Exclusive Interview: Fabian Chavez on Mastering the Languages of Music, Touring with the Jonas Brothers, and Paving His Solo Career
- Abby Anderson
- Nov 11
- 7 min read
For Fabian Chavez, touring as the tenor saxophonist for the Jonas Brothers is more than a dream gig - it’s the perfect outlet for sharing his multifaceted love of music and the people who have shaped his multidimensional music personality. Chavez has traveled the globe as a musician, dipped his toe in songwriting, production, and session work across a handful of genres with artists like Jake Miller and Tyler, The Creator, and though he’s too humble to say it, he’s clocked in a credit on a Grammy-winning album, too. While his charisma shines as bright as his skill, it might just be his appreciation for it all that makes Fabian Chavez in a league of his own.
On a rare day off on the Greetings From Your Hometown Tour, Fabian joined us for a Zoom call to talk about everything from how a chance bar gig landed him the job with the Jonas Brothers, his mantras for discovering and enriching his musical personality, the way his family band roots has connected him with Nick, Joe, and Kevin, and how he finally found his identity as a solo artist.
Before becoming an integral part of the Jonas Brothers’ extended musical family, Chavez grew up in one of his own. Growing up in Los Angeles, Fabian’s paternal extended family played as a unit throughout his childhood, with band rehearsals coming out of his home. With the constant presence of instruments and live music, the choice to pursue music himself was something of a instinctive one; Fabian was playing drums before he was even in preschool, found himself playing in his first band starting at 14 years old, and had bids for touring gigs in the palm of his hand before he was even out of high school. But with the guidance of Grammy-winning producer and musician Alberto Salas (Christina Aguilera, Carlos Santana) as his mentor, Fabian learned more about music than just percussion technique. Cutting his teeth with local LA bands and obtaining his Bachelors of Music in saxophone performance, Fabian humbly learned the intertwined highs and lows of the complex life of a working musician.
Chavez has been in the business now for over a decade, and those early experiences continue to guide him in maintaining his individuality and integrity through every collaboration he pursues. “I obviously want to be myself and I have my own sound and voice, but I also want to be very transparent and play the language of the genre. I have this solo that I do at the [Jonas] shows on this slow R&B, seventies song [‘Vacation Eyes’]. I choose out of that bag of R&B, big, slow melodies, high notes. I wasn't gonna approach it and be not stylistically correct.” He’s also carries that mentality into his session work: “If I'm doing a Tyler, The Creator record or Mac Miller album, or I'm doing a Latin-jazz fusion thing, I just approach it as if I was the best guy in that genre. Then how can I mix that with my own sound and my own twist, own personality?”
Fabian's personality and determination to pursue music ultimately led him to the saxophone, thanks to an early experience that another discouraged teenager may have seen as a failure: “When I got in the middle school band, everybody wanted to play drums. Twenty kids wanted to play and there were like, four spots, so the director chose out of a hat. I didn't get chosen, so I was like, ‘Man, I wanna do this for real.’" Giving up wasn't an option to Fabian, so he turned back to his family. He recalls, "My mom called the school and talked to the director and she was like, ‘You know, if he's already doing drums and playing in groups, he's gonna be bored out of his mind. Have him learn another instrument.' My mom and dad always listened to Kenny G, so I was like, ‘Okay, I'll choose saxophone.’” Beyond Kenny G, Fabian credits his exposure to his parents’ broad range of music consumption as a major influence on his current identity as a musician, listing Earth Wind & Fire, James Taylor, and Cuban and Puerto Rican music as just some of the music that shaped his musical DNA.
