Profile: Chris Kogos

By Dawne Belloise

Crested Butte’s Chris Kogos is a prolific and quiet genius when it comes to creating meme music. That’s a cultural phenomenon that’s basically associated with short, catchy and sometimes absurd tunes, remixed from existing songs within the context of a viral image, video or social media post (according to a Google search). 

His techno music is rhythmically tantalizing and overlaid with melody, a highlight for the video ensembles he creates from other clips and his own imagination. Some of Chris’ meme videos have garnered almost two million views on YouTube and he’s widely followed (search Chris Kogos on that platform). In a different genre, he also plays a Chinese harp called a Guzheng. Juxtaposed against his syncopated techno meme music, the Guzheng is an ancient stringed instrument with a mesmerizingly ethereal sound and Chris says, “I’ve always loved traditional Chinese music since I was a kid and watched Mulan. I’ve always liked how peaceful it sounds.” But his roots are firmly grounded in classical music, Chopin being his favorite; he started playing piano as a child.

Originally from Naperville, Illinois, Chris tells that his childhood and its trauma played an important role for him in expressing his art and music. From the time he was seven years old, Chris was taking piano lessons from his grandmother and he confesses, “I hated the lessons so much. When you’re that young you just want to play, you want free time. I didn’t want more homework on top of the homework I already had.” Chris was a loner, spending the vast majority of his childhood indoors making music, animations, drawing, and playing computer games. 

Even though he was attending an alternative school, Chris was not fond of any aspect of school: “Everything about it, getting up early and the fact that we had to learn stuff that I had absolutely no interest in.” When his parents divorced after his sophomore year, Chris moved with his mother and his two siblings, transferring to a much larger school. “I liked that, it was the one experience in high school I actually enjoyed.” He explains that was the time he started seriously pursuing music. Chris joined the marching band’s front ensemble in his junior year, playing xylophone, marimba, cymbals, gongs, triangle – various percussion instruments. In his senior year, he played keyboards in the ensemble. 

When Chris was 15, he had started listening to and playing the Greek pianist Yanni. “I listened to him a lot. Yanni is considered New Age with a traditional Greek sound and a mix of 1980s and 1990s sounds and instruments.” Throughout high school Chris was also starting to pick up on video game music. “A lot of the video games I was playing, like Zelda and Super Mario, had really good music that I liked,” he says, and adds that he was doing it just for fun and to entertain himself and friends. 

When he graduated in 2012, Chris knew he wanted to do music and something with art and graphic design, so he enrolled at the College of Dupage, in the Chicago area. Attending on and off for three years while working in a Walgreen’s photo department, Chris was trying to find his path. It was 2016 when he decided to move to Crested Butte to join his sister Brandy, who was already living here. He had visited Brandy and CB for the first time in December of 2015, and loved the snowboarding. Chris had learned to ride in Wisconsin when he was 12 years old but claims he was never good at it. When he arrived in town he says, “I specifically remember thinking holy sh*t, my sister lives here, and I was totally envious and thought, is this place even real?” His dad had driven Chris out and they stayed for about a week. It was on the drive back to Illinois that Chris decided to move to CB, “And I’ve never looked back since.”

Chris stayed with his sister until he found roommates and a steady job at CBMR as a liftie. “It was cool, literally,” he laughs, “I was freezing. But it was fun.” Even though he was accustomed to the bone chilling cold in Chicago, he says riding up the Red Lady lift at 7:30 in the morning was even more brutal. But he survived it for three years. In the summers, Chris worked odd jobs painting and at the Gas Cafe. His YouTube channels were gaining in popularity with his memes, remixes and parodies made him a bit of money. He’s had his channel since 2006 but his first check came in 2015, a cut from the ad revenue. 

On the last day of the ski season of 2017, on his last run, Chris had an almost near-death experience snowboarding. He ran into some trees feet first which broke both his legs. “I couldn’t feel anything from my waist down. My sister was with me, but she was already at the bottom. We were racing and she finally beat me.” His injuries were extensive. “I broke my femur in three places, shattered my right tibia, broke my right ankle, tore my right MCL and broke my left tibia as well.” After his primary surgery in Gunnison, he was taken to Grand Junction where he underwent more surgeries and was in that hospital for two weeks and then in a wheelchair for a month, a walker, then crutches. He had tons of rods and screws in his legs, which were removed in 2021. He was lucky, and it was three months before he could walk again. During his recovery, Chris turned his focus to creating more content on YouTube. 

After he healed, Chris was working for a painting company in the valley and still doing YouTube as a side hustle. That’s when he started to seriously pick up classical piano again. After he quit the painting company in 2018, he pursued YouTube even more, while working at the Gas Cafe and playing for wine tastings at the Elevation Hotel every Friday and Saturday for a year. 

By the end of 2018 and into 2019, his YouTube channel really took off and he started getting substantial amounts of views and, consequently, decent money for his music and memes. In fact, he started earning more money than a part-time job. “I’d make goofy videos for my own entertainment, upload them and people loved them. I’ll take samples from memes, which are short funny videos, and create a song out of it. I’ll take a very short audio sample from the video and build a song using those samples.” 

With more income from more ad revenues, Chris left his job at the Gasser to pursue YouTube full-time. “It was a lot of fun, but it was a little lonely because I was in my room making videos all the time, making music and art and doing the YouTube channel. I wouldn’t really leave the house. I do like being alone, so I did kind of enjoy it,” he says.

He was making great money during Covid, but afterward when his YouTube numbers started to drop, he bowed out, proclaiming, “I rode the wave.” That was 2021, and Chris started to work at Clark’s Market part-time to pay the bills. He was also still playing music for weddings, parties and little gigs like the Gala for the CB Center for the Arts in 2022. Chris also played keyboards for Celebrate the Beat for two years. “I got to meet a lot of the kids and parents.” 

Chris still hikes, bikes and paddleboards in his free time, but he says he’d rather be inside. “I do love the outdoors here,” but he says he initially moved here to be with his sister. “I’m very close with her. And I feel very connected to this community, especially after working at Clark’s. I’ve met so many locals. Sitting in my chair, I’m looking at Red Lady (mountain) right now. I didn’t grow up with this. I’m used to flat land, corn, gas stations, and Walmarts. Every time I drive to work from Skyland, I’m driving right in front of Whetstone Mountain and thinking, this is incredible.”

Chris strives to take life day by day, although he feels it’s hard to not think about the future. “I often see Shaun Horne sitting by the side of the road painting mountains and I deeply admire the fact that you can just make art or music and live here. It makes me want to keep making art and music because I know that there’s hope.” He also realizes that it’s a competitive industry. “It’s difficult to make a living off of it unless you’re really good.” 

Chris feels inspired to get back into music more seriously and professionally. He hopes to be able to make a living from doing what he loves. “I used to make my own electronic music when I first moved out here. I’ve been messing with that since I was a kid,” he says. And lately, he’s been creating electronic music again and he currently has three YouTube channels. The spark for returning to electronic music was initiated when he attended festivals in Buena Vista, Aspen and at Red Rocks. “Making my own electronic music again feels like I’m returning back to my roots. You have to find your life’s task and I feel my life task is music.”