The Chap, not to be confused with the sartorial magazine of the same name, are a collective of music aficionados with a distinct flavour about them. Of Jazz, electronica, rock and random acts of music that equally confuse and delight the listener. They all started off in ROCK bands and have never fully recovered producing music that will make you tingle. BCR meets up with them in a modest curry house on Brick Lane where, between the jalfrezi and chicken biryani, we talk of jingle making and the perfect 80’s funk pop band Level 42.
BCR: So are you recording at the moment? Because you’re just about to release or have just released a new album?
Johannes: We’re releasing in three or four months.
Panos: It’s finished so…
BCR: In terms of recording and everything… it seems to take quite a while. Are you doing the post production now or…?
Johannes: Yeees… It’s because we do everything ourselves.
BCR: the reason I asked about the post production is because the electronic percussion seems very complicated. To leave that to anyone else…
Panos: That’s actually the easiest thing to do because it’s electronic. You just sit down and do it.
Johannes: Live recording is much harder. Particularly recording drums it’s not easy with limited space or equipment. We’ve never really had money or access to a studio so we’ve had to do it ourselves. But also we like doing it ourselves because we’re control freaks…
Panos: Isn’t it the first time that we didn’t record any drums at home? All the old albums were recorded in either in lounges or kitchens.
Johannes: My bedroom or your kitchen. For this album we went to a friends place in Germany which has a separate room which acoustically has a bit better equipment. But it still isn’t a studio. It was a step up from Panos’ kitchen.
Panos: We’ve mainly written this at home but some of the stuff we’ve jammed. The recordings are all over the place. Where we used to rehearse or the place in Germany. The only thing that’s changed is that it’s slightly better. We’ve got better microphones and we’re better people. We’ve grown morally!
Johannes: I think the process is basically the same. When we did the first album it was a lot of back and forth between the computer at home and coming up with ideas with drum machines or software. Then go to the rehearsal room and try things out there and then back. There aren’t that many songs which are written in one throw. We work on several tracks at the same time and when they’re done…
Panos: We all work in other things too so it takes a bit of time.
BCR: What are your day jobs? What are you when you’re not Chaps?
Johannes: None of us have real proper jobs…
Panos: I’m doing computer programming and tour managing and sound engineering.
BCR: So you keep at least inside music. You’re not working at Rymans or something…
Johannes: No, no. I also, with Panos, write music for TV, film and commercials and stuff.
BCR: You’re jingle writers?!
Johannes: In a sense…. We’ve done some stuff for… Dunhill, that sort of thing.
Panos: One of the worst adverts we’ve ever seen and we’ve written the music to it.
Johannes: Occasionally I actually write for some music papers in Germany as well.
BCR: Sorry… I’m very intrigued by the Jingles because it seems like the most soulless part of music you could possibly get. You guys obviously aren’t because...
Panos: Oh, we are. Completely soulless. When it comes down to the money you can earn with this. But the cool thing is you can be anonymous. No one knows who did it.
Johannes: That would be terrible if The Chap community found out about that. We’d lose all street cred.
BCR: You realise who you’re talking to?
Panos: Er… yes… Damn.
Johannes: This is the end of our career.
BCR: You’ve done five years, that’s pretty long for the music biz. This is your third album and two or three EPs?
