There are some moments in life that can define a person. For Chris Dobry, it was when he was only 14 years old, when he acquired his very first bass guitar. He could not remember the specifics, but this moment prompted his colossal love for music.
Years later, Chris Dobry is now a celebrated name after launching Stryker Records. Chris continuously promotes live concerts, manages several artists, and releases music worldwide on this platform. He started Stryker Records in 1997 without a dime to his name. Ever since his musical epiphany, he always had this ingenious idea of setting up a battle of the bands in his hometown in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Of course, it was in Chris’s nature to pursue a project he knew he could do, so after a series of high-profile press releases, he finally scored an interview with the local CBS station, on the same night the Grammy Awards was on. As such, this garnered a lot of attention for the event he was holding, and before he knew it, he had enough funds to launch Stryker Records, as well as take on the opportunity to showcase plenty of local talents that would later go on to work with Chris in the future.
After officially establishing Stryker Records and going through the necessary process, Chris moved his operations to Detroit, Michigan, where Euphoria Productions hired him to promote even more significant events. He was working with platinum and gold recording country artists such as Merle Haggard and John Anderson in next to no time.
In recent years, Chris continues to work his magic by promoting artists like Saving Abel, Saliva, Tantric, Trapt, to name a few. He also teamed up with Holly Hutchison of AnRGirl to launch Stryker Records recording artists Jamie Fontaine & the Level, who made it to the number 20 spot on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Indicator chart. They also landed the number 7 spot in the Concrete/Foundations chart with their single “Save Your Life” in September 2020. The single, produced by Jason Schrick of JPS Productions and platinum producer Malcolm Springer at Universal Studios in Nashville, challenged other well-known artists like Seether, Marilyn Manson, Breaking Benjamin, and more.
Now, Chris still signs other artists with undeniable potential, including the label’s upcoming hip-hop sensation, Drew Lines, who will be starting a midwest tour in early March. Besides the bevy of talents that Chris’s label has successfully produced, nearly all the live music events that they have launched have been nothing short of triumphant, cementing once and for all that Stryker Records does not only function as a record label but also a promoter of significant events. Another factor that sets them apart from the competition is their diverse operating methods.
Chris certainly did not expect this level of success when he was merely starting. Before all the triumphs and the victories that he is faced today, he was merely a young man who played a few shows with his friends in their high school auditorium. But as he got older, his purpose became apparent, and he knew where he wanted to be in the future.
In the late ’90s, he was hanging out with a rapper in Toledo, and they eventually talked about prisons, bringing up the Stryker Prison in Ohio. The prison did not necessarily inspire the label, but the word Stryker just spoke to Chris on many levels. He admits that most of that evening was spent talking about music and coming up with a name for Stryker Records.
Chris believes that a strong foundation at home is the key to success in business, so he hopes that he will find himself happy and enjoyably balancing his home, business, and social life in the next five years. He also aspires to expand his label by signing several more rock, country, and hip-hop groups.
Check out their Facebook page to find out more about Chris and his label Stryker Records.
