He left both groups and formed another band (the Chris Pérez Project, which included American singer Angel Ferrer) in 2010.

He decided to teach himself to play electric guitar despite his mother's disapproval due to the negative stereotypes associated with the rock-and-roll world.

[4] Pérez's favorite musicians were Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard,[5] Kiss,[6] the Scorpions,[7] Ozzy Osbourne and Iron Maiden.

[9] Pérez wanted to run away to Los Angeles, California to start a rock band when he was seventeen.

Pérez disliked Tejano music and wrote in To Selena, With Love that he joined Shelly's band with "foot-dragging resistance" because this job paid more than working at the library.

[16] Roger Garcia, lead guitarist for Selena y Los Dinos, married and left the music business in 1989.

Pérez accepted, basing his decision on Los Dinos's sound, which was more "hip and sophisticated" than other Tejano bands, and he hoped to learn more about musical arrangement from A.B., whose work he admired.

The elder Quintanilla feared that allowing Pérez in the group might affect his daughter Selena's "perfect image" and ruin her career.

[19] Pérez, like Selena, knew little Spanish, and lead keyboardist Ricky Vela tutored him.

[32] After Pérez was fired from the band,[33] he moved back in with his father and began playing music wherever he could.

He wrote that "free of that nerve-racking situation with her father and the other members of Los Dinos, I started enjoying my life again."

[42] Her version of the song was unreleased until 2004, when it was added to her posthumous compilation album Momentos Intimos as "Puede Ser".

[43] In spring 1995, Abraham found out that Yolanda Saldívar, who managed Selena's boutiques and fan club, was embezzling money.

They held a meeting in early March, with Saldívar denying she had anything to do with fiscal discrepancies in checks that were found written in her name.

[44] On March 30, 1995, Selena and Pérez met with Saldívar at a motel to recover missing financial papers for tax purposes.

[47] The bullet entered Selena's right shoulder blade from the back, piercing a major artery running from her heart and exiting from just below her right collarbone.

[63] In 1998 he formed a rock band with Garza, Rudy Martinez (former member of La Mafia) on bass, former Selena y Los Dinos keyboardist Joe Ojeda and Jesse Esquivel on drums.

[64] Chris preferred the name Cinco Souls, but the other band members wanted to utilize his "reluctant celebrity.

[66] Ojeda wrote "Solo Tu", a romantic ballad which Pérez changed into a rock song.

[29] The record company released two promotional singles (one English and one Spanish: the title track and the ballad "Por Que Tu Fuiste") to radio stations with intent to appeal to both audiences.

[67] The Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was "upbeat and danceable, the lyrics speak almost uniformly of loss, anger, violence and abandonment".

[58][74] He did not seek the approval of the Quintanilla family to write To Selena, With Love and did not disclose the project in fear of their reaction.

[29] In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Pérez said writing To Selena, With Love helped him "move forward".

This prompted Abraham to file a lawsuit against him since it violated an estate properties agreement originally signed between him and the family two months after Selena's death in 1995.

He was the antithesis of Abraham Quintanilla's "clean-cut, nice kids" in his early career as a guitarist for Selena y Los Dinos,[82] a rebellious rocker and a "long-haired tough guy".

[31][83][84] Carlos Valdez, the District Attorney who prosecuted Yolanda Saldívar, described Pérez as "shy and uncomfortable when in the spotlight", and this was echoed by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Valdez said the music business was not work for Pérez, who enjoyed being a guitarist and called it his "reason for [his] existence".

[85] Chuck Taylor, a Billboard editor, called The Chris Pérez Project debut album a "lot of classic rock elements".

[86] David Cazares of the Sun Sentinel called Pérez' debut album "average rock" music.

[87] The San Antonio Express-News said that Resurrection was a fusion of "pop rock grooves and Tejano soul".