Today we’d like to introduce you to Chase Gassaway.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I began writing music in 5th Grade in my Elementary School strings class in Arlington, TX. Cello was my first instrument and I quickly noticed how the timbre and range of the instrument felt like my own singing voice. My compositions began mainly as happy distractions while practicing at home. Every time I sat down to work on music for class, the mistakes I made were more intriguing than the exercise I was supposed to be mastering. When I missed a note I didn’t hear it as a mistake, but as a curious side quest worth exploring. These little journeys evolved into my first original ideas and compositions. In middle school I learned trombone, guitar, and piano while beginning to dabble with writing lyrics. I formed my first band with some friends and cut my teeth performing punk music at talent shows and house concerts.
In High School I began leading worship for my youth group and focused on developing my skills on electric guitar. This lead to early opportunities traveling across the country and eventually forming my early career in music.
While attending Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, TX, I recorded my first album of songs at a studio in a church basement across the street from the dorm. As I made relationships with various studios in town I began arranging strings and brass for other songwriters in exchange for more recording opportunities. I quickly discovered work in Abilene as a musician was limited and started performing and networking in Austin on the weekends whenever I could travel.
I married my college sweetheart and moved to Austin in 2009 where I started my career as a full-time musician. While paying my dues with club work and teaching lessons I eventually made a name for himself as a songwriter and arranger, as well as a soul vocalist in a Motown cover band. I always maintained a working relationship with local churches and regularly played guitar, keys, and percussion for Riverbend Church. I would also compose for their orchestra as much as I was able. This partnership gave me an early foundation working with Austin’s top musicians before I realized how important those relationships would eventually become.
I recorded my first full length album in 2014 at Ramble Creek Studios funded by a Kickstarter campaign. This launched the more tour-heavy portion of my story taking that album across the country. I found a home in the folk genre as a songwriter and was a regular presence at festivals, listening rooms, and house concerts across the country averaging 160 shows a year.
The appeal of being on the road was losing its luster when my first son was born in 2017. I had just finished another album called “A Fly Can’t Bird,” but I wanted to take a break from touring and only take gigs in the Austin area to be fully present at home. I continued working at churches guest-leading and arranging, and I was briefly on staff at Life Church in Leander for a few years before COVID.
My second son was born in 2019, and when we finally graduated from a baby household into a toddler one, it felt like a season was unfolding to continue creating original music.
With my newfound title of Suburban Dad and a consistent presence in our local faith community, my writing reignited with the church as the center. Wanting to keep my idenity as a songwriter in the Austin scene, I began releasing church music in 2025 under the moniker “Kid’s Got Heart.”
Currently, I am still working full-time as a musician performing every week, as well as charting and arranging orchestra for a network of churches and schools across the country. I am still a full time dad, husband, son, and bother, but whatever creative energy I can maintain is put toward writing to keep releasing new music. In our modern area of technology, I am able to work on demos in my home studio before transfering them to The Audio Village where my producer and fellow theologian Kyle Lent works with me to bring them to life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’ve had an interesting journey as a songwriter because I never experienced the familiar tropes that accompany the position. I was raised in a good home by parents who loved and supported me. I did well in school and made friends easily. I married the first women I dated serioulsy and she just keeps getting better and better. So, my writing has always been more about social justice, identity, and exploring the nature of being human.
All that to say, I have long struggled with mental health before I even understood it. I wasn’t diagnosed with clinical depression until I was in my thirties. Until then, I just thought everything about my personal experience was normal. And when my mind would slip into episodes of depression I learned to become really good at hiding it. So much so, I didn’t realize other people weren’t constantly dealing with the impending weight of trying to shield their real identity just to function in soceity.
In hindsight this friction was the very thing that lead me to start writing. So, while the road wasn’t smooth, I am grateful it wasn’t.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What do I specialize in or known for?
I fit into an interesting niche of musician that generally flies under the radar. I am able to work full time as an artist, but it’s by patching together various creative skill sets every month in a productive way that pays the bills. I do perform live music 2-5 times per week as a solo artist or a session musician. But, I also work in my home studio arranging for orchestras, writing, recording, mixing, and editing video. Being self-employeed, my calendar is only full if I keep it full.
That being said, my speciality comes when I incorporate my experience as a producer into my everyday work. People are not usually highering me for my technical skills alone, but rather because I will invest myself personally into their project to shape the process and outcome. My talent is my ability to simultanesouly see big picture results, while also remaining focused in the moment to create details.
What sets me apart from others?
I’m a little like Big Red. I have a distinctive flavor, and I may not be everyone’s first choice, but the people who connect with what I do really love it. I’m never going to be mainstream or even known by the majority, and I don’t think I would ever want to be.
What are you most proud of?
Honestly, just being able to do what I’m doing. I am incredibly blessed to make music for a living, and still be fully present as a husband, father, neighbor, and friend.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The poet John Holmes wrote “It is well to remember the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.” Finding your place in the world does not mean you have to push others down to get there. We all have a brief moment in this lifetime to experience human existance. My story is no more important than anyone else’s and there is room at the table to share them all. Learning from other people is a superpower, and we can all be heroes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kidsgotheart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chasegassaway
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chasegassaway/
- Twitter: https://x.com/chasegassaway
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KidsGotHeart
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/chasegassaway
- Other: https://www.chasegassaway.com
