Raleigh native Chris Boerner has built a career as a guitarist, producer and engineer — playing lead for Hiss Golden Messenger while recording everyone from Ani DiFranco to gospel group The Branchettes.
by David Menconi

It would be easy to get the wrong idea about Chris Boerner. You’re most likely to see him onstage with Hiss Golden Messenger, serving as bandmate to main man Mike Taylor. For more than a decade, he’s helped co-pilot Taylor’s visions with an elegant lead guitar.

But Boerner is hardly a one-dimensional player. A diligent multitasker in the recording studio, he handles engineering, mixing, producing and mastering on everything from Americana to jazz, R&B, gospel and even classical music. Along with the latest Hiss album I’m People, Boerner’s recent credits include works by ex-Ben Folds Five drummer Darren Jessee and bluegrass-adjacent trio Chatham County Line. Further back, his resume includes Little Brother’s Grammy-nominated spinoff Foreign Exchange, folk-punk songstress Ani DiFranco, gospel group The Branchettes and Israeli violinist Itamar Zorman.

Boerner mostly works in a studio space in the basement of his home in Raleigh, set up right next to his three young kids’ playroom (where he has to take care not to disturb their pillow fort “or else I’ll get in trouble”). While his main occupation is helping other artists get the sounds they want, Boerner’s own music tends to be idiosyncratic jazz released under his own name or as The Hot At Nights.

“I try to do my own record as an artist and guitarist about once a year,” he says. “Just for myself, I’ll put something out there without doing release shows or touring. It tends to be much more improvised and strange than what I’m known for. But that’s what I’m into.”

Now 48 years old, Boerner began playing saxophone in elementary school here in Raleigh, taught by local jazz bandleader Gregg Gelb. His musical interests shifted during middle school, when alternative rock moved him to switch to guitar. Boerner sold his saxophone to buy a Fender Lead II from Harry’s Guitars, an instrument he still owns all these years later, even though he rarely plays it anymore.

“I’m not generally sentimental about guitars, but that one is an exception,” he says. “I’ll never sell it.”

By high school, Boerner was playing in a rock band called Strange Brew, which continued into college. That led to a fork in the road at Duke University, which he had entered as a physics major. After realizing physics would involve a lifetime of math problems, Boerner changed to music.

Switching from playing rock music for fun to seriously studying classical and jazz wasn’t easy, but it was a challenge Boerner relished. Recording entered the picture through an electronic music course, and he took to the studio as “the guy in the band not scared to figure out how all the knobs worked.”

After school, Boerner went to work at a friend’s new instrument store and studio, Sound Pure. He recorded whoever came through the door, whether it was gospel legend Shirley Caesar or American Idol star Clay Aiken. The work taught Boerner the intricacies of engineering, recording basic tracks and blending the levels in mixing. He also learned mastering, the final stage of pre-release that involves polishing the mixed product.

“The thing about Chris that I like is he has a big range of musical repertoires and references,” says Foreign Exchange co-leader Phonte Coleman. “Even when he does not understand the flavor, he always understands the science of how to get it. All I have to do is play him something and he’s, Yeah, that’s a Stratocaster with nylon strings through such and such amp. He’s very much a technician, and also a snob — which I mean in the most positive way. He oversaw building my home studio, so I completely trust him.”

“Trust” is a word that comes up a lot in conversation with Boerner. He cites Foreign Exchange and Hiss Golden Messenger as his two biggest landmarks, for the trust he earned from both artists. Nowadays he is self-assured enough that Hiss frontman Taylor calls him “an alpha personality.” 

“Not in a loud obnoxious way, but confident and helpful,” says Taylor. “He’s a really high achiever and autodidact, and an incredible guitar player — almost always the best in the room by a country mile. He also has a brilliant understanding of how studios work. When he puts his mind to something, whether it’s engineering, making coffee or building an addition onto his house, he does so as a total professional. He’s played a really important role in this world I’m trying to build with Hiss Golden Messenger.”

Just as important as confidence is work ethic, and understanding the difference between music as a hobby and music as a career.
“When younger musicians ask me for advice,” Boerner says, “what I tell them is, Finish the thing you’re working on and then get to work on the next thing. Like Mike — he’s a true lifer songwriter, really disciplined. He takes it very seriously, and making a living with music really requires discipline. The craft has to be an everyday thing. You get up and work, and I do, too.
“I’m fortunate to be trusted by those kinds of people.”

This article was first published in the August 2026 issue of WALTER Magazine.