Charlie Chamberlain has spent most of his life strumming a guitar and writing lyrics to songs.
As a teen, he went to a specialized high school where he learned about jazz and music theory.
As a college student, he studied music and started playing his own stuff.
And as a young adult, he spent 200 days a year out on the road, traveling across the United States and Europe, playing with different acts out on tour.
Music has always sort of been his thing.
“It’s just what I do,” Chamberlain, 32, said on the phone the other day.
He started playing guitar when he was 8 years old, and has been playing solo or in different groups ever since.
He moved up to Concord from South Carolina a few years ago and a few months back formed Ordinary Soldiers, a four-member band that plays rock tunes with a bluesy twist.
The band consists of Chamberlain on lead guitar and vocals; Greg Proulx on electric guitar; George Laliotis on bass; and Kevin Rioux on drums.
They play a style that’s mostly blues rock with some country and Americana mixed in.
“I’d call it Southern rock if it wasn’t from New Hampshire,” said Chamberlain, who writes the music and lyrics to all the original tunes that the band plays. He talks with a slight Southern twang, which gives way to amicable conversation.
The band, Chamberlain said, counts the Allman Brothers, the Black Keys and Darrell Scott among its top influences.
They’ve only played a couple of gigs so far, but Chamberlain sees potential for the group. He expects to release a studio or maybe a live album with his bandmates sometime in the future.
And maybe he’ll even take them out on the road, too.
“I’d like to get this band touring,” said Chamberlain, who used to tour with The Ranchhands and Tokyo Rosenthal and also plays in the local bluegrass band Lunch at the Dump.
Right now, though, he’s taking it all one step at time.
He’s working on getting the word out, on letting people know that there’s a new band in town that plays original cuts with sweet guitar riffs. He’s arranging gigs at local venues and writing new tunes every day that he hopes to feature with the group.
He knows the process and buildup can be slow, but he’s hoping it will all pay off.
“I’m taking it slow with this band,” he said. “Just letting it build naturally.”
The band’s next show is set for Aug. 30, at 9 p.m. at The Stone Church in Newmarket with the Dusty Gray Band. For more information or to listen to some tracks, visit ordinarysoldiers.com.
