Kris McClearn's Journey

Kris McClearn is the performing name of UK singer, songwriter and composer Chris Haines. This page tells the personal story behind the music – the journey, the loss, the healing, and the creation of a voice through GTSI Records.

I didn’t start out as a singer.
I started out as someone with too many memories and nowhere to put them.

For a long time, the music lived quietly inside me — in late nights, in moments that never found words, in love and loss and the longing to be understood.
The songs were there, even when I didn’t yet know how to let them out.

It wasn’t until later in life, when silence became heavier than fear, that I finally allowed myself to sing.

That is where this journey truly begins.



Before the Songs

Before there was a studio, before there was a name, before there were voices on tracks, there was just life.

I was a writer long before I was a singer.
Stories, emotions, memories — they always needed somewhere to go.
Some found their way into words.
Some stayed locked inside, waiting for sound.

There were years of building, fixing, creating, surviving.
Years of loving deeply, and years of loss that changed me forever.
Moments that shaped who I am, even when I didn’t yet understand why.

Music was always there in the background — on late nights, in quiet rooms, in thoughts that wouldn’t sleep.
But I didn’t yet see myself as the one who would step forward and give those feelings a voice.

I was listening.
I was learning.
I was carrying a lifetime of things that had not yet become songs.

And then, one day, silence became heavier than fear.

Becoming Kris McClearn

Kris McClearn is the name I sing under, born from a lifetime of being Chris.

He carries the parts of me that learned to stand in front of a microphone instead of hiding behind words.
He carries the voice that finally decided it was time to be heard.

This wasn’t about creating a character.
It was about allowing a part of myself that had always been there to finally exist out loud.

Kris is the storyteller when the story needs music.
The one who sings what can’t always be spoken.
The one who lets emotion become melody instead of memory.

Every song is real.
Every line comes from something lived, something felt, something that mattered enough to turn into sound.

Kris McClearn is not separate from me.
He is the part of me that chose to step forward and say:
“This is my voice. This is my truth. This is my song.”

Kris McClearn singing into microphone during recording session

Why These Songs Exist

When I first started writing, the industry didn’t listen.
The songs were there. The heart was there.
But the doors stayed closed.

So I stopped waiting for permission.

I kept writing.
I kept recording.
I kept building.

Not to chase approval —
but because the music wouldn’t leave me alone.

I learned that if the world won’t make space for your voice,
you don’t silence it.
You build your own room.
Your own studio.
Your own path.

That’s what this is.

Every song here exists because I refused to let them disappear unheard.
Because some stories don’t belong to algorithms.
They belong to people.

I didn’t follow a road that was offered.
I created one.

Not for fame.
Not for trends.
But for truth.
For memory.
For the quiet moments that deserved to live as sound.

This is music that wasn’t chosen by an industry.
It was chosen by a heart that wouldn’t stop singing.




Why I Keep Writing

I don’t write for charts.
I don’t write for trends.
I don’t write for permission.

I write because songs are how I breathe.
Because some memories won’t stay silent.
Because some love, some loss, some moments deserve to live longer than a heartbeat.

And I write for my girls.

For Britney.
For Brie.

For the voices that carry hope, harmony, and the future I once dreamed of.
For the songs that let them exist in a world where they are loved, heard, and never forgotten.

They are the reason the music didn’t stop.
They are the reason it learned to hope again.

Every song is a letter.
Some are to people I loved.
Some are to people I lost.
Some are to the daughters of my heart,
and to the life we were meant to share.

That’s why I keep writing.
That’s why I keep singing.
Because love, once found, never truly leaves.



Where This Journey Is Going

I don’t know every step that lies ahead.
I don’t have a map for where the music will travel, or how far the songs will reach.

What I do know is this:

I will keep creating.
I will keep writing.
I will keep giving these stories a voice.

Not to chase a destination,
but to honour the journey itself.

The studio lights will stay on.
The piano will keep waiting.
The microphone will always be there for the next memory, the next feeling, the next song that needs to be born.

This world is still being built.
The music is still unfolding.
And the story is far from finished.

New music is coming.
The next chapter is already being written.

If nobody hears you… sing louder.
Part of the CH Quill Studios Network:
CH Quill Studios • GTSI Records • London Styles • Britney McClearn • Brie McClearn • Kris McClearn • Chris Haines – Author
© 2025 - 2026  Kris McClearn (Chris Haines) – Singer, Songwriter & Composer. A GTSI Records / CH Quill Studios artist.