Featured bands: The Chess Club
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Chess Club
Chess Club are a young band from Leicester; they are:
Max - Lead Vocals and Guitar - 16
Matt - Lead Guitar - 16
Alex - Bass and Vocals - 16
Beano - Drums and Vocals - 15
Artsin: I am talking to Max from the
band Chess Club. So, Max, tell me about the band. How did it get started?
Max: Well the four of us have been good friends for years and originally
it was just a three piece with Me, Matt and Beano (I was on bass instead
of Alex). We did a few gigs like this and I kind of felt something
was missing, then one drunken night I asked Alex to join the band and
it just seemed to gel more with him involved - so he stayed!
Artsin: How
did the name come about? What made you choose the name "Chess
Club"?
Max: We went through various different names for a
while like Caught Nappin' and SubCulture and never really decided on
one permanently - the hardest part of being in a band is choosing a damn
name! Then one day someone said Chess Club and it just stuck, don't
know why but it just did. I don't even think any of us like it that
much.
Artsin: What was the first gig the band played? How
did it go?
Max: It was at The Shed just under a year ago, we were
still a three piece back then and we were really really nervous. We supported
Sad Sally and it was pretty much empty apart from about 20 of our friends
and relatives. It went okay I suppose, I just remember being too nervous
to really put on a show or even move.
Artsin: Which band members write
the songs? Do you all work on songs together, equally? Or does someone
write the lyrics and other work on the melodies? How does it all happen?
Max: I write most of the songs on my own, but there are a few which have
been co written by me and another band member.
Artsin: What would you
say are the influences on the band? What other bands do you most listen
and like?
Max: I don't know to be honest, this is a question
I've never really been able to answer. When I'm writing I don't think
about any specific influences, generally I just jam around until I find
a riff I like and write a song around that.
Artsin: How often does the
band practice?
Max: We try and do one once a week but it's hard for
all of us to afford it.
Artsin: Since the band started playing, about
how many gigs have you done?
Max: Wow, errrr that's a good question.
I don't know any exact numbers but I would guess something between
20 and 30. Maybe more!
We have seen them play a few times. We said:
"The intense style of music continued with Chess Club
, who I saw for the first time on 19th June, playing at a micro-gig in
a city centre pub and was impressed by what I heard.
There is a raucous creativity
and sparkle in their set of fastly furious songs which were laden with
crunching guitar lines, gutsy delivery and raw riffs backed by some
solidly good song writing.
Modern and upbeat, their riotous, let's have
it punchy approach had serious attack and reflected what some big bands
are doing right now.
"They claimed to have played an Arctic Monkey's cover,
but it didn't sound anything like the original. Inspired
by , maybe,
it was like if the Clash had written You look good
on the dance floor . If it was intended to be a tongue in cheek piss take of the 'Monkey's
classic, then it worked well.
"I thought they were a band with style and
fizz who made a statement. They ended with a song which I heard as
being about a Transvestite Cobbler? Different! There was a certain raw-edged
spontaneity about this band that made them stand out. As one senior
musician said to me afterwards, "they
were easily the best band of the night.". A sentiment I was happy to
agree with."
Opinions vary as to the technical finesse of the band.
At another gig, an older musician told me: "The style of music varies
even within the same song. They have riffs in there from rock, ska, metal
and punk and it's all jumbled up."
Yea! But isn't that what makes them so exciting
to listen to? I think so. It's their inventiveness and their idiosyncratic
desire to break the mould rather than stick to established formulae that
makes this band so inventive, fresh and different.
Whilst so many other young bands are sticking rigidly
to what their music teachers have taught them, these kids have done their
own thing, experimented and used their considerable passion for beats,
rhythms and riffs to celebrate musical idioms rather than music conventions.
People hated Stravinsky when they first heard his work.
They booed him at the first performance of The Rite
of Spring. People can react negatively to innovation in all forms
of music.
What makes this band stand out, for me, is their capacity
to play with rock music.
The Chess Club on Myspace
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