Musician. Producer. Remixer. Engineer. Polymath. Interdisciplinary thinker. Art enthusiast. Voluntary synesthetic. Chris Vrenna doesn't fit on a business card. He's worked with some of the biggest names in the industry... well, a lot of the biggest names in the industry. But only Tweaker, the wildly diverse, elegantly humane project he introduced in 2001, allows him to do it all under one awning.
Although his Tweaker output skews bittersweet, "I actually had a great childhood," says Vrenna. "My Dad always loved music, even though he never played an instrument himself. He would take me to parades when I was only four or five, and even then he noticed I would march in time to any music that came past. When I was six, he asked if I'd want to learn drums, and of course I said, "YES!" The problem was, no music teachers would take someone as young as I was. He eventually found a jazz drum instructor who said he would try it. I never stopped after that. I played in orchestras, marching bands, drum and bugle corps, musical theatre... anything I could play."

Living in Chicago during the late '80s, Vrenna discovered the industrial scene just as it began to peak. He made himself famous as a touring drummer for KMFDM and Nine Inch Nails (with whom he won a Grammy in 1995 for Best Metal Performance), translating precise, complex electronic rhythms organically, in real-time, with pulverizing conviction. As his fame spread, he took on an astounding variety of studio work, lending his acute ear to, among others, David Bowie, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, Hole, Green Day and Xzibit, and creating remixes for U2, Nelly Furtado, Weezer and more. He also composed music for high-profile video games, including Doom 3, Quake 4, Sonic the Hedgehog and American McGee's Alice. He currently serves as a touring keyboardist in Manson's band. And he also runs his own shop.

Around the turn of the century, Vrenna, craving inspiration, explored some art galleries in Los Angeles, his current home. He spotted Joe Sorren's painting Elliot's Attraction to All Things Uncertain. This "sad little guy staring at an empty typewriter, with a cup of coffee on the table... practically brought me to tears. The expression on his face, and the feelings that the painting evoked, were just amazing. I went back to the gallery every week for six months and just stared at that painting." Eventually, Elliot found a home in Vrenna's living room, where he oversaw the creation of the first Tweaker LP, Attraction to All Things Uncertain (2001), a thick soup of disorienting effects, hard beats and thrilling mood swings. Naturally, he put Sorren's painting on the sleeve.

For his second Tweaker joint, Vrenna commissioned another cover from Sorren, but drew his key inspiration from his wife's insomnia. "She would bolt awake, every night, strangely, at the exact same time: 2 a.m. It led to me sharing her insomnia night after night, and I wound up staying up with her, and discovered that when the world at large was fast asleep, I had unearthed a wealth of creative energy in myself." Vrenna enlisted an eclectic cast of top-tier vocalists, including Robert Smith (the Cure), David Sylvian (Japan), Will Oldham (Palace, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy), Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields, Firewater) and Hamilton Leithauser (the Walkmen) and asked them, "What keeps you up at night?" Thus, Vrenna created 2 a.m. Wakeup Call (2004), an enveloping index of dreams, nightmares, suspicions and nocturnal insight. This also marked the introduction of Vrenna's best friend Clint Walsh (Jack Off Jill) as a permanent member of Tweaker.

It may function like a band, but Tweaker is truly a "project" - a steadily changing entity that eludes easy definition and draws on the totality of the mortal experience. It paints a galvanizing mental picture, and it'll dance to any music that comes past.