The Chapman Family are an alternative rock band from a seeemingly forgotten corner of the North East of England.
01 How did you get started in music?
I got started in music due to the sheer boredom and frustration of watching the same bullshit touring bands week in week out at my local club in Stockton. They could have been from John O’Groats or Lands End it was completely irrelevant – they were all the same and they all spoke nothing to me about my life. This was around the same time as the arse end of the Libertines initial success and every band in Christendom wanted to be a bit like them. They were all scruffy and at least one of them would wear a pork pie hat. They’d all look like they were skagged to the eyeballs but you knew in your heart of hearts that they weren’t. Every move was choreographed – from the main singer mumbling between songs as if he’d been transported in from a far off planet to the two guitarists sharing the same mic homoerotically like Carl and Pete – it was as mind numbingly obvious as one of them wearing a Breton shirt. It was all just so boring and it got to the point where I couldn’t differentiate between any of them. I got indie snow blindness. More importantly no one had their heart in it and no one wanted to rock the fuck out. I wanted excitement and thrills and someone on stage putting their very last drop of energy and passion into their performance – not some wanker who wished he was on Hollyoaks. So, in short, I started to get into music and started the band in direct reaction to that. We’re swamped with casual nothingness shit and I’m sick to death of it, possibly even more so now than six or seven years ago. Everyone just wants to be famous – they want to be a twitter trend or a hashtag – no one wants to do anything with any actual meaning, relevance or purpose. All of these charisma-less orange freaks on reality television and failed pop stars more famous for snorting coke up their nose whilst in the company of their infant children should hang their heads in shame for managing to plummet the last dregs of culture on this planet to the absolute depths.
02 Where did your direction come from?
That depends what you perceive our direction as being. As I said, the band was formed as a reaction against the bland and the mediocre. I wanted to be in a band that I was craving to see every single week. I wanted it to be exciting to be in and exciting for the audience to watch. We don’t have a specific direction – we don’t have a cast iron plan in place. It’s really easy to spot a band with a fixed scheme or design – usually because they are absolutely dull as arse and devoid of any inspiration whatsoever.
03 Who were your major influences and inspirations and who do you despise?
We are influenced and inspired by every waking day of our lives. I despise (in no particular order) the celebration of celebrity, war, injustice, poverty, homelessness, famine and cruelty. And The Script as they are fucking wank.
04 What inspires you to make your current type of songs and sound?
I mainly only write the lyrics so I can’t really speak for the rest of the band creating the music. I honestly think you are inspired by every single moment of your life up until the point you put your pen to paper and write that particular lyric down. By the time you come to the next song that you want to write you may have seen something on the news about a war in a distant land, or a terrible tragedy that’s occurred just down the road, or you may have fallen in love, or you may have been sacked, or you may have had someone beep at you aggressively in a traffic jam… Inspiration comes from everything that’s around you – I think it’s irresponsible and unfair to single something out like “The Cure’s early stuff and a bit of post punk yeah” as inspiration even though they may be locked away somewhere at the back of your subconsciousness.
05 What can someone who has never seen you live before expect from your live shows then & possibly even now?
They can expect either the single greatest night of their lives or their maybe even their worst. Usually their greatest.
