Tris Imboden
Tris Imboden in 2013
Background information
Birth name	Gregory Tristan Imboden
Born	(1951-07-27)July 27, 1951 (age 73)
Genres	Rock adult contemporary jazz
Occupation	Musician
Instruments	Drums percussion
Years active	1970 (1970)–present
Formerly of	Chicago Firefall Honk

Gregory Tristan "Tris" Imboden (born July 27, 1951) is an American rock and jazz drummer. As a performer, he has been instudio sessions and ontour with some of the most notable and highest-selling musicians of all time.^[1] He was the drummer for the multi-platinum bandChicago from 1990 to 2018.^[2] He is amulti-platinum selling artist.^[3] As an educator, he has been adrum clinician and author of tutorial materials.^{[v 1]}

Some of Imboden's most notable work include recordings withNeil Diamond,Kenny Loggins,Firefall,Richard Marx,Steve Vai,Roger Daltrey,Crosby, Stills & Nash, Chicago, Anita Baker, Julio Iglesias andStevie Wonder.

In addition he has toured the world with rock and jazz acts such as Kenny Loggins,Al Jarreau,Chaka Khan, Firefall,Cock Robin,Michael McDonald, Chicago, and other notable groups.^{[citation needed]}

As a full-time band member, Imboden's career has includedHonk, the Kenny Loggins Band (including "Who's Right, Who's Wrong" featuringMichael Jackson,^{[d 1]} the six-time platinum^{[d 2]} Number One hit "Footloose", and "I'm Alright" fromCaddyshack), and Chicago. His career with Chicago has seen the release of thirteen albums, several of them certified as platinum.^[1]

Aside from a brief, early, move to Germany, Tris Imboden was raised in various beachside communities ofOrange County inSouthern California.^[4] As a primarilyself-taught, lifetime career musician, his musical interests were stirred by seeing a parade when he was five years old.^{[citation needed]}

I still remember the day my dad took me to aFourth of July parade inHuntington Beach. This marching band from Compton came down the street and the cadence that they were playing almost made me hysterical. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.^[5]

... the drum section was just smoking ... I was so deeply moved. But I knew at that moment that was what I was going to have to do.^[6]

So from that point on I was always drawn toward drums.^[5]

— Tris Imboden

His formal training began from grade school; and until there was an available position in the percussion section of the school band, he drummed at home on apractice pad and studied basic music theory on the trumpet at school. He ultimately reached the position of second chair trumpeter before switching to the then-available percussion section in junior high school.^[7][8] He currently resides inMalibu, California, and on the island ofKauai,Hawai'i, where he is an avidsurfer.^[7]

Imboden began his adolescent career in various surf bands, and then achieved professional status in a high school band called The Other Half. The band performed at venues ranging from sock hops to Hollywood's venerable Teenage Fair, where Imboden said their popularity "clogged the whole entrance".^[5]: 21 Out of Newport Harbor High School, Imboden cofoundedHonk in 1970.^{[d 3]} After recording somedemo songs, the band's first album was the soundtrack for the surf movieFive Summer Stories,^{[v 2]} crediting Imboden as composer, producer, drummer, harmonica player, and vocalist. Imboden established a career trend, ultimately lasting through to Chicago, of occasionally being featured on harmonica. The song "Pipeline Sequence" reached No. 1 on Hawai'i radio.^{[4][d 4]} Being a member of Honk provided Imboden with formative future career experience as the band built their studio recording skills, their touring skills, and innumerable industry contacts. They worked with bands which would eventually serve as Imboden's future professional base, by touring withLoggins and Messina,Jackson Browne, andThe Beach Boys—and by openingChicago's concerts.^[7] Honk went on hiatus from 1976 to 1986, when they established a tradition of periodic reunion concerts in their original home area ofSouthern California, as band members' schedules permit.

From 1977 to 1986, Imboden became a full-time recording and touring member of the Kenny Loggins Band, and then would do part-time work with them until 1989, for a total of 12 years of collaboration. During his full-time tenure there, he composed and performed the drum set arrangements for popular 1980s motion picture soundtracks:Caddyshack andFootloose.^[7]

From the end of his full-time duration withKenny Loggins in 1986, until 1989, Imboden's career became a full-time composite of various part-timesession recordings and live performances with various groups. His consistent work throughout that entire duration included the following: part-time work with Kenny Loggins; stage support for Grammy Award-winning jazz singer,Al Jarreau; and "Queen of Funk-Soul",Chaka Khan.^[4][7] In 1986, he performed drum set overdub sessions for Neil Diamond'sHeaded for the Future album. This album provided a venue for Imboden's studio session collaboration with a then-member of Chicago,Bill Champlin.^{[d 5]} In 1988, he was a studio session player with former member of Chicago, bassist/lead vocalist,Peter Cetera, on Cetera's solo album titledOne More Story.^{[d 6]}

In 1990, his career reshaped by joining the multi-platinumChicago. With the departure of founding drummerDanny Seraphine, Imboden joined the band as the full-time drummer^[7] in time for the band's 1991 release titledTwenty 1.^{[d 7]} As an integral part of Chicago for the latter half of the band's57-year total career, Imboden would contribute to twelve Chicago records, and to tours alongsideThe Beach Boys,Earth, Wind, & Fire, andThe Doobie Brothers. Since 2012, his drum set was accompanied by Chicago's newest full-time member, veteranauxiliary percussionistWalfredo Reyes, Jr.^[9] On January 17, 2018, Imboden announced his resignation from the band to focus on family time with his new wife and due to the band's schedule of touring intensely for the most of each year.^{[citation needed]}

Tris Imboden currently endorses and uses the following products:

• Groove Juice Cymbal Cleaner^[11]
• DW drums, hardware and pedals^[12]
• Gibraltar drum racks^[13][14]
• Remo drum heads
• Paiste cymbals^[15]
• Vic Firth drumsticks^[3]
• Beato Bags
• Latin Percussion^[16]

• Official Tris Imboden website
• Official Chicago website
• Tris Imboden atIMDb
• Tris Imboden Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2020)

• 1951 births
• Living people
• American rock drummers
• American performance artists
• American male composers
• American session musicians
• Musicians from Orange County, California
• Musicians from Malibu, California
• 20th-century American composers
• American harmonica players
• 21st-century American composers
• Chicago (band) members
• Firefall members
• American expatriates in Germany
• 20th-century American drummers
• American male drummers
• American jazz drummers
• 21st-century American drummers
• Jazz musicians from California
• 20th-century American male musicians
• 21st-century American male musicians
• American male jazz musicians
• Drummers from California

• Pages using the EasyTimeline extension
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from September 2015
• Articles with hCards
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2020
• Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia
• IMDb title ID different from Wikidata