Finding ‘The Path’

The States’ singer searches from Hollywood to Cambridge to Brooklyn

PROFILE. Graeme Revell’s brooding score to the 1994 movie “The Crow” features a haunting choirboy soprano. It’s the voice of The States’ singer and guitarist Chris Snyder, at age 11.

“That was my first movie, but I was too young to see it. My mom wouldn’t let me,” says Snyder, who formed The States in 2002 while at Harvard.

The emo trio self-released its second CD, “The Path of Least Resistance,” last week. Before he left his native Los Angeles, though, Snyder notched singing parts in movies such as Jim Carrey’s “The Cable Guy” and the disturbing drama “Sleepers” — “John Williams did the music and I got to meet him,” Snyder says proudly.

Still, the politely spoken 25-year-old maintains he wasn’t serious about music until he came to the Northeast. Armed with a four-track, he started recording himself playing bass, drums, guitar and doing vocals, and songs began to take shape.

“For the first time I got really excited about music in a way I never felt before. Just writing music instead of playing Mendelssohn and Vivaldi. That was a revelation for me,” he recalls.

Along came bassist Previn Warren and original drummer Ian MacKenzie, who has since been replaced by Joe Stroll.

“They said, ‘Hey, let’s get together and jam.’ That was kinda scary because I couldn’t even play guitar and sing at the same time at that point. It’s more difficult than you think,” says Snyder.

After college, The States upped and moved to East Coast rock central: Brooklyn.

Snyder insists his day job in Manhattan as an administrative assistant is purely a means to an end and not, despite his Ivy League background, his first rung climbing the corporate ladder.

“You can put your energy into one thing at a time. Right now my energy is in music,” he asserts. “I’m the kind of guy who once I start something and I like it, I become really serious about it and I don’t quit.”

And what about his Hollywood connections?

“I’m very happy to leave Hollywood behind me,” he says with a laugh. “Though one of the things I want to do one day is write music for a movie. Scoring a movie is on my to-do list.”

Drive Like Maria
With The States, Terra Diablo, and The Waking Slows
Tonight, 9
T.T. the Bear’s
18 Brookline St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$8, 617-492-2327
www.ttthebears.com