“It’s definitely hotter when you have blood running in the rhythm section,” says Tait drummer Chad Chapin. Chapin and his bass-wielding brother Lonnie began playing together twenty-two years ago at their dad’s church in Bend, Oregon. “We’d go down to church at night and write bass and drum riffs – it was what we did. We worked on different timing and learning tight and intricate things together. It helped us learn how to lay it down nice and fat.”

Over the past four years, the Chapin brothers have played together professionally as the driving force behind the straight-forward rock band Tait. “Lonnie and I are like Siamese twins,” he says. “I know all of his little quirks, and he knows mine. We’ll go into a break and end up playing the same line. We’ll look at each other and just laugh.”

Stylistically, Chapin has been called “The Tommy Lee of Christian music,” and he, too, allows the groove to engulf him. “I bring passion into my playing,” he says. “In Nashville, and when we tour, I see so many stale, boring drummers out there. When I’m done with a show, I feel like I’ve sprinted for twenty miles. I can’t even breathe, and my lungs are burning. And I play that way whether there are two hundred people in the audience or twenty thousand.” Advertisement