WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – To be a good musician, you have to have a good ear. Chris Pierce is no exception.

When he performed at the BeachLife Festival in Redondo, he was a rock star.

His soulful tone stops you in your tracks and it’s earned him an extremely successful career. And hearing Pierce play in his studio in West Hollywood, you’d never know that he actually had two relatively “bad” ears.

A University of Southern California Jazz Studies Major from Claremont, music was always Pierce's calling.

But at 15 years old, he was diagnosed with otosclerosis, diminishing his hearing to three percent in both ears. Otosclerosis is a condition where a small bone in the ear (stapes) stop vibrating, resulting in hearing loss.

“Probably a few weeks at school started not to be able to hear anything in class,” said Pierce.

At that time, doctors were able to perform a surgery that allowed Pierce to regain 70 percent of his hearing in his right ear.

The surgery is called a stapedectomy, replacing the stapes with a prosthetic.

The surgery took and Pierce’s career took off: seven independent worldwide albums, touring worldwide, and opening for the likes of B.B. King and Seal.

At the time, stopping the momentum just didn’t make sense.

“Played, played, played, sometimes 250 shows a year. Finally probably 30 years after that original operation, I decided why not go in and see what happens,” Pierce said.

Fast forward to May 2018: Pierce decided it was time to get his left ear fixed.

This time though the surgery didn’t take.

“I was hearing airplanes and birds outside, things outside of my house that I had never been able to hear and that lasted for about a week. And then one morning I woke up and it was gone,” Pierce said.

But he’s turned what was lost into something gained, and it’s made Pierce who he is as both a man and a musician.

“Maybe, possibly, whatever you want to call it, the universe is saying, you’re OK, you’re reaching from a different place than you would normally pull from,” Pierce said.

And it’s that deeper place he continues to pull from as he works on his next project: Reverend Tall Tree’s Blues Opera. He just keeps going.

“Sometimes if you’re surrounded by all these things that can help you, you don’t know where to start. Rather than you grab the one tool you have, the one hammer, you can build a castle with it,” said Pierce.

He will be playing Reverend Tall Tree’s Blues Opera on Sunday, May 19 at Vitello’s in Studio City. Click here for more information.