Being a professional singer and a heavy smoker wasn’t exactly a winning combination – at least not for the voice. Four 45-minute sets behind the microphone, night after night. Throw in some medication that lowers the immune system on top of that, and you’ve got a cocktail made to wreak havoc on the vocal cords. After years of recurring vocal problems, musician and producer Christopher Stone Kärnsund found himself at a crossroads. The solution was to quit smoking. Now he’s 1TP8ing instead.
Christopher Stone Kärnsund has been surrounded by music his whole life. He is the product of a professional singer who performed at the legendary ”The Oriental Hotel” in Bangkok and a Swedish family of instrument makers. His mother and father, that is. His mum is from the Philippines and his dad is from Högsbohöjd.
– I’ve been playing and singing all my life. Absolutely. There were pianos, guitars and other instruments within easy reach everywhere. When you’ve got ADHD, you fiddle with things, and later on I had piano lessons and so on, says Christopher.
More producers in the studio
He welcomes visitors to his music studio, located in the countryside in the municipality of Kungsbacka. In terms of time, his role as a producer – recording and producing other artists here – now accounts for the lion’s share of his work. Financially speaking, it’s roughly 50/50 between that and all the gigs he plays. Think piano bar entertainment, but on a larger scale. Christopher can have 2,000 people singing along happily in the audience when he plays at, for example, the Högfjällshotellet in Sälen or Gothia Towers in Gothenburg.
“Then you just have to go for it. There’s not much room for finesse at the end of an evening like that,” smiles Christopher.
Apprentice with Paulo Mendonca
He first took to the stage as a teenager. It was a band of friends playing a homemade version of hard rock, a bit of Green Day, Nationalteatern and whatever else took their fancy.
– And at the same time, I wanted to play the blues, sort of. There were some pretty strange contrasts in that band. We were rubbish, of course, he laughs.
But his passion for music really began to take off through music college and classmates who were just as obsessed with music as he was. When he later began an apprenticeship with the world-renowned funk artist Paulo Mendonca in the late 2000s, he gained access to a studio environment and learnt the craft of production from the ground up.
“You can never stop learning. Because music is so damn fluid. Things are happening all the time. So you’re never really finished,” says Christopher.
It was also Mendonca who put Christopher in touch with a booking agency. Since then, he’s played 2,000 gigs over the years. At least, says Christopher.
Has been smoking since his early teens
But life as a full-time musician and singer comes at a price. Especially when combined with a habit like smoking, which has been with him since his teenage years.
– I was 14 when I started smoking. In the early years, I couldn’t really afford a packet a day, but since I started sixth form, that’s pretty much what it’s been.
Christopher describes his voice as his most valuable asset. If you can accompany yourself reasonably well on an instrument but sing well, you can go a long way. But the reverse is difficult, he argues.
– It’s hard to win over an audience just by sitting in a corner playing the transverse flute, even if you’re absolutely brilliant at it.
Anyone who has seen him perform knows that Christopher is far more than just ”passably” skilled on his instrument. But the quote is probably meant to be taken in a general sense.
”I’ve had serious problems with my voice”
More gigs have put more strain on his vocal cords, and those 20 cigarettes a day haven’t made things any easier. On top of that, Christopher has psoriasis and has to take injections for it, which lower his immune system. The fact that he also has ADHD, which he chooses to call ‘damp’, means he takes other medication that can cause a dry mouth. A few years ago, the problems became so serious that they started to have consequences.
– I’ve had serious problems with my voice over the last three or four years. It started with some sort of infection – I’d say it was post-COVID, some kind of viral infection – and I was unwell for almost a year. Since then, it’s come and gone. But as I have to sing, I do it anyway.
Vejp worked – in the end
Cancelling gigs isn’t an option. As a self-employed musician, there’s no sick pay.
It was in that situation that the idea of giving up smoking really started to take shape. Colleagues he met were talking about vejp, and he began to think he should give it a go.
The transition went fairly quickly, though not quite as quickly as for some.
“It was… well, maybe two weeks of cravings. Two weeks is actually quite a long time to go without something you’re craving. But it worked,” says Christopher.
I can feel the difference in how my body reacts
The effects haven’t been immediate, but they’re definitely there. Despite ongoing health issues and medication, he notices a difference in how his body reacts.
– I think my recovery time has improved massively. I’m now back to about 70 per cent of my full capacity.
He still gets hoarse from time to time, especially after busy weekends of gigs, but he feels that his body is responding differently than it used to.
– You can’t compare the two. This is much better.
It was as recently as October last year that Christopher gave up smoking, so it’s only been about six months. It takes around two months for the coughing and phlegm to subside as the cilia in the airways recover once you’ve stopped smoking. But it can take considerably longer to clear up inflammation and irritation in the throat. Especially if you’ve been smoking for a long time. So Christopher is likely to feel more effects on his most important instrument as time goes on.
