The Chords originally formed in 1978, inspired by both the energy of Punk and Sixties bands like The Who and The Kinks. In a perfect world, the fact that they wrote and played great songs would have been all that mattered, but the late Seventies was a period of exaggerated tribalism within youth culture. The Chords were embraced by the Mod Revival which flourished following the success of The Jam and the popularity of the film ‘Quadrophenia’, which was also released around the same time as The Chords’ first singles. But although they were certainly one of the most popular bands of the era, they were never restricted to that genre and the quality of their songs would surely have seen them achieve success regardless of whether the Mod Revival had ever happened. Indeed, in many ways, it did them no favours in the long run. The music press, true to its’ two-faced nature, built-up the Mod Revival only to suddenly dismiss it in favour of the Two Tone bands. After having received ‘Single of the Week’ accolades in more than one of the weekly music papers, The Chords lost their support and were left to fend for themselves, despite their music retaining high standards as it developed.
Although they originally split-up in 1981, the band left behind a solid musical legacy and in songs like ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ and ‘Something’s Missing’, they produced classics that are still enjoyed and respected by old and new fans alike. Their occasional reunions are always enthusiastically attended and nowadays their fans are far more interested in the songs rather than the labels. They can play alongside Punk, Mod or Britpop bands and they always raise the roof for the simple fact that they’re a bloody great band.
Original guitarist and main songwriter Chris Pope has been the most consistently active band member since those early days. After the band split-up, he formed a new band called Agent Orange that built a strong reputation for themselves around London even though they released no records. Following that, he was a part of another band, ‘Gatecrash Heaven’, who spent time based in New York. He eventually returned to his roots and, alongside The Chords drummer, Brett Ascott, began playing under the name ‘Pope’, eventually releasing three albums of new material.
Although they originally split-up in 1981, the band left behind a solid musical legacy and in songs like ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ and ‘Something’s Missing’, they produced classics that are still enjoyed and respected by old and new fans alike. Their occasional reunions are always enthusiastically attended and nowadays their fans are far more interested in the songs rather than the labels. They can play alongside Punk, Mod or Britpop bands and they always raise the roof for the simple fact that they’re a bloody great band.
Original guitarist and main songwriter Chris Pope has been the most consistently active band member since those early days. After the band split-up, he formed a new band called Agent Orange that built a strong reputation for themselves around London even though they released no records. Following that, he was a part of another band, ‘Gatecrash Heaven’, who spent time based in New York. He eventually returned to his roots and, alongside The Chords drummer, Brett Ascott, began playing under the name ‘Pope’, eventually releasing three albums of new material.
Following a recent series of dates by The Chords in Japan and Australia, Chris has been playing dates as The Chords UK, which has culminated in the excellent new album, ‘Take On Life’. Having heard the record and seen the band at their recent Album Launch gig at the 100 Club, I was lucky enough to organise an interview with Chris at a busy pub near London Bridge station. First of all, I wanted to ask about his musical background and the bands that had inspired him to start playing…
‘Well, my older brother and sister and my dad were all totally in to music, so I was growing up listening to lots of stuff. I heard everything from the Beatles and the Stones through to Frank Sinatra, the whole thing. I was only 3 or 4 years old and I’d be hearing the Beatles’ first single every day. My dad would buy all of the original Stones’ records, Manfred Mann, everything… By the time I was 7 or 8, I was getting in to bands like The Move and more of the later Sixties stuff. But it wasn’t until I was 10 or 11 that I got in to T Rex, and that became the first music that was just my thing, a different generation in a way. From there I got in to bands like Slade, and eventually Punk happened. The funny thing was that I never really heard The Who until I was 12 or 13, but they quickly became my favourite band. They were the most original band that I could think of, sound-wise, so they were probably the ones who made me want to play. I remember listening to a copy of ‘Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy’, which was the first and probably their best compilation, and not to put it down but the songs sounded quite simplistic. They sounded fairly straight-forward and I thought maybe I could work these out. So that was the starting point, but it was also just going out and seeing bands. I was lucky to be living in London, so by the time I was 13, I was going out and seeing pretty-much everyone I wanted to see. The Who made me think I could probably play, but it was seeing other bands that really made me want to do it.’
