Since 1987, Demos Chrissos has composed original music for a number of high-profile Republican candidates including the successful gubernatorial races of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Dirk Kempthorne, John Engler, Tommy Thompson and Christie Whitman. Successful senatorial races include Fred Thompson, Lamar Alexander, Spencer Abraham and Jeff Sessions. This music is now available for licensed reuse.

Chrissos' non-political original music work includes award-winning jingles, multimedia corporate events and music for national and international cable programming. He has a degree in Communications from the University of Maryland and is President of RapidRESPONSE MEDIA, INC. (RRM) is a Washington, D.C.-based media consulting company that creates and produces time-sensitive media for radio, television, print and the Internet.

No one plans on writing music for politics, sometimes, it just happens...

In 1987, a young 25-year old media consultant named Mike Murphy, came into my recording studio located in the upper Georgetown area of DC, and asked if I could compose an original score for a campaign video he and his partner at the time, Alex Castellanos, were working on for the '88 Presidential campaign. The only caveat was that it was now 6PM, the studio was about to close and no matter what, the music had to be completed by morning since a press conference had already been scheduled.

Murphy rolled the video. The tape was queued to a scene where Bob Dole is standing in the middle of a cornfield somewhere in Iowa giving a speech to a group of farmers. His delivery was passionate but his voice had an edge to it that needed softening and something to put "commas" between the thoughts. And those cornfields begged for the sound of strings and orchestration. With the deadline fast approaching and Murphy sitting over my shoulder most of the night, I sat down at one of the only Kurzweil-250 keyboards in the city at the time and with the help of my arranger at the time, Matthew Nicholl, we rolled video and with only time for a few punch-ins, composed the basic melody tracks "live" to tape. By the following morning the score was complete and Murphy flew out the door to join up with Castellanos and a waiting press conference.

While Bob Dole's 1988 bid for the Republican nomination for President was unsuccessful, it marked the beginning of my long career writing original music for a number of high-profile GOP candidates. Even though the technology used in 1987 to create this music sounds somewhat primitive by today's standards, people still say there's something magic about what ended up on tape. No matter how you describe it, I'm forever thankful I was given the chance to be a part of it.