Country Music often finds his lyrical soul in heartache. But for singer Chase McDaniel, It cost a failed powerful PR attempt – and almost lost his life in his catastrophic aftermath – to become the unlikely inspiration for his transformation from Powerlifter to powerful balladeer.
The resident of Kentucky does not remember much of that fateful lift, when missing a 300-pound of electricity cleaning became his sausage-case scenario. McDaniel black from the top of the lift before he collapsed to the platform when 300 pounds of iron crashed on his 155 pound frame. The accident left him in the hospital with a serious concussion, followed by memory loss.
Then it got worse.
In the months and years that followed, McDaniel was chased by ruthless panic attacks – delivers so intensely that even the most basic tasks felt insurmountable, including stepping foot in the gym. “It feels like threatening death, and there is nothing you can do about it,” he says.
Before the accident, the lifting of heavy-mcdaniel once squatted a competition-best 491 pound-wash its primary emotional outlet valve. “Going to the gym was always how I dealt with shit in the world,” he explains.
But after he had to give up powerlifting, McDaniel turned to music to process his emotions. “The only place to go was in my head,” he says. “And although my head was a really dangerous place to be, the only place I could place the words – because I didn’t want to tell anyone – was in music.”
Songwriting became his therapy, a way to channel pain and confusion in something creative and healing.
This week the story of McDaniel comes with the release of his autobiographical debut album, Losts, on September 19. The title track, accompanied by his emotional raw video, is part of a deep personal project, not only devoted to country music fans, but also to anyone struggling with their own fights in their head. “This whole album is a personal journey,” he says. “These are all personal anecdotes, and they are also stories about overcoming.”
The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. His debut single, “Heaven burned down,” Landed in the top 3 of the most added songs on Country Radio, which earned him Musicrow’s “Discovery Award”. He has also released songs as “Heart Still Works” and “Made It Ther Far” and is ready to support Superster Jason Aldean during his upcoming autumn tour.
In addition to his musical performance, McDaniel has returned to the weight space. Although it starts all over again – the use of lighter weights and a Smith machine to rebuild its power – is his early goal to press 250 pounds again. Mentally it is a huge step forward for an artist who once stood on the edge of suicide before a stranger intervened and brought him to safety.
“I only tried to push through it,” he says. “And then I tried to kill myself. I noticed that I was jumping on the side of a bridge and the man pulled me back.”
Robby Stevens
Chase McDaniel: Barbells for ballads
The fixation of Chase McDaniel with powerlifting started around the same time that he is learning to walk. That is the norm when you are raised in a family that “eats, sleeps and breathes powerlifting.” The singer of the “Burned Down Heaven” was presented at the age of four in the gym by both his father, a national champion and his grandfather, an Olympic lifter. “My father and my dad let me do squats when I was four,” he says. “It was just all I knew.”
McDaniel’s early introduction soon turned into a lifelong obsession with strength. The gym was more than just a place to build muscles it was his stress-relieving sanctuary and a proven areas that you should never underestimate the little man. “In high school and high school,” he says, “I was a very small guy – I never weighed more than 150 pounds, but I was really good at powerlifting. I started to do these competitions and in my junior and senior years I won national subjects.”
His figures spoke for themselves. “My squat in competition was 491, while I did more than 500 in the gym,” he says. “On the bench press – in the gym – I did about 315 or 325.”
Although he placed impressive PRs at 155 pounds, McDaniel says that his traits caused the most problems during the competition. “My deadlift was my worst lift,” he says. “I think it was somewhere in the 40s, maybe 500 again.”
Even with solid figures, the singer started pushing harder after the overdose of his father’s overdose during his last year in high school. “I decided that I wanted to do Olympic weightlifting,” he says. “I have this powerlifting -thing as far as I can go. And at the time they had just had the 2012 Olympic Games. I had something like that, man, [the U.S.] Hasn’t won gold in many years, maybe I’m the man. “
From the edge of the platform to the edge of despair
Many lifters have felt at some point that uncomfortable sensation light in the head, dizziness, even nausea they attempt. Most of us immediately reject this as an uncomfortable honor badge that is accompanied by making a profit, rarely or never give a second thought of possible consequences.
