Greyson Michael Chance, he is an American pop rock singer and pianist whose April 2010 performace of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at a sixth-grade music festival became a hit on YouTube gaining over 39 million views. Two of his original composition, "Stars" and "Broken Hearts", gained over 5 and 7 million views respectively on his YouTube channel. His debut single, "Waiting Outside The Lines", was released in October 2010.
Chance was born on August 16 1997 in Wichita Falls, Texas and currently resides in Edmond, Oklahoma. He is the youngest child of Scott and Lisa Chance. He has a 16 year old sister named Alexa and 19 year old brother named Tanner both of whom also play music.Chance began playing the piano at the age of 8 and has had three years of piano lessons; however, he had no formal vocal training.
Of his inspiration, Chance said, "I love artists who are able to communicate their emotions through music and sing from the heart. That’s what I’m hoping to do with my songs." He is emboldened by Lady Gaga. After seeing performance of "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, he said " I was awestruck by her performance. I love her sense of drama and threaticality, plus she's an amazing singer and piano player" Chance is also inspired by Christina Aguilera, rock band Augustana, R&B singer John Legend, singer-songwriter Elton John, and John Lennon, of The Beatles fame.
Ellen DeGeneres first saw the video after Chance's brother, Tanner Chance, wrote to her show suggesting she watch it. The video had about 10.000 views when DeGeneres first saw it. While explaining her reasons for naming her new record label "eleveneleven", she listed as one reason the fact that she first saw Chance's Paparazzi cover on May 11, 2010. Also, she states that 11 is Greyson's soccer jersey number. On the afternoon of May 11, Yahoo! Music reported: "As of this writing, the video has got more than 36,000 views so far, and he's even been invited to perform on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
On May 12, 2010 Greyson Chance taped an interview and performance of "Paparazzi" for
Ellen in Los Angeles. It was broadcast on May 13. During the interview, Chance received a phone call from Lady Gaga, who the boy says is his "true inspiration." This first appearance on
Ellen was followed by a second appearance on the show, airing May 26, 2010, on which Chance performed his original song "Broken Hearts," received a $10,000.00 award for winning
Ellen's Wonderful Web of Wonderment contest, a brand new Yamaha piano, and was announced as DeGeneres's first signed artist to her new recording label eleveneleven. hance now has many fans on online social sites such as Facebook and Twitter (I'm one of them ^^). He is the 28th most subscribed musician of all time on YouTube, with a 286,000+ strong subscriber base, as of January 3, 2011. Grayson Chance also appeared at We Day in downtown Toronto at the Air Canada Centre, where he performed "Fire" by Augustana.
