The best thing that ever happened to Christofer Drew was when he broke his foot in 2005. As a young teenager, the Joplin, MO native was a child tennis prodigy, destined for a scholarship at a big-time college and hopefully, a one-way ticket out of the dusty, western Missouri city. But at age 14, with the injury leaving him unable to compete, Drew picked up his father’s battered Carlos guitar and began figuring out chords while listening to cassette tapes of the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and the Beatles’ A Hard Days Night and Please Please Me. “The Beatles really helped me out a lot,” Drew says. “I studied the structure with their earlier music. “If I Fell” (from A Hard Day’s Night) was my favorite: the harmonies, the seventh chords. It’s like a circle of chords, changes key in the middle of it and gets back to the original at the end. It’s just amazing.”

And after achieving wild success by posting early tracks and engaging his growing fan base via Myspace, the now 18-year-old Drew makes his Warner Bros.’ debut with the eight song album What Is Love? On the album, Drew seamlessly combines his early influences with a splash of Beach Boys’ sunshine pop, which serve as the foundation for his brutally honest lyrics about losing, loving and following your dreams. Fittingly, some of What Is Love? was recorded at the famed Abbey Road studios – with the help of Butch Walker – where the ghosts of the Fab Four rubbed off on tracks like “I Love You 5” which merrily bounces along with an addictive la-la-la chorus while the call to arms “Love Is A Weapon” shows flashes of a punk influence – albeit with an acoustic guitar – with wide-eyed idealism. “I listened to the radio a lot and my older brother was into the Arcade Fire,” says Drew. “But that never moved me. I wanted songs that had emotion not what whatever was cool.”

But to dismiss Drew as just another digital flash in the pan who never payed his dues, would be at your peril. Despite his tennis prodigy background – and the connotations it might bring to mind – nothing was handed to Drew on a silver platter. His father was a full-time tennis instructor and his mother worked as an accountant at the YMCA. He grew up in a rough part of Joplin, just north of downtown, amid ramshackle old houses that doubled as meth labs. “We really couldn’t do anything outside, it was too dangerous,” he recalls. “I had like one or two other friends and we just went to each other’s houses and listened to music.”

After learning guitar, Drew began to write songs, lyrics pouring out of him. He summoned the courage to hike down to Dioko, the local coffee house where the owners held open mic events every Tuesday night. In front of much older crowd, Drew had a go-to list of four songs but would try and write a new one each week to test out. “They were really bad,” he says. “I changed time signatures in the middle of one without even knowing it. I got a lot of shit.” But a few audience members were more encouraging, letting him bum smokes and giving him positive feedback. “None of the kids my age really understood me,” he says. “I didn’t care about school, sports or popularity. I really wanted to be misunderstood and pursue something that was different than everyone else.”

Drew was working three jobs, eventually saving up enough money to buy a MacBook and began fooling around on the home recording software Garageband then posting songs on Myspace and Purevolume. One day during his sophomore year, Drew ditched school, wrote his parents a note that said he was dropping out to pursue music full time. It didn’t go over so well, his father tracked him down and told him that if he continued down this path, he was no longer welcome in the family. “That scared the hell out of me,” he says. “Everyone’s goal was to get out of Joplin, we were even taught that at school. My parents thought I was throwing my chance away, but I was obsessed with doing it my way, through music.”

Even though he dropped out of school, Drew remained in Joplin, living in his car for a period of time and using the free wifi at the local Panera to grow his fan base. He eventually caught the ear of his manager, David Conway, who booked him small tours in the Midwest, where he drove to on his own or with a friend hauling bags full of t-shirts and other merch. He would go for up to two weeks at a time, returning to Joplin to write more songs. His parents took notice of his success: he was able to pay make his own car payments and insurance, with enough cash left over to live on. They eventually relented and gave him the basement to use as his own recording studio.

In 2008, he self-released The Yippee EP, his first under the Never Shout Never moniker – the name a toast to his drive and determination – which has sold more than 30,000 copies and hundreds of thousands of individual tracks. As an unsigned artist, Never Shout Never became one of MySpace’s top artists for more than a year, averaging more than 100,000 plays a day and racking up more than 77 million total plays. Two more EP’s soon followed – Me & My Uke and The Summer EP – as well as tours with The Honorary Title, Gym Class Heros, The Academy Is…as well as an opening spot for Dashboard Confessional. Never Shout Never became one of the top new acts of 2009, crowned by winning the MTV Woodie Award, beating out other buzz-worthy acts like La Roux, Grizzly Bear, Wale and Passion Pit.

Continue in Post #2