Growing up, Chris Stills quickly learned what it was like to live in the fast lane.

Spending the school year in Paris with his mother, Veronique Sanson, a top French pop singer, Chris passed weekends skiing in the Alps, scooting down on the TGV, and traveling with his baseball team to battle it out against other teams in places like Holland. During his summers, Chris hung out in Los Angeles with his dad, '60s rock icon Stephen Stills, often traveling with him on tour.

Now, at 23, the young musician with gifted genes has settled down and is focusing on what is important to him -- achieving success through his own hard work. Even though Chris has the pressure of his father's famous name, he keeps a level head about the spotlight his debut album, 100 Year Thing, has thrust him into. "You can't be nanve about this business," Stills says, choking down chorizo quesadillas and a Tecate at a small, Mexican restaurant in Chicago. "You've got to keep a level head on your shoulders. A lot of kids who start out want to attach this '70s rock scene revival to the whole music thing. I'm sorry, I've seen all the old guys. It doesn't work -- they've been through hell and back."

By the "old guys," Chris means all the musicians he grew up with in his life, in the "bubble" he calls Crosby, Stills and Nash. The realization that music would play a role in his life came around age 12 when a CSN guitar tech asked Chris if he could play the instrument. Stunned and almost embarrassed, Chris quietly replied no and asked the man to teach him. He quickly learned a few simple chords, and then his mother taught him some barre chords. ("If my mom could play barre chords, I could play barre chords," he says.)

Eleven years later, Stills is an accomplished guitarist by anyone's measure. Barre chords are not a problem. And having paid his dues playing night after night in small clubs, Stills owns a vocal range that rivals his famous dad's.

Not surprisingly, Chris's sound hearkens back to the late '60s. "When I was younger, I realized this music wasn't being made anymore," he says with a hint of sadness. "So I carry the torch."

Chris aims to create songs that will endure. He cites Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth."

"That song is very symbolic of that time and everything that was going on," he says. He is trying to come up with another song that has so precisely captured a moment in time when someone mentions Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

"Perfect example," Chris agrees. "It was more aggressive and angry. But it still had emotions that we all as Generation Xers were totally familiar with and could say, 'Hey, I get that guy.'"

With 100 Year Thing, though, Stills isn't looking to change the face of rock as Nirvana's Nevermind did. "Maybe one day I will come up with something new," he says. "That's all inspirational. It comes in its own time."

ARI BENDERSKY