A Quick Q&A With Chappaqua Wrestling
Brighton’s Chappaqua Wrestling have never been ones to follow the beaten track. With a nomadic existence both geographically and musically, the genre-spanning quintet bounce from shoegaze to grunge at the flip of a coin. We caught up with Chappaqua following the release of their latest single ‘The Rift’ earlier this year.
You’ve had a great reception for your last single ‘The Rift,’ particularly from Jack Saunders and Annie Mac over at Radio One. How does that feel?
Yeah it’s been Incredible. The support has been ongoing for a while now which we are so grateful for, and this track really means a lot as it shows a different side to us than we’ve previously shown, but also a side we want to do a lot more of. The fact that they have backed this track and those previous on the journey so far really is affirming that we’re doing the right thing, and we owe them so much for that.
I read that the lyrics are influenced by a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, could you tell me about that?
For sure, the poem is called ‘The Masque of Anarchy’, written just after The Peterloo Massacre in the early 1800s. It’s essentially a call to arms for people who are fighting bigger powers than themselves, who feel alone and hopeless. ‘The Rift’ is about the increasing divisions in society, and calling out those that turn a blind eye to it. I read the ‘Masque’ poem and it still resonates so much today and I just couldn’t help but take influence from it to describe what’s going on. People need hope and need to stand together and realise you can change a situation by being strong as many. Shelley tells us that you’re not alone, you can face challenges way bigger than yourself when together; we all just need to realise that as a collective. It’s a hopeful poem, which is specifically important today when there’s not much hope around.
How were your experiences at Abbey Studios and Maida Vale?
This should be a slightly lighter answer than above - they were both great thanks! Abbey Road hit us like a tonne of bricks, we had so much support from Huw Stephens at Radio 1, as he took us there which gave us, again, so much confidence and happiness - we went there in very good hands. We had great support from all the engineers and staff there, and to play at ABBEY ROAD is for obvious reasons the most amazing landmark to reach, especially for us being such a new band at that point too. Maida Vale was equally amazing, the studio has just got so much character from the breadth of artists that have been in there and recorded live. It has so much natural energy for bands to get stuck in, and the engineers were so inviting to get into it and perform well. The space really makes it easy for you to play comfortably, it brings the best out of you. We were so lucky to get to perform at both of these studios, and owe Radio 1 for taking us to them infinitely.
You all played together in a shoegaze band when you were younger, how did that help shape Chappaqua Wrestling?
Haha good detective work. Some people have said that there’s two sides to our coin, and most listeners will probably realise that now. Our old shoegaze band is where we developed some of the thicker wall of sound elements that is still definitely strong at live shows and in more recent releases. We used to just be giddy buying/borrowing/finding all sorts of pedals and trying to create so much noise with them. Sometimes a bit too much noise, but we learnt a lot. There was always a similar song structure in the music that we have evolved from today, and we wrote some really great stuff that we’re still really proud of. For Chappaqua Wrestling we’ve integrated some of those shoegazey sounds with some of our Americana’ influences. We’ve gelled a bit of Steely Dan/Beach Boys with some of the heavy grungey shoegazey elements of before, and we’re loving it.. just hope you are too.
Where did the name come from?
I (Charlie) grew up in New York as a child and lived in the small town of Chappaqua, about 40 minutes upstate from NYC. There was a local sports shop that sold generic town sports shirts of the area, and I had one that said ‘Chappaqua Wrestling’, because I loved wrestling (and still do). When I moved back to the UK, Jake, Jude, and I were all best friends and this t-shirt somehow did the rounds, all three of us ending up wearing it at different periods. It is a rad t-shirt, and it kinda bound us to some extent. When we went to uni we named a Spotify playlist Chappaqua Wrestling to show each other music to stay connected, then it just turned into the band name. Ironically Spotify playlists are now the bands’ favourite new thing so its great too.
There’s certainly a mix of sounds and styles throughout your music, was the vision always to change it up?
We’ve never consciously mapped out a vision of where to take it or change it, but where we write so much and play a number of instruments, different sounds and styles find there way in. We’ve always been kids that played guitar and that means that sometime we just do crank it up. Like the previous answer about our shoe gaze band, no matter how soft we get we always knew how to get loud as well. That paired with the social climate that been very turbulent; it’s not so coincidental that our music is a bit more jacked up. There are still a lot of written styles which we haven’t recorded yet. There’s kinda a backlog of songs we want to release, so hopefully we get the album stage so we can really start talking.
Where do you look to for inspiration?
It would be pompous to say that our main inspiration doesn’t come from bands. Whether that be current bands or bands from the past, our musical inspiration mostly comes from music. On a writing front we are very inspired by each other. Lots of the time we write together but when writing alone I think we are a huge inspiration on each other. Our spirits are kindred so even if we take inspiration from another band, it’s probably a band we both love.
On a wider note, conceptually we take lyrical inspiration from films and books for sure. Sometimes we don’t like to tell a story too matter of fact, so sometimes a metaphor or line from a movie scene can help you convey what you are saying. We also care a lot about our artworks, I think the style of the imagery used has help to create space and atmosphere in our music. Photographers like Richard Page & Dominick Sheldon have helped us to portray our music.
Do you have any new projects lined up?
Chappaqua is the main focus. So projects on that side of things are probably a couple more singles, EP, then tour & then the dark abyss of the future. We both write a lot in our own time so I’m sure at some stage the Chappaqua project could bloom into something else. Since living in Peckham we have been around more musicians and friends which we’ll definitely be working with more. We’ve also been releasing our music on a mysterious label called Good Flavours, so definitely watch that space as well.
