OUR STORY

As a young boy growing up in Tarrytown, N.Y., Carl Chesna would go out on family outings in their boat along the Hudson River. "One of my favorite things to do was to sit in the back of the boat and watch the trail of water. My parents said, 'Well, that's the wake. It's our path where we've been,'" says Chesna from his home in the East Village. For the past six years, Chesna has plied his trade as a singer and songwriter in the fold of his contemporary, Daniel Cartier, performing at East Village spots such as The Spiral, the now defunct Cafe Sin-e, CBGB Gallery, Under Acme, Brownies, and more recently The Baggott Inn.... "When I write songs, it's not so much about telling a story as it is expressing a feeling," he says. "I've always been interested in the environment, equal rights and humanitarian concerns and I do sometimes address these social issues in my songs, but I don't want to be too preachy. There's a certain folk esthetic and rock sensibility to my stuff", says Chesna, whose "Psychology of Waiting" (Regular Records) varies from the upbeat, happy "You're Gonna Shine" to the psychological dream world of "Dream's Wake." "I try to express a positive energy," he says. "Our society as a whole focuses entirely too much on results and not about the process towards success and defining what success is. So much of it is about status and I have a big car, a mortgage and a big house in the country. Whatever these little prizes are that people are running around with. Most things don't just happen. Each process is a struggle. How did you get there? I see people waiting a lot in their lives before they start to live. People place a lot of conditions on their happiness", says Chesna. Chesna, 29, found himself trapped in the same cycle as he struggled to make ends meet and pay college tuition working at corporate sales jobs in Manhattan while studying, first as an electrical engineering and business major and then shifting to the more artistic side of English Literature and creative writing at Pace University. Chesna decided to give up the corporate dreams for life as a musician and songwriter, and just two courses away from finally getting his B.A. in English Literature from Pace, he's upon the wake of his dreams. "That's where life happens," he says. "Once you get there, you can always change and say, 'Now I want this,' because the idea of success in life is really fluid anyway. My idea is to be happy in the struggle, because that's where life happens."

Robert Hicks - The Villager
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