He has been Carrie Underwood’s guitar player for the last 14 years. He has also performed with the likes of Keith Urban, Kenny Loggins, and Jamie O’Neal. He also plays dobro and pedal steel and is a producer as well. At one point he had formed an acoustic country/bluegrass band that signed a deal with RCA Records and released a single that reached number 25 on Billboard’s country music chart. He authored a book called, “25 Notes for the Successful Musician” and two years ago released an intro course into the careers of music. He has also been an adjunct professor at Belmont University.
"I actually got paid to learn more about the deep music history of country music, and it was awesome."
"We were just playing for the fun of it and eventually that's when labels actually started coming to us and we got signed to RCA."
"One of these work tapes, he wanted me to do a dobro solo at the very end of the song... And so then when he brought the band in, one of the guys that heard it was Keith Urban's drummer... and (he) was like, 'Who is that playing slide guitar? ... I just got with Keith Urban's touring band... We're looking for a slide player. We need that guy's information'."
"I just said, 'Hey look, here's my information. If you ever need a slide player or anything... just give me a shout' ... and so I didn't hear from him for about a year-and-a-half... and so he called me and he said... 'I'm now Carrie Underwood's Music Director ... we're looking for a slide player ... we would love to have you'."
"As a professional musician you are in the service business. You're there to help the artist; whatever they need, you're there to help facilitate that."
"I actually had a scholarship for a couple universities to go play sax, but I didn't want to play saxophone 'cause I wanted to play guitar. So, I pretty much shelved it... For crazy reasons it just came back, like riding a bicycle. So, for the Cry Pretty Tour I played a saxophone on a song called Drinking Alone."
"I got a phone call, and it was from a California number... so I answer the phone and it's like, 'Hey, um, I'm looking for Chad Jeffers?' I'm like, 'Yeah?' He's like, 'Well this is Kenny. Kenny Loggins'... And he said... 'I mentioned to him that I needed a slide guitar player and (he) said look no further than Chad, you need to call him right now. So here I am calling you. Can you be in L.A. in a month and do rehearsals with us'?"
"We got on a military... airplane... and then we landed on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier... and then we performed for the troops."
"We also flew into Iraq, and we actually spent the night in one of Saddam's palaces there in Baghdad."
"A good friend of mine... who's a New York bestselling author and everything, he said, 'Why don't you just put all this in a book?' He goes, 'My goodness, all the experiences you've had. Why don't you just start making notes on it?' And that stuck with me, so while I would be on tour I would just start writing down smart things that people did or stupid stuff people did - usually that was me doing the stupid stuff - like, lessons learned, and then I put it into a book."
"One particular guy, he played with Florida Georgia Line, he told me, he said, 'Man... I literally had my car packed and on the way out I stopped at a bookstore and I saw your book... said what the heck, I'll just get this... I read it cover to cover and... okay, I'm not leaving town. I'm going to give this one more shot.' And then soon after that is when he got his gig with Florida Georgia Line."