Bio
My Old Controller is the solo project of Toronto musicianChris Sytnyk. In the late 1990’s Chris was a member of Toronto Indie rock band MAdE. The band recorded their second full length album in Chicago with producer Keith Cleversly and toured the album supporting some of Canada’s biggest musical acts at the time. When MAdE disbanded, the singer Jason Taylor formed the alt-country band Driveway and asked Chris to join. Driveway toured across Canada and recorded two full length albums. Both albums were released in Canada by Curve Music and theirdebut album was released in Europe by Blue Rose Records.Over the years Chris has also recorded and performed with many Toronto artists and bands including Chicklet, Kulas, Little Creatures and New Moon Junction.
In 2009 he began writing songs on his own. With longtimefriend and musical collaborator Meher Steinberg producing, Chris recorded his first collection of very personal alt-country tinged songs but he never felt ready to release them. Instead as the project was finishing up he decided to take a much needed break from music. One year turned into five years and he might have stayed away for good if not for an invitation to join Chicklet on stage for a reunion show at Canadian Music Week in 2017. They shared the bill that evening with Indie darlings Japanese Breakfast. That invitation and the subsequent performance rekindled his passion and soon after he began performing regularly with Scottish born Toronto musician Andy Sharp. He also finally released that first collection of songs which he titled Miztopia. In the Spring of 2020 after listening to a conversation on CBC’s q between Tom Power and Joseph Gordon Levitt about creating music for the simple joy of doing it, he decided to try and write some new songs.
Without any pre-conceived idea of what he was going to write about, the single “Out Loud” was born. It quickly became a song about hope, mindfulness and gratitudeduring the early days of the pandemic. In the late Summer of that year he approached Steinberg again to produce and enlisted former Driveway members Robin Mason(drums),and Corey Matheson(guitar). Joey Burke (lap steel) and Emily Goguen (vocals) also performed on the track. The song was recorded in pieces throughout the winter of 2020 and the spring of 2021 at Steinberg’s Parkdale Live Studio whenever finances and health guidelines allowed, and was finally mixed in April 2021. Chris felt extremely fortunate to work with every musician who was a part of the sessionsand they all made their own inspired musical contributionsto help bring the song to life.
In the Summer of 2022 Chris enlisted the help of filmmaker and music producer Mark Zerenij and filmed four live videos in his own apartment, aptly titled The Basement Sessions (Live and Underground.)
These days Chris spends most of his time as 1/3 of the Toronto Indie Folk band Dandelion Highway. New songs have come quickly for Chris these last few months, so he has rekindled his My Old Controller project as a chance to showcase his newer songs and to revisit some of his older favourites.