Culture
Making Music as a Way to Survive: Captain Chucke
By: Emily Votaw
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Even if you don’t think you’ve ever heard regional musician Captain Chucke, you probably have. If you’ve ever walked by Whit’s Frozen Custard Athens location on a summer day, chances are you have heard the Nelsonville-born-and-raised musician’s folk-punk/flailgrass stylings.
Chucke has spent the majority of the past half-decade on the road after a rough childhood and a difficult time in college that eventually led to his living on the streets. Ohio’s streets are notoriously difficult to survive on during our harsh winters, so Chucke found himself heading southward, eventually spending time over a good portion of the United States. He likes to return to Athens in the summer months, and play music, often busking outside of Whit’s.
“(At first) music was just a way to make money so I could eat, so I could live. When you are on the street, people make money however they can: you fly a sign, you do what you can,” said Chucke, explaining his fondness for busking. “I don’t like doing something and not giving something back. Also, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to get into music.”
Last November he released his first professionally-produced album, Until I Turn to Dust, which he recorded with a full band.
WOUB spoke to Chucke about how he left Ohio, returned, and the topics that are recurrent in his music.
