Following on from the chat we had with them in the runup to this year’s Bloodstock Festival, madcap rockers Chub have more to tell us! By the time this goes up you’ll be able to enjoy their new video as well…
We’ve all been pals for about 15 years! Ben’s mum and Zakk’s dad were good friends when they were kids so they’ve always been friends. Kyle and Zakk met in school around year 8 through their mutual friends in their school’s gang of emos/goths, and bonded over hundreds of hours of Super Smash Bros. Then we all met Greg hanging out in our favourite park in Eastbourne, Gilly. Fond memories of crowding around a shit speaker listening to everything from old school hip hop to extreme death metal, to dubstep. We’ve all been like family ever since.
How long have you been playing as a band?
We formed in December 2019 and managed to get 2 whole practices in before the pandemic hit! It gave us plenty of time to get used to the social media cycle, refine what sound and energy we wanted to bring, and study each other’s influences through our podcast, CHUBcast.
We formed as a direct result of the 2019 election. Ben had already been floating the idea of making some aggressive, angsty music to shout in people’s faces about the crumbling state of our country. We were at a house party for the new year and ended up spending a good few hours drunkenly rambling about our frustrations and grievances with everything the Tories were doing. And it just so happened we played different instruments! Some say it was meant to be…
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
We just really love fish, security companies, boners, and being fat.
Honestly though, we just wanted something short and sweet that made us laugh. It’s worked out well though- we’ve had so many people come up to us and say they only came because of our name, only to love the show! (Speaking of which, northern CHUBblies, we’ll see you in summer of 2025 )
What are your influences?
We all listen to all sorts of different stuff, there’s a lot of overlap that we all draw from, but we all have unique tastes that we like to tap into to make every song different.
Biggest overall band influences are probably The Chats, The Offspring, Misfits, IDLES, and Bad Nerves.
Greg: Lover of prog and widdly guitars i.e. Protest the Hero, Periphery, Mr Big, and many more. Massive fan of nu-metal: Rage, System, etc. Probably the biggest hip-hop head in the band. Loves a bit of funk, jazzy fusion stuff, and has recently gotten really into orchestras after seeing the Final Fantasy orchestra with Kyle!
Kyle: Also a huge prog fan, with a soft spot for melodeath. Top three bands are Mastodon, Opeth and Gojira. Mostly listens to jazz and lo-fi during the day when working, as well as a bunch of house. Huge nerd when it comes to video game soundtracks.
Zakk: Metal and rock all the way baby. Airbourne, AC/DC, Motley Crue. Idolized Nikki Sixx and stole his haircut in his teen years. In the past few years he’s been converted to a lot of power metal and more extreme stuff by his partner Claire, the other half of their gig and festival vlogging YouTube channel, Mead and Metal. Alestorm and Gloryhammer are some of his favourites, as well as comedy music like Ninja Sex Party, Bo Burnham and Aunty Donna.
Ben: Was more of an indie kid in school, Interpol are still one of his all-time favourites. These days probably listens to the most hardcore of anyone in the band, bands like Vein.fm, Employed to Serve, Kublai Khan… He’s also a massive metalcore fan, his other all-time favourites are Killswitch Engage and right now Make Them Suffer.
All of us have a soft spot for some 80s cheese. Is it a real road trip without a bit of Phil Collins, Hall and Oates, MJ?
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We started off as a straight up punk band, but as we’ve gone on more of our metal influences have bled into our song writing. We’ve got an eclectic range of influences to pull from, and we’re really not interested in sticking to any kind of formula when it comes to what kind of songs we write. We’ve got straight up old school metal songs, hip shakin’ rock ‘n’ roll songs, doomy songs… We’re just making whatever we like! Our live shows are all about chaotic energy, so we try to channel that in our recordings as well.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
For the most part we’re a political band. We find it really hard to stay serious for too long though, so a lot of our lyrics are very tongue in cheek. Microwave Dave, a huge fan favourite for us, is about those geezers who spend so much time at Wetherspoons they’re basically part of the furniture. It’s a tragic commentary on a life wasted in modern day Britain, presented in a silly, fun way where he comes face to face with God and Satan.
Our most recent single, out on the 25th October, is about the worlds (second) hottest chilli pepper, the Carolina Reaper. Greg is a casual pain connoisseur and wanted to portray the experience of eating one musically. It’s blistering, frantic fun, and at Bloodstock caused our biggest pit of the festival.
