Blues Traveler’s Chan Kinchla Announces Debut Solo Album ‘Mr. Sunshine’ (Out Feb. 26)

Lead single “Golden Hour” arrives November 13. “Golden Hour” is the earliest song written for the album, and one of its most subversive. “It’s not just about the golden hour at sunset,” Chan explains. “It’s about being alive to see that after another golden hour altogether.” The song draws on a harrowing medical emergency, and Chan credits the staff at Nashville General Hospital’s ER for getting him through it.

PRE-SAVE “GOLDEN HOUR” HERE.

“Mr. Sunshine” is what Chan’s mom called him as a boy, and the name took on new meaning after he got sober in January 2020. “When I walked into rehab, the first thing I saw was an amazing acoustic guitar, and I picked it up,” he says. “I promised myself I would play guitar every day going forward, which is a promise I kept.” He calls the title “a snappy and perhaps ironic name for a record whose subject matter is sometimes rather dark.” Elsewhere, “Remains of the Day” reckons with friends he has lost to addiction, while “Rooftop Fireworks War” returns to his early days on New York’s Lower East Side in the late ‘80s.

The road to Mr. Sunshine ran through W4RHORS3, the band Chan fronted on 2024’s And The Horse They Rode In On. “In working with the incredible band W4RHORS3, I realized I really enjoy singing, which really propelled my songwriting,” he reflects. At the same time, he took up the acoustic guitar as an instrument of its own, taught himself to fingerpick and dove deep into Elliott Smith’s catalog. “Next thing you know I had 40 songs,” he says, “and I figured I should record some of the good ones.”

Chan recorded the album in the winter of 2026 at Fox Force Five Recorders, producer JJ Blair’s studio in the Hollywood Hills. He built drum loops on his MPC and laid his Gibson J-45 over them, then Blair added bass before the two framed each track with atmospheric soundscapes and vocals. “We worked fast, and really the recording was about a song a day,” Chan says. “The whole process was very organic and fun.”

Chan wrote every song on Mr. Sunshine and co-produced the album with Blair, who engineered it alongside Gabi Lima and handled the mix; Dave Collins mastered. Chan sings, plays guitars and built the drum loops, while Blair adds bass, keys and background vocals. Lima sings background vocals on “Signs of Life,” “Golden Hour” and “See You in Heaven,” and plays drums on the latter. Elle Bramhall adds background vocals on “Here and Now” and “Laurel & Ventura,” and Andrea Whitt plays pedal steel on “Laurel & Ventura” and “Road Noize,” plus violins on “Road Noize.” Michael Cammarata designed the album packaging.

The result departs from improvisational jam rock without breaking from Chan’s roots. “Blues Traveler was always extremely focused on great songwriting, and honestly our hit ‘Run-Around’ has a very acoustic-based singer-songwriter vibe,” he says. “This is my take on that.” On the road, Chan will lean on the LA musicians he calls the Chan Gang, or step out solo with his guitar and his drum machine, Gringo. What he hopes listeners take away is simple: “That they listened to something honest.”

Mr. Sunshine Tracklist:
“End of the World”
“Golden Hour”
“See You in Heaven”
“Signs of Life”
“Road Noize”
“Remains of the Day”
“Laurel & Ventura”
“Daisy”
“Here and Now”
“Rooftop Fireworks War”

Above: Chan Kinchla; Credit: Taylor Wong