06 How do you begin your songs? What types of themes and subjects do you deal with?
I don’t have a set plan as to how I begin to sit down and write. I don’t go searching for a subject and then decide to moan about it. I’m not that calculating. The subjects come searching for me as it were. In 2012 it was really easy as injustice was flying in from all corners and lyrical content and themes were everywhere. Everyone seems to hold up 2012 as a great seminal year for Britain but for me it was an utter embarrassment. The country was (and is) an utter shambles with a puppet Government of hooray Henry’s and greedy toff buffoons with tax allergies yet we still all sat there and didn’t quibble as they ploughed billion after billion into a big London-centric sports day. The rest of the nation was then supposed to be grateful that we had a minor celebrity running through our town in a shellsuit clutching an oversized ‘match’ and like the fools we are we all fell for it. Well, nearly all. Everyone kept banging on about the “Olympic Spirit” and how the nation had embraced it within its collective bosom and could now finally stand up with their massive Seb Coe head held high. Luckily though, the X Factor started a couple of weeks after the Olympics finished so we could all get back to what Britain is good at – slagging off delusional untalented scruffbag poor people. As if to rub salt into the wounds as a nation we also had to have a whip round for our poor old Queen. We bought her a lovely big solid gold boat and Gary Barlow put a huge self-congratulatory slow wank of a concert on for her – all of which was paid for the Great British public. Did we complain? Did we fuck. Because we’re idiots. We’re in one of the worst financial crises of modern times and we decide to squander every last drop of our savings on trying to make a grumpy old woman – and one of the richest women in the world (who may or may not be a shape shifting lizard) – crack a smile. Utter madness. That was then though. At the moment I’m writing love songs.
07 How has your music evolved since you first began playing?
It has evolved as we get bored very easily and are constantly trying to find ways of improving not just brand new songs but old songs also. We never rest on our laurels. As far as I’m concerned there is absolutely zero point in being in a band if you are not open to the idea of evolution. I can’t think of anything more boring than being in a band and playing the same songs in exactly the same way that you’ve always played them for five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty years. Even Keith Richards must be fucking sick of playing Jumpin’ Jack Flash by now surely.
08 What has been your biggest challenge? Were you been able to overcome this? If so, how?
It’d be really easy to say our biggest challenge was having two members of the band leave and having to replace them a couple of years ago but that’d be a lie as it wasn’t a difficult transition if truth be told. In reality our biggest challenge was probably the turbo of our hire van failing near Heidelberg on a tour of Germany in 2008. As none of us speak very good German simply trying to get to a garage was traumatic enough but going up and down huge European hills in October at 30mph with an ever growing swarm of BMWs and Mercedes’ beeping behind you is fairly traumatic.
09 Do you play covers? If you could pick any song, which would you like to cover most and why?
No as it’s a completely futile exercise. We’ve done two cover versions in the past – one was in 2007 and was a Beatles cover for a local radio station and the other was a version of Kate Bush’s ‘Army Dreamers’ that was originally intended to be a b-side in 2010. I’d much rather put effort into our own work than try to convert someone else’s song into our own style. Plus I don’t understand why you’d want to be known as a band or artist that does a cover version regardless of how much you absolutely nail it – just get in the X Factor queue for all I care, you’re not relevant to me.
10 Where did you envisage being in five years time?
Hopefully not playing covers.
11 Who would you most like to record with?
David Bowie. He’s my ultimate hero. I am going to cry massive seas of tears if he ever leaves this earth.
12 What should we be expecting from you in the near future?
We’ve just released a brand new song called ‘ADULT’ which is available to download for free via our Facebook page. It’s a schizophrenic stomping song. Then we’ll have a more traditional single (that won’t be free!) coming out early in the summer before an album later in the year.
Web Links
Facebook: facebook.com/thechapmanfamily
Twitter: twitter.com/chapmanfamily
Tour Dates
07/02 THE HOP, WAKEFIELD
08/02 THE STUDIO, HARTLEPOOL
10/02 KRAAK GALLERY, MANCHESTER
11/02 FRUIT, HULL
12/02 HOUSE, LIVERPOOL
13/02 CLWB IFOR BACH, CARDIFF
15/02 ELLIOT’S BAR, ABERDARE
16/02 JOINERS, SOUTHAMPTON
17/02 THE WESTCOAST, MARGATE
18/02 GREEN DOOR STORE, BRIGHTON
19/02 ARTS CENTRE, COLCHESTER
20/02 SURYA, LONDON
22/02 THE RAINBOW, BIRMINGHAM
23/02 THE COCKPIT, LEEDS
24/02 THE CLUNY 2, NEWCASTLE
08/03 GEORGIAN THEATRE, STOCKTON-ON-TEES
Link to buy the current single: ChapmanFamilyAdult
