By “Tampa” Earl Burton

Review: Mad Chad’s single “This is the Chord That I Play” – Release date March 13, 2025

One of the things that hard rock and metal musicians are not given credit for is being well-versed in musical composition. This is odd as several metal musicians (Yngwie Malmsteen, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt, Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford, Avenged Sevenfold’s Synyster Gates) are classically trained, some with the college degrees to prove it. Something else that hard rock/metal musicians can prove is they have a sarcastic streak, as the musician Mad Chad has shown with his latest tune “This is the Chord That I Play.”

The pride of Lubbock, TX, Mad Chad is a Berklee College of Music Master Songwriter graduate who was chided for some of his decisions regarding his musical choices. “I wrote the song to prove to one of my Berklee colleagues that I could write a song that contained many elements from Pop, Rock, Metal, and Blues,” Mad Chad states. “The song is a sarcastic response to the parameters and criticism I received for some of my previous written songs.”

From Mad Chad’s forthcoming summer album Scorpio Thoughts, “This is the Chord That I Play” is an all-out aural assault that has very sly wordsmith to its body. The lyrics of the song basically follow Chad’s process to making his music (“Wake up/time to create”), but it is the changes in the musical stylings that capture your attention. Chad vacillates between hard rock, metal (his screams rank up there with some of the best), and some pop sensibilities in creating this song, all done stylishly and excellently while demonstrating Chad’s abilities on multiple instruments (guitar, bass, drums, and piano).

As a precursor for Scorpio Thoughts, Mad Chad certainly grabs your attention with “This is the Chord That I Play” and never takes his foot off the gas. It is an excellent opening salvo and a tremendous follow-up to his last album, Right is RIGHT! (a politically charged album that speaks from the middle ground). Along with his producer Chuck Alkazian, Mad Chad is set for a new hard rock assault with “This is the Chord That I Play” – my only question…did Chad win that bet with his fellow Berklee alum regarding creating a genre-melding effort?

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Tampa Earl

“Tampa” Earl is a 40-year veteran of the entertainment industry, in particular rock radio and journalism. He currently has two radio shows, “Rockin’ in the USA” (focused on the history of rock) and “Crackin’ the Seal” (focused on new, independent, and unsigned artists and rock music) on Real Rock Radio, which broadcasts from Manchester, England. Earl, a former Marine, lives near Tampa, FL, where he is always on the lookout for the next great artist or band that will further the history of rock!

Mad Chad Sarcastically Shatters Musical Norms with “This is the Chord That I Play”

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