Chaz McKinney, known professionally as Chaz Cardigan, was born on January 20, 1995 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. He came out as queer at the age of 13.

He became interested in making music when he first heard Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. He bought a four-track tape recorder at 11 and started recording music, uploading demos to MySpace and mailing tapes to record labels.