Max Chase

Max Chase grew up in New Marlborough, Massachusetts — deep Berkshire County — and has been performing since 2004. He plays Hammond B3, Rhodes, piano, and sings. The instrument people remember is the B3. When he sits behind it, the room fills up differently.

He’s a founding member of Marble Eyes, the rock band that formed in Eric Gould’s driveway during the pandemic when guitarist Mike Carter invited Chase to set up with social distancing between them. Gould plays bass in Pink Talking Fish. Adrian Tramontano, the drummer, comes from Kung Fu. The four of them wrote over fifty songs during their “Marble Eyes Mondays” livestream residency, and their debut Return to the Roses came out on Color Red Music in 2021. The sophomore album Hunting with Comets followed in 2023. Chase wrote “Stop The Music,” which Relix premiered — a pandemic anthem that landed because it was honest, not because it was trying to be one.

He co-founded Sans Souci, a Jerry Garcia Band tribute, with guitarist Bobby O’Neill in 2017. They hold down a regular slot at the Stone Church Music Club in Newmarket, New Hampshire, and their live recordings are archived on the Internet Archive — the kind of thing that happens when a band’s audience cares enough to document it. Before that, he played keys in Amulus, a genre-bending improvisational rock band out of Dover, New Hampshire.

Chase is described as a staple of the New Hampshire Seacoast music scene, which undersells it. He’s the organist Brad Dubay chose for Planet 9, and the playing on that record — moving from subtle soul to roaring energy without ever stepping on the guitar — is the reason. He adds texture and weight. He knows when to push and when to sit back. That’s the job, and he does it like he’s been doing it his whole life. Because he has.