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- STUDIO PATCH:
ip-DTL, Source Connect Now, Skype, Phone patch
- TURNAROUND:
Under 12hr delivery
- AGE RANGE:
Young adult, Middle aged, Senior
- Accent origin:
Mid-Atlantic/Neutral
- Vocal timbre:
Male
IN SUMMARY: Voiceatile. Experienced, skilled voice talent with range. Request a free no obligation quote.
Chris Mezzolesta is a voice talent with many years of professional experience in voiceover and as a professional musician. With a lifelong fascination with sound and a passion for music, Chris brings it all together into one Voiceatile package.
Chris first heard his own voice back around 1970 when he received a cassette recorder for Christmas (yes, a cassette recorder/radio combo, even then!) and found that by manipulating the Play button, he could change the sound of his voice, just like he had discovered he could do on his small portable record player with the hit 45s of the time.
This led to a curiosity as to how sound is captured, stored, and reproduced, that continues to this day. It also exposed a love of mimicry, and trying to recreate voices and sounds heard on those records, many of which were classic comedy sides. Add to this the daily diet of classic cartoons on syndicated TV throughout the school years and beyond, many of which Chris would reproduce in school for his classmates’ amusement (not necessarily his teachers’) and an affinity for ‘performing’, and it all contributed to the complete Voiceatile service.
In addition to majoring in music at The University of Akron and cutting his teeth as a working musician with everything from jazz duos to wedding bands to commercial recording sessions to theater pit bands to professional jazz and classical orchestras, Chris was involved in the University radio station, then called WAUP-FM. Both there and in the music school’s electronic music lab, Chris learned audio production, mixing, live recording, and other skills that are now used every day. He presented a four-hour jazz program once a week as well as a freeform comedy program every Thursday at midnight.
He also found a kindred spirit in Craig Marks, another station member and fill-in DJ, who just happened to have the right warped sense of humor to fit Chris’s multi-character-voice aspirations, and a radio comedy group, Zot Theater, was formed. Loosely based upon the National Lampoon Radio Hour, the Firesign Theatre and Monty Python, Craig wrote sketches and longform stories that were voice acted by Chris and other student members of station staff, with Chris doing the audio production and musical direction. A couple dozen monthly episodes were produced, with certain select sketches being aired on Cleveland’s WMMS-FM morning show as well as the legendary “Dr Demento Show”, of which Chris had been a major fan (the big time!).
Following graduation, Chris and Craig decided to continue one aspect of Zot Theater, which was musical parody. There had usually been either an original comedy song or a parody in each episode, and now Craig decided to move further into comic songwriting, with Chris realizing his compositions musically, which became the comedy band Power Salad. Since 1997, Power Salad has appeared many times on “The Dr. Demento Show” and in 2008 had the #1 fan-requested song of the year on the year-end Funny 25 countdown. Quite a gratifying achievement for 2 confirmed “Dementoids”. Power Salad continues into the present, releasing their 2-volume “best of” albums and performing at various fan conventions around the country.
A large part of Power Salad is its eclectic musical style; a large part of this eclectic style is Chris’s ability to sing in character, which comes in handy if one is doing an original song or parody in the style of another artist, or just a weird character to be singing. While just doing character voices is one thing, Chris found he was able to apply this to singing as well, which widens the palette of possibilities.
His entree into professional voiceover was in 1990 when a Cleveland ad producer telephoned the musical entertainment agency that Chris was a partner in, looking for a rapper to voice a radio commercial for an ‘8:00 Movie’ on a San Francisco station. Chris’s partner replied that no, the agency didn’t have any rappers, but there was a musician on staff who could do character voices and could reliably sound like a rapper. This affiliation turned into a successful and fun working relationship, with the producer utilizing Chris on a wide range of commercials for all kinds of clients, including the aforementioned humorous quasi-rapping, straight announcing, characters, even lead and harmony singing on various musical commercials the producer had composed. On many occasions Chris was retained to add acoustic or electric guitar to the musical bed as well as the singing and/or the voiceover.
From this agency to others across the midwest, Chris provided voiceovers for clients ranging from Cincinnati Bell to the Ohio Lottery to Dunlop Tires, as well as being the voice of the Dairy Mart convenience store chain and the station voice of 2 Fox TV stations in Florida. In more recent years, Chris has voiced animated commercial characters such as a Windows Home Server for Microsoft, a guy-with-diarrhea for Kaopectate, and ‘GeOX Boy’ for GeOX Shoes commercials airing in Europe. He has also been a reassuring voice for Mercantil Commercebank, a hunk of Italian cheese for Marco’s Pizza, and an angry medieval king for Snickers.
Far from being a “dinosaur” in this Internet age of online casting and uncertainty of voiceover quality, Chris now brings this long & varied experience together in a complete problem-solving service. You can be assured that no matter what application you might have for voiceover, there is value in bringing Chris on to voice your projects.
Click here for a free no obligation quote if you'd like an audition sample from me (or voices similar to mine). I am a professional member of WoVO, more info here.
Sennheiser MKH-416, Neumann TLM-103, Audio-Technica AT4040; Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 & Tascam US-16x08 interfaces; Fully-isolated custom-built recording studio.
28 years pro experience, clients ranging from local to global, including Microsoft, Kaopectate, Snickers, Kraft Foods, Chrysler, United Way, Goodyear Tires, Marco's Pizza, many more.
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