That would have been still a few years before The Chords came together, so did you play in any other bands before then ?
‘Nah, not really. I started learning to play when I was 14 or 15, but the first audition I went to was for The Chords… well, it wasn’t even an audition, really, I just met Billy and Martin at a bus-stop ! Before that, I’d only ever played with a few people at school. I already knew Paul Halpin, who was the first drummer for The Chords, so we used to mess around tying to play down in the basement, but it wasn’t a proper band at all. I was only 16 when I joined The Chords, so that was it.’
‘Well, my older brother and sister and my dad were all totally in to music, so I was growing up listening to lots of stuff. I heard everything from the Beatles and the Stones through to Frank Sinatra, the whole thing. I was only 3 or 4 years old and I’d be hearing the Beatles’ first single every day. My dad would buy all of the original Stones’ records, Manfred Mann, everything… By the time I was 7 or 8, I was getting in to bands like The Move and more of the later Sixties stuff. But it wasn’t until I was 10 or 11 that I got in to T Rex, and that became the first music that was just my thing, a different generation in a way. From there I got in to bands like Slade, and eventually Punk happened. The funny thing was that I never really heard The Who until I was 12 or 13, but they quickly became my favourite band. They were the most original band that I could think of, sound-wise, so they were probably the ones who made me want to play. I remember listening to a copy of ‘Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy’, which was the first and probably their best compilation, and not to put it down but the songs sounded quite simplistic. They sounded fairly straight-forward and I thought maybe I could work these out. So that was the starting point, but it was also just going out and seeing bands. I was lucky to be living in London, so by the time I was 13, I was going out and seeing pretty-much everyone I wanted to see. The Who made me think I could probably play, but it was seeing other bands that really made me want to do it.’
That would have been still a few years before The Chords came together, so did you play in any other bands before then ?
‘Nah, not really. I started learning to play when I was 14 or 15, but the first audition I went to was for The Chords… well, it wasn’t even an audition, really, I just met Billy and Martin at a bus-stop ! Before that, I’d only ever played with a few people at school. I already knew Paul Halpin, who was the first drummer for The Chords, so we used to mess around tying to play down in the basement, but it wasn’t a proper band at all. I was only 16 when I joined The Chords, so that was it.’
With the band starting in 1978, was Punk a big influence in what you wanted to do ?
‘Oh yeah, definitely. I didn’t see much difference between what bands like The Kinks, The Who or the Small Faces had done and what bands like the Buzzcocks, The Jam and The Clash were doing. They were a bit faster and the production was a bit different, but it was ten years on so you wouldn’t expect it to sound exactly the same. But in terms of three minute pop songs, they all approached it in the same way. If you were 14 or 15 at that time and liked rock’n’roll but didn’t like Punk, then there must’ve been something wrong with you. The only people who were going to dismiss it were the ones at school who were in to Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath and wanted all the guitar solo’s. It was a generational thing and for kids like us, it was there. The bands were writing about things that we were thinking about and they were accessible, which a lot of the established bands weren’t.’
It’s a shame that whole ‘Year Zero’ thing has been taken out on context in retrospect. It was a great attitude to wind-up people and also inspired kids to do something for themselves, but it’s rubbish to think that all those early Punk bands hated anything that came before them…
‘Exactly. That was just the kind of Bernie Rhodes mentality, but even when you look at The Clash… Mick was totally in to Mott The Hoople and Joe Strummer loved Woody Guthrie and early rockabilly. They didn’t come from nowhere ! Otherwise thgey would have just ended up making noise and pretending it was original. To me, that’s not what it’s about. I look at music the same way you make a cake… you take different things you already like and put them together to make something new out of it. I mean, the reason I got in to the Sex Pistols early on was because someone at school played a bootleg tape to me and they were playing ‘Watcha Gonna Do About It’ and ‘Substitute’… we thought they were a Mod band !’