“When I perform, there could be ten people or 100,000 people and I'll be performing and playing and giving the same amount of energy. I never ever want to phone something in or be on auto pilot; I've never subscribed to that kind of thinking and I never want to." - Fabian Chavez
That determination, charisma, and commitment to his craft is ultimately how a one-off bar gig in Los Angeles turned into the break with the Jonas Brothers. “It’s a funny story about how I got the Jonas Brothers," he says, breaking into a huge smile. "The piano player, Michael Putin, we played what some would say was a crappy bar gig - Friday night, a hundred bucks. I'm never gonna say I'm not grateful for that. I never had met Michael before, but we hit it off. Then we played and, I have no choice but to do this, when I perform, there could be ten people or 100,000 people and I'll be performing and playing and giving the same amount of energy. I never ever want to phone something in or be on auto pilot; I've never been or subscribed to that kind of thinking and I never want to. I think that that's one of the things that Michael noticed about me and was like, ‘Dude, like you were just crushing it and giving it your all.’ A few days later he texted me and was just like, ‘Hey man. It was great playing with you the other day. Just wanted to see if you would want to fill out the tenor saxophone position for the Jonas Brothers tour this year.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ So the day after [the music director, Chase Foster] called me. We had a really good connection and he was like, ‘Dude, I really see this. We want you, we really want to have you here so bad.’”
A month or so later, Fabian was set to play a three-hour set at Yankee Stadium backing Nick, Joe, and Kevin Jonas on their Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour. Not one to shy away from recognizing the anxiety he felt alongside his gratitude, a moment of honesty reshaped Chavez’s viewpoint on what success looked like in his new reality: “We were at rehearsal and getting ready for that first New York show, the Yankee show. Nick comes by, just chatting with us, and I'm like, ‘Yeah, we're just a little nervous man. Like it's our biggest show, you know? I've never done a show this big, none of us have.’ And Nick's like, ‘It's our biggest show too, man. We're just as nervous.’ That kind of just put it into perspective because you just think, all those guys, they just do this. But it's like, okay, they're human. They get nervous. They're worried. That was a cool little humbling moment.”
And while touring with the Jonas band and crew could be innately overwhelming to many musicians, Fabian’s positive-yet-realistic viewpoint on the permanence of live music in the lives of those who pursue it seemed to have made all the pieces fall into place. “The reality is you get all these people that come from total different parts of life. Some have kids, some don't have kids. Some are single, some are not single. Some are old, some are young. Some have been doing this for all kinds of bands, some this is their first tour. So it's like every stage of life. And we're just forced to live and coexist.”
Living and coexisting in the Jonas universe seems to be a place where Fabian is happy to be spending this era of his career - and it seems to have reconnected him with that familial sense of connection through music he felt at home growing up in LA. “We all feel like peers almost. We just like hanging out, you know? Joe loves coffee. We always talk about coffee. It's been really cool just getting to know them, all the people in the camp, their parents, Priyanka and Danielle. It’s a really nice family environment.” And to the Jonas fans: he has nothing but words of praise for their enthusiasm and acceptance of the music he gets to play night after night.
And while the fact that Fabian is on his second tour with the Jonas Brothers speaks volumes of his ability to make others look good, he also has a knack for intermixing his wide musical repertoire with his flair for personality. In the midst of a 70+ date run with the Jonas Brothers, he’s been working on releasing his first album on a label as a solo artist. While he’s been playing pop and rock music in stadiums and arenas across North America as a touring musician, solo-artist Fabian has another personality, one who sets simple goals, like getting airtime for his smooth-jazz singles on SiriusXM radio and making time in his busy schedule to shoot album artwork. So why was now the right time to pursue things as an artist? “I hate to say this, but I never had quite the dedication to buckle down and say, ‘I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be an artist, release my own music.’ It goes back to the foundation of influences. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know if I wanted to do funk stuff or some R&B/Soul or some Latin stuff or some like country-Americana. I can't do all of that. I can't combine all of it. But I also wanted to, because that's my upbringing, that's my foundation.”
A Fabian Chavez solo album is set for release in early 2026, but for now, his priority remains giving his all to the band and every musician, crew member, and fan that shows up to the Greetings From Your Hometown Tour. “It’s not about me," he says. "We’re there to make them look good. Make them sound good. That's our number one job. Whatever we have to do to make sure that they're comfortable, their management's comfortable. They can depend on us, we're reliable - that goes way further than your ability to play.” It’s that same blend of talent, humility, and genuine love for the people around him that makes Fabian Chavez more than just a musician on stage. Whether he’s playing to a packed stadium or recording his own songs between tour stops, Fabian’s multidimensional musical personality continues to shine, reminding us that for him, music has never just been a job—it’s a shared experience.
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