Chapel Club interview

eFestivals caught up with Chapel Club's guitarist Michael Hibbert in the studio, and he took a few minutes for a quick chat about festivals, and their forthcoming material. Hibbert founded the group along with drummer Rich Mitchell, vocalist Lewis Bowman, and childhood friends, bassist Liam Arklie and guitarist Alex Parry. The band's debut album, 'Palace' is released on 31st January, and the single 'Surfacing' is out today (Monday, 21st January), and they begin a UK tour in February.

Chapel Club formed in the summer of 2008 in London. The name is a reference to St. Luke's Church, where the band practised.

I can hear a bassline going on in the background, what are you up to?
We're just recording some demos of some new tracks, and you've caught us right in the middle of it.

Is that new material for the next album?
Well, I don't know what it is really, we've just got a bit of time off, so we've just gone into the studio for six days to see what we can get down. We're going to be touring a hell of a lot this year, so, it's using our opportunities wisely. From the 10th of this month we've been recording in twelve hour shifts. It's been going very well, we've got four songs coming together, and a couple more knocking around.

They're surely too new to get an airing on your tour?
Hmm, we probably shouldn't play them, we should just concentrate on the album really. Well have the album and a new EP to play so we'll probably do that. But, to be honest we are really tempted to play some of the new stuff, but we will see how that comes along.

Talking of the new album, you have 'Surfacing' (the song with a snippet of 'Dream a Little Dream') out as the new single at last - what was the hold up in getting it released?
Publishing, that little snippet that was taken, and they had to agree to it. We had to give them some money. Well, not some money but half of what we earn on that song. But what can you do? It's one of those things isn't it. For that song we're not doing it for the money.

I guess in future songs you'll be using less snippets in forthcoming songs...
(laughs) Yeah, we naively just went into that one. It was kind of strange, I wrote it in rehearsals, and Lew (Bowman - singer) had that idea and I always assumed he was just singing the first thing that came into head, and it was going to change at some point, but we kind of got quite attached to it and so we thought, "Let's just use it". Once you get to that stage, you kind of forget that there's another line in there, and you just think it's your song, and then it was only when people started mentioning the reference we thought, "Oh Fuck!" We had completely forgotten about it. You know how it is, you get ideas in your head and you just run with it.

You're about to embark on a UK tour are you looking forward to it?
Yeah, initially I enjoyed touring outside the UK more, just because it counts as holiday to me, but I'm looking forward to it. The album is going to be out, and more people will have heard us. We're going to step up a little bit. We've got a show at Heaven in London, which is an amazing venue, so I'm really excited about that. It's going to be really good.

You were fantastic at Reading last year, how did you feel it went?
Thank you. I thought it was a great gig, the watershed moment in our career as a live band. It takes a while to get going, and we spent the whole of last year just learning how to play as a live band. It was quite special when we realised we had clicked. Although what is real unfortunate is that it seems to go up and down. That Reading show was amazing and then we did the NME show after that and we were awful. This last European tour that we did, we were really back to being good again.

So, I don't know if we're destined to be one of those temperamental bands. There's some kind of charm with it, I guess, in that you're never going to know what you're going to get from us. Unlike Coldplay who are always going to be amazing live, there are certain bands like Godspeed! You Black Emperor who are one of those incredible bands where they can be the worst live band, or the best live band in the world, it just depends when you catch them, there's some kind of excitement, some kind of spark about that. I don't know. Guess, we'll just have to see.

Did you get a chance to see any other acts whilst you were at Reading?
Ohhhh, we saw Arcade Fire who were just astonishing, that was probably it really, we didn't really stick around that long. I was mainly getting ripped backstage. A lot of our friends came up, and it was a nice opportunity to get drunk in the fun.

Do you enjoy playing festivals?
I do yeah. I don't really like going to festivals anymore. I did when I was younger. But, it's nice to go and work, to go in and out, to see different bands. There's a nice atmosphere at festivals regardless of the weather. But, obviously if it is sunny then it's a lot better, and you bump into old friends you havent seen in a while, and it's good.

What festivals did you used to go to?
I went to Glastonbury two or three times in my late teens and had an amazing time. I had the best mushrooms I've ever had, and got drunk and it was incredible! Do you know what I mean?

Any plans to play there this year?
I think so, that's the plan. We played last year, and decided to camp, and it's been a while since I've done that, and I'd forgotten how horrible it is to wake up in a tent that's that hot. It was really hot at Glastonbury last year. I had thought my days of camping were over, but I just had to have one last try, and it definitely confirmed my camping days are done never again. But, everything there was amazing, we had an amazing reception there.

Any other festival dates lined up yet for this year?
I don't know yet what we have been booked for and what we haven't. The idea is to play as many festivals as possible I believe. So, hopefully our booking agent is on to that, otherwise he's in trouble. I want to do a lot of European festivals. I'd like to go to Primavera but I don't think we're cool enough. I really, really want to go.

Didn't you play a lot of European festivals last year?
Yes we did, Pukkelpop, Haldern Pop, Eurosonic, and others, not that many.

How do European festivals differ to UK events?
They're cleaner, you get a better rider, the crowd respond more.

What do you put on your rider?
Lots of gin, whiskey, and lots of red wine for before during and after the gig.

What advice would you give to festival goers?
Don't take anything, have lots of fun while you're there, travel light, that's my only bit of advice.

When you were at Reading, Lewis said at that journalists had done you a disservice by comparing the band to Editors, so could you do a journo hack job and sum up your debut album 'Palace' in six words?
Six words? Sonic boom, sonic boom, sonic boom.

Were the band really that displeased to be compared to Editors?
Not really, I just thought it was a bit lame. I don't think we sound that much like Editors. I just don't get it, we always get compared to Editors and White Lies, I don't think we sound much like either of them really. It's not like I have anything against those two bands it's just seems (lazy).... yeah.

Will you be playing all the tracks from 'Palace' on tour?
There's a couple we've gone off, so we'll probably play around eight, it's a ten track album. We'll play some EP tracks and perhaps a couple of new tracks.

What are your three stand out tracks on the album?
I'm a big fan of 'Blind', I think that's a particularly good song, I like 'Fine Light', and I like 'The Shore'.

Thanks for your time.
Take care.

Chapel Club play the following tour dates in February:

Thu 3rd February Thekla, Bristol
Fri 4th February O2 Academy, Liverpool
Sat 5th February The Leadmill, Sheffield
Mon 7th February The Cockpit, Leeds
Tue 8th February The Bodega Social Club, Nottingham
Thu 10th February King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow
Fri 11th February The Doghouse, Dundee
Sat 12th February The Cluny, Newcastle upon Tyne
Sun 13th February Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
Tue 15th February Talking Heads, Southampton
Wed 16th February Heaven, London
Fri 25th February The Leadmill, Sheffield
Sat 26th February, Auntie Annie's Porter House, Belfast

To buy tickets, click here.

Chapel Club