So, did The Chords actually set-out to be a ‘Mod’ band…
‘Nah, not at all. I was really into The Who and had been for a few years, while Billy and Martin were probably a bit more into the style just because they didn’t want to wear leather jackets and ripped-up jeans. They were just wearing whatever they wanted to wear and the Mod style fitted the bill for them. So they did sort of emulate it a bit fashion-wise, but I never got to dress-up because I didn’t had the money for it. I certainly don’t think we ever went out to sound like a Mod band because what were they supposed to sound like ? In the Sixties, it would’ve been something like Zoot Money, you know ? You also had bands like the Small Faces and The Who, but The Jam were already doing that and the Buzzcocks weren’t a million miles away from it, so it was already there long before we started. It would have been hard to say what a Mod band was supposed to be, because there were so many different facets to it. Of all the bands that got caught up in the Seventies Mod thing, I always thought that The Chords were leaning far more towards Punk than bands like Secret Affair or the Purple Hearts because that’s where I came from. As far as I was concerned, when the band started I wanted us to be The Who-meets-The Clash. That was my stance on what I wanted us to be. The thing was that all these different things came together because of Punk. People like to think in hindsight that all these things were totally separate, but they weren’t. If you look at pictures of the audience at the Roxy Club, you’ll see plenty of geezers with long hair who were there just because they were into the music. Even bands like Squeeze initially came up because they were associated with Punk, although they were obviously never a Punk band, and you could also say the same thing about The Jam. But they didn’t jump on anything, they were just a part of what was going on.’
‘Oh yeah, definitely. I didn’t see much difference between what bands like The Kinks, The Who or the Small Faces had done and what bands like the Buzzcocks, The Jam and The Clash were doing. They were a bit faster and the production was a bit different, but it was ten years on so you wouldn’t expect it to sound exactly the same. But in terms of three minute pop songs, they all approached it in the same way. If you were 14 or 15 at that time and liked rock’n’roll but didn’t like Punk, then there must’ve been something wrong with you. The only people who were going to dismiss it were the ones at school who were in to Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath and wanted all the guitar solo’s. It was a generational thing and for kids like us, it was there. The bands were writing about things that we were thinking about and they were accessible, which a lot of the established bands weren’t.’
It’s a shame that whole ‘Year Zero’ thing has been taken out on context in retrospect. It was a great attitude to wind-up people and also inspired kids to do something for themselves, but it’s rubbish to think that all those early Punk bands hated anything that came before them…
‘Exactly. That was just the kind of Bernie Rhodes mentality, but even when you look at The Clash… Mick was totally in to Mott The Hoople and Joe Strummer loved Woody Guthrie and early rockabilly. They didn’t come from nowhere ! Otherwise thgey would have just ended up making noise and pretending it was original. To me, that’s not what it’s about. I look at music the same way you make a cake… you take different things you already like and put them together to make something new out of it. I mean, the reason I got in to the Sex Pistols early on was because someone at school played a bootleg tape to me and they were playing ‘Watcha Gonna Do About It’ and ‘Substitute’… we thought they were a Mod band !’
So, did The Chords actually set-out to be a ‘Mod’ band…
‘Nah, not at all. I was really into The Who and had been for a few years, while Billy and Martin were probably a bit more into the style just because they didn’t want to wear leather jackets and ripped-up jeans. They were just wearing whatever they wanted to wear and the Mod style fitted the bill for them. So they did sort of emulate it a bit fashion-wise, but I never got to dress-up because I didn’t had the money for it. I certainly don’t think we ever went out to sound like a Mod band because what were they supposed to sound like ? In the Sixties, it would’ve been something like Zoot Money, you know ? You also had bands like the Small Faces and The Who, but The Jam were already doing that and the Buzzcocks weren’t a million miles away from it, so it was already there long before we started. It would have been hard to say what a Mod band was supposed to be, because there were so many different facets to it. Of all the bands that got caught up in the Seventies Mod thing, I always thought that The Chords were leaning far more towards Punk than bands like Secret Affair or the Purple Hearts because that’s where I came from. As far as I was concerned, when the band started I wanted us to be The Who-meets-The Clash. That was my stance on what I wanted us to be. The thing was that all these different things came together because of Punk. People like to think in hindsight that all these things were totally separate, but they weren’t. If you look at pictures of the audience at the Roxy Club, you’ll see plenty of geezers with long hair who were there just because they were into the music. Even bands like Squeeze initially came up because they were associated with Punk, although they were obviously never a Punk band, and you could also say the same thing about The Jam. But they didn’t jump on anything, they were just a part of what was going on.’
