Chris Pérez

Chris and Selena started dating during a trip to Mexico and they expressed their love for each other at a Pizza Hut restaurant and became a couple. Selena’s father was against this relationship although Selena’s mother approved their courtship. Later, Quentilla Jr. fired Chris from the band. But Selena could not take the pain anymore and they eloped to Nueces County, Texas, and got married secretly in 1992. Selena’s father, who was earlier against their relationship, later accepted them after their marriage.

In an unfortunate incident Selena was murdered by her own boutique employee named Yolanda Saldivar. Yolanda tried to commit suicide but later the police caught her and she was later sentenced to life time imprisonment.

As Selena was an amazing singer and given blockbuster albums, the former President George W. Bush at that time announced Selena’s birthday as Selena Day in Texas.

Christopher Gilbert Perez was born on 14th August, 1969 in San Antonio, Texas, to Gilbert Perez and Carmen Medina. His father was a computer programmer. Chris is of Mexican-American ancestry. When he was of 4 years, his parents divorced and his mother remarried in 1978.

His mother fully supported him as he learned to play the musical instrument ‘French Horn’ during his middle school and she also allowed him to be a member of the school’s concert. At that time the society had a bad impression of the rock and roll music, hence his mother opposed his decision to learn electric guitar. However, he was so passionate about it that that he learned and started to play the electric guitar against his mother’s disapproval.

During that time he was a fan of Motley Crue, Van Halen, Def Leppard, the Scorpions, Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, and Iron Maiden and had started to admire Ricky Martin. Many of his guitar solos are inspired from Carlos Santana.

In order to build his career Chris ran off from his house at the age of 17 years. He shared his father’s apartment and started to work in a library. After a while Chris was asked by Tony Lares to join his cousin’s Shelly Lares’ band in 1986. Although Chris was not interested in Shelly’s Tejano music (a mixture of traditional Mexican folk music, polkas and country music sung in English or Spanish) yet he joined the band as it paid him better than his library work. He thus, started to play for bar-room group.

As Tony later left the band, Chris became the musical director of the band and also co-wrote three songs for Shelly’s debut album in 1998. His guitar skills were loved and admired by his fans as well as the band members.

Chris was next approached by bassist A. B. Quintanilla III of the Selena y Los Dinos band to join them. He quite willingly joined the band in 1989 because the sound used by Los Dinos was more ‘sophisticated and hip’. The band released many popular albums like ‘Entre a Mi Mundo’ (1992),‘Amor Prohibido’ (1994), ‘Dreaming of You’ (1995) to name a few.

Later, he also performed as lead guitarist in Kumbia Kings (2003- 2006) and A. B. Quintanilla (2001-2008).

In 2008, Chris formed a band ‘Chris Perez Band’ with Garza, Rudy Martinez, Joe Odeja and Jesse Esquivel. The band was signed to Hollywood Records and their debut album ‘Ressurrection’ was recorded at Henson studio. The songs included ‘Best I Can’, ‘Another Day’ and ‘Solo Tu’ and the album was released on 18th May, 1999. It went on to win the 2000 Grammy Award for ‘Best Latin, Rock, Urban or Alternative’ album. However, the band disbanded after releasing their second album ‘Una Nocha Mas’ in 2002.

In 2010, Chris collaborated with Puertorican Singer Angel Ferrer, as the lead singer to form a band called the ‘Chris Perez Project’ and released an album titled ‘Todo es Diferente’. Next, he went to publish his book ‘To Selena With Love’ in 2012.