Oh, and we have to throw in at least one song about Dungeons and Dragons now and then, what kind of nerds would we be otherwise?
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What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?
We lost count a while ago now, we started gigging in 2022 and haven’t really stopped since. So psyched to have sold out a few headline shows in Brighton at our favourite venues Green Door Store and Daltons! And 2 huge festivals, Rebellion and Bloodstock under our belts as well. Absolutely mind-blowing to think about
We say it at every show- we’re here to facilitate a good time for everyone present. Absolute chaos, brew flying everywhere, other people’s sweat all over yourself, the walls and the ceiling, but in a friendly environment where everyone’s looking out for each other, without any fear or prejudice. Go apeshit in the pit, but pick each other up. Get crowd surfers up, but give the people in front of you a tap on the shoulder and a warning. Try your best not to boot someone in the head! Let the ladies have a mosh to themselves!
Metal tries to take itself really seriously, but in reality it’s incredibly silly. We’re singing about dragons and goblins, wearing spikes and leather like a bunch of Uruk-hai… It’s not that deep! We want to see people smiling and laughing. We’re not above some toilet humour and samples of farts to get people there. And we’re having such a good time on stage, people can’t help but pick up on that infectious energy.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
One of our favourite moments of every show is Beer Bong Song, where we get members of the audience to compete and see who can finish off a beer bong quickest during the solo. We’ve had to bring more and more of them to every show, because we always get people dibsing one before we’ve even got on stage! We’ve had rum bongs, tequila bongs… Arguably the worst was someone drinking a whole litre bottle of undiluted blackcurrant squash…
At one of their most recent shows, Ben saw a fan of our pals Slobheads get on stage and deliberately piss themselves. We prefer to keep bodily fluids out of our performances
We got some amazing shots and footage of a herd of dinosaurs jumping in the pit for our Bloodstock performance, ICONIC scenes!
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Kyle: Tama Starclassic walnut/birch shells, with Tama Roadpro hardware. A mishmash of Meinl and Zildjian cymbals, and a beautiful maple custom Yamaha snare I bought for a complete steal from a friend who needed money for weed 10ish years ago. Wonder if he regrets that decision…
Greg:
Guitar: Schecter C-7 Pro
Amps: Laney Ironheart combo or PRS Archon 50 head/ENGL 2×12 angled cab
Pedals: I have quite a utilitarian pedalboard with: Empress buffer, Boss TU-3 tuner, Dunlop Crybaby 95Q switchless wah, Wampler Ego compressor, MXR 10 band EQ, TC Electronic Sentry noise gate, and EHX Oceans 12 reverb. Nothing too crazy, all the gain is from the amps :)
Zakk: “A red bass and an Orange amp”
Ben: Standard SM58 mics and a sample pad for SUCCULENT CHINESE MEALs, peanut butter babies and fart noises.
What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?
“Carolina Reaper”, out 25th October on all streaming platforms, with its very own music video where we ate several chillies and attempted to play through the song while experiencing hell localised entirely within our mouths!
We’ll have a few more singles out through the rest of this year and early next, so keep those eyes peeled
What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?
Recording and releasing as many tunes as possible with our good friend and production sorcerer Jasper Lyons at Bad Habit Studios in Eastbourne. We’re pumping the brakes on gigs a bit to get more tunes written, and then we’re hitting a few dates in January/February! Some exciting news coming up later next year, but we’ll have to keep our lips sealed about that for now
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
Opening for The Chats would be a DREAM COME TRUE! Love those guys and their music to bits, and their show at Chalk in Brighton is one of the best we’ve ever been to, the whole building was one continuous pit!
We’ve met so many amazing bands and made so many great friends in both the Brighton and Eastbourne scene, it’s so hard to choose just one band to open… Our kindred Metal 2 the Masses winners and party pals Crowgod always kill it, soaring, beautiful vocals, haunting violins, and CRUSHING sludgy riffs, go check them out. Safe Harbour are anthemic, emotive and beautiful, and both Jasper and Ori are integral parts of the Eastbourne Music Collective, helping build the previously non-existent Eastbourne music scene up from scratch over the past few years into a truly beautiful and incredibly supportive community. Gurf are probably the most technically talented musicians we’ve seen in Brighton and their live show is MENTAL, they’re a strong contender too! We could keep going forever honestly…
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