With the American Open Wightlifting event that quickly approached, McDaniel went into his training session and felt strong and motivated to try a Power Clean Personal Record of 300 pounds. Instead, he was in a hospital bed, with hardly a memory of everything around him.
“I fainted with more than 300 pounds on top of me,” he remembers. “I woke up in a cat cancer and had a brace on my neck. I immediately had no idea who I was, what day it was, what year it was, even who my family was.”
The physical injuries were serious – McDaniel suffered a concussion and a neck injury – but the psychological wounds ran even deeper. Like many athletes, he tried to rush to the gym. However, the results were almost as devastating as his concussion.
“I probably tried to go to the gym two weeks later,” he admits. “I just used a warm -up weight, such as 40 kilos, and it felt like a bomb went into my skull. Immediately afterwards I started to cry and went back home, and then did not go back to a gym. The few times I have, it was always ended in a panic attack.”
McDaniel’s problems deteriorated that extend to his daily life. “I had panic attacks to the supermarkets and panic attacks in my house. The completely stable of me my own identity, my own self -identity, as I thought I was before.”
In the first instance, like many young and naive athletes, he chose to have “white knuckle”, in an attempt to solve his problems himself. Even while the mental stress continued to build – including the pain of losing his father years earlier to addiction – he believed that he could only fight through darkness. Eventually the pain became unbearable. He tried suicide, stood on a bridge, waiting for the moment to jump. But because of the miracle of a passer -by who stopped to provide emotional support, McDaniel did not go through.
“I tried to push through it, and then I tried to kill myself,” he says openly. “That’s how sick I got. It wasn’t because I wanted to die, it was because I didn’t want to feel that way anymore.”
Robby Stevens
Chase McDaniel is now attacking music to silence the panic attacks
Chase McDaniel describes his panic attacks as much more than just attacks of fear-she’s full abuses on his entire body. From unbearable migraine to sensations of cardiac arrest, the symptoms are serious and overwhelming. “Imagine you run out of a tiger, you are running for a lion, you are already in your mouth and there is nothing you can do about it,” he says.
It took almost five years for McDaniel to allow himself to seek professional help. He says that it is an emotional change of the game, although he admits that the road to normality is still long.
“I finally went to therapy and did a number of other things,” he says. “And not that I am completely there, but I am much closer than I stood on that bridge.”
For McDaniel, the stage is not only a place for music – it has also become a creative safe space to escape as much as possible from the fear that other parts of his life consumes. Although he rarely experiences full panic attacks during versions, the fear of that sausage-case scenario is sufficient to create a different form of fear. “I would have panic attacks about a panic attack on stage,” he admits. “If there is a worse place to happen, it literally stands for many people here.”
The road to normality has been gradual. Chase McDaniel learned to meditate before training, practiced self-talk and took small steps-if only go to the supermarket and part of his journey to reclaim his life. But maybe the most powerful tool was music. Songs such as the Dark “Burned Down Heaven” are described as “powerfully written … His painful, rising vocal sells it like nobody.”
“Music had always been a part of my life, but I think it really sunk in my DNA after the accident. I tried to hide my feelings by putting them in songs. I was just as obsessed with music as with Powerlifting.”
McDaniel recently launched the Lost fans club, Creating a supporting community for others who are confronted with similar challenges in the field of mental health.
And perhaps the most inspiring: McDaniel is slowly back to the gym. With the help of a Smith machine instead of a Power -Rack, McDaniel is currently focusing on lighter weights to rebuild his strength and trust. Although he sets far from new PRs – he still wants to bench 250 pounds. Every session is a mental victory while working to overcome the fear and trauma that is related to his past accident.
“I still fail, you know. Two nights ago I had a panic attack that left the gym, but I made it. Now I had to do it again.”
