This World Fair

A college degree in industrial engineering seems an unlikely path to a career in music, but talk to This World Fair founder Chris Kalgren and it all makes sense.
Music became the Minneapolis native's salvation from the intense rigors of academia at the University of Wisconsin, especially as he began seriously to doubt his chosen vocation. "I played guitar all the time in college. It was a great release for me because engineering is pretty dry and super intense. I'm self-taught on the guitar. You figure it out because that's what engineers do. They pick things apart, figure them out and then they make something."
Sounds like what This World Fair does. Through its accessible guitar-driven melodies and well-crafted lyrics, Kalgren provides a road map to travel the emotional terrain that exists between people. "That's what I care about the most," says Kalgren. "I get most of my lyrical inspiration from relationships, failed relationships or relationships where I was extremely close to somebody and one of us moved away. Moving in and out of people's lives. I write about loss more than anything. There is a separation process and everybody deals with it in their own way. I just deal with it through songwriting. I heal well through that."
Kalgren himself describes the band's sound best: "We're the pop side of rock and the rock side of pop." One listen to This World Fair's self-titled album and it's clear the definition is just right. Kalgren's smooth voice has just enough rough edges to demand the listener's attention. This World Fair’s opening track "Can't Stop Falling" shimmers with a certain urgency, while the irresistible "Drama" pokes good-natured fun at a girl who just can't help herself when it comes to being the center of attention. The gorgeous "San Francisco" is ushered in by strings that give the song an epic quality.
All draw from Kalgren's past, as does "Seven Letters," a tale loosely based on a past relationship. "She and I parted ways and I thought it would be a good idea to write her some letters and tell her how I was feeling." He cryptically adds, "It turns out it wasn't really a good idea at all. It was one of those things that wasn't going to work out, but it inspired some really cool songs."
This World Fair was discovered on myspace.com by the girlfriend of the band’s now manager and Grammy-award winning producer Stephen Short of Ping Pong Music.
“Chris has an extraordinary depth of talent and his musicality resonates deeply with me and I believe it will universally,” Short says. “When I hear the vocals of This World Fair, I know that people will have the opportunity to have their lives uplifted.”
The band selected producer Al Clay (Pink, Pixies, Blur) to make the album after meeting with more than 10 choices. "We were looking for chemistry," Kalgren says. "It was just such a great, organic, emotional connection. He was very song focused.”
While in the midst of making the new CD, This World Fair got a major profile boost with inclusion of the song "Don't Make Me Wait" in DreamWorks’ 2007 summer blockbuster, Disturbia. "They sent us a scene from the movie and said 'write a song under it and here's a melodic cue for the score,'" recalls Kalgren. The kicker? The band only had 12 hours to pull together the tune because of recording commitments. "We were leaving for L.A. the next day," Kalgren says. "We pulled an all-nighter and wrote the song. Sometimes the muse shows up and sometimes it doesn't."
This World Fair completed three national tours between 2006 and 2008, performing with Guster, Phantom Planet, Under the Influence of Giants, and Barcelona.
When the band’s label Rethink/EMI Records folded in 2008, Kalgren made the tough decision to continue the pursuit of music as a solo effort and entered an 18-month process to gain the legal rights to self-release the master recordings from EMI.
"Stephen and I really believed in the record," Kalgren says. "It was a matter of getting ownership of the songs to keep them from being locked away. When you truly believe in something you stick with it because you know it will be successful."
The first album release comes at the end of This World Fair’s 25-date national tour including stops at Los Angeles’ Viper Room and Summerfest, the world’s largest music festivals.
Kalgren looks forward to supporting the album with a tour in 2009. "Playing live is like a drug. You're allowing something to flow through you and you allow yourself to be in the moment. It's its own feeling, it's unmatched. My favorite part is allowing myself to not think, just be. There's nothing better than that."
While the engineer in him would surely disapprove of such a notion, the musician is applauding loudly.