideman to independent artists in Los Angeles. Over the years, Maloney has been endorsed by Linc Luthier, Carvin and Fender Basses, Trace Elliot and SWR amplifiers, and Dean Markley and D'Addario Strings.
Solo career
In 2000, Maloney decided to begin to make a solo album that would not feature his bass playing, but his voice and song writing skills. Although joined by his friends, drummer Shane Gaalaas and guitarist Brett Garsed, Maloney played most of the instruments himself. The result was the CD Control, released in 2002 on Sunset Records. Spending much of 2002 on the road with Lao Tizer, Cosmosquad and $ign of Four, Maloney had to wait until 2003 to promote the album. He did so mostly by performing solo acoustic shows in coffeehouses throughout Southern California.
In 2004, Maloney continued to promote Control while writing songs for a new album, entitled The Terrors of Intimacy. The album was released in March 2005 on Sunset Records, and Maloney promoted it by doing a solo acoustic tour of the southwest US and full band shows in Southern California.