It’s always a problem, when people start trying to define something rather than just enjoying it…
‘I used to listen to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxemburg in the early Seventies and when I heard a song that I liked, I had to imagine what I thought the band looked like because I didn’t have a clue about them. I used to enjoy that whole sort of mystery about music and it wasn’t until record companies started making videos that they took it away. I didn’t care if one of the Stranglers wore lipstick and a pink hat in real life, I’d still go to see them if I thought they sounded great !’
People often assumed that you were influenced by The Jam, which I always thought was a very lazy assumption. If anything, you probably had similarly influences, but I’m sure The Chords would still have existed even if they had never heard The Jam. That being said, did you feel any affinity with what they were doing ?
‘If anything, it was just that early on we had similar tastes, both the Sixties bands and the Punk thing. But we did get a lot of stick for it and, to a certain extent it was just because we were coming along a year or two after they’d established themselves. I was probably more into the Buzzcocks than The Jam, though I can’t speak for the rest of the band. But in terms of the songs, I know where they came from because I wrote them, and at the time I was much more into the Punk thing and bands like Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts or the Skids. That was where the songs were coming from when we recorded our album. I mean, Paul Weller was a great song writer and The Jam were a great band, so I can’t knock them , I did like them and there were some similarities, but that particular comparison was never really accurate and didn’t do us any favours.’
John Peel was one of the people who really supported The Chords, even before you put any records out…
‘Well, we did have a deal with Jimmy Pursey for a short time, as he had his own label through Polydor. But then we went on tour with the Undertones and he turned up at one of the gigs, at Guildford Civic Hall. We hadn’t been getting on with him because, although he was a very charismatic guy and did try hard for us, he also wanted us to release our records with scooters and targets on the sleeves. We really weren’t into that sort of thing… Anyway, he turned up at this gig and he was already very pissed, and he caused a massive riot over the stage and PA and everything, so we decided to part company. We were left with no record deal, or so we thought, but luckily John Walters, who was Peels’ producer, came to see us at the Marquee and asked if we’d like to record a session. We agreed to do it, of course, and Peel ended up playing it four times so the next thing we knew, we had loads of record companies after us. To this day, I still think that session was probably the best recordings we ever did. We were fresh and hungry and it really showed. Peel became a big champion for us, and he’s still sorely missed. I’d listen to his radio show and he’d play Swell Maps followed by Nina Hagen, followed by us ! Surely that’s the way that music should be heard ! But nowadays, you’re just told that you don’t fit the bill. It’s MOR here and it’s Indie there… everything has to fit in a pocket. But it wasn’t like that for him. If he liked something, he liked it and that was all that was important. I can only ever be grateful to the man.’
‘I used to listen to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxemburg in the early Seventies and when I heard a song that I liked, I had to imagine what I thought the band looked like because I didn’t have a clue about them. I used to enjoy that whole sort of mystery about music and it wasn’t until record companies started making videos that they took it away. I didn’t care if one of the Stranglers wore lipstick and a pink hat in real life, I’d still go to see them if I thought they sounded great !’
People often assumed that you were influenced by The Jam, which I always thought was a very lazy assumption. If anything, you probably had similarly influences, but I’m sure The Chords would still have existed even if they had never heard The Jam. That being said, did you feel any affinity with what they were doing ?
‘If anything, it was just that early on we had similar tastes, both the Sixties bands and the Punk thing. But we did get a lot of stick for it and, to a certain extent it was just because we were coming along a year or two after they’d established themselves. I was probably more into the Buzzcocks than The Jam, though I can’t speak for the rest of the band. But in terms of the songs, I know where they came from because I wrote them, and at the time I was much more into the Punk thing and bands like Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts or the Skids. That was where the songs were coming from when we recorded our album. I mean, Paul Weller was a great song writer and The Jam were a great band, so I can’t knock them , I did like them and there were some similarities, but that particular comparison was never really accurate and didn’