A Quote by Chip Esten

I had been in a band in college. You kind of need to make a choice between going the music route or going the acting route. I chose acting, figuring I could always do the music on my own.
My dad is a singer, so it was always either music or acting with me. All the way up through college I was doing both, and even after college I was in a reggae band. Then the acting really started taking off, so the music had to become a hobby.
I was a math and science kid in school, but I ended up going the route of writing and music in college.
Music is the reason I'm doing movies; I do credit that. But acting is an escape route for me.
I was into all of the Pennsylvania teams at some point in my childhood. I would flip back and forth between the Pirates and the Phillies, and I was always a Steelers fan but not much of an Eagles fan. Then I became kind of a band nerd in school, and I went the music route.
I had a band before I did standup - I've always done music. I got known for being funny, and that's how I make a living - and from acting - but I never stopped playing and producing and recording music.
I've always played music and I've always been in bands and there have been periods in my life where the music has taken a much more front row seat than any acting. For a big period of time the acting work was really a way of raising money to fund my music. And then that all sort of changed around and that's fine.
I was kind of going that route with my country music. Indie country. Which would work, if I was playing on Americana stages. Unless I had a television outlet like 'Glee'.
Since I started acting, I've always been aware of the sort of 'beastly entity' that is America and Hollywood, and semi-consciously, I devised a kind of route in - I'd seen a lot of people try and fail.
I think I always knew I was going to somehow be on a stage. I was quite an extrovert, as a child. And I did a lot of music, when I was younger, so I thought I was going to go into music, but I fell into acting, in a really weird way.
I'm always going to want to be part of music. But who's to say? This whole thing for me in the first place just kind of happened without trying. I think about things like acting and all that, but I'm not going to force it on myself. I'm kind of shy, believe it or not.
I was an actor when I was a teenager and it could have been the direction that I headed in. But music and my relationship with music is quite deep, and it really is the nucleus of my creativity. So I gave up acting so I could pursue music fully, and I never thought about really going back. And then [director] Lee Daniels met me and wanted to work with me, and that's how it started.
There was no way we were going to let this band hobble around on three legs. We chose the route that every professional actor, athlete and musician should do - leave the legend intact and bow out at the top.
I don't think I'd want to concentrate on just acting because I love music, and things are going really well, so I think I will always continue to make music.
I was kind of torn between playing music or playing college football. I was going to college and really focusing on my music career.
I decided to not be so dismissive of my music in favor of my acting. Acting has been such a consistent thing for me; a lot of times in the past, I wouldn't have had the confidence with my music to really make it a part of my schedule. I would easily push it to the side, or I would easily take up time that was needed for it.
The thing with acting is I'm at the liberty of someone who wants to book me. With music, I can do it all the time. With acting, I could, too, if I wanted to write a script and do that whole thing, but music is a constant thing. Acting, I have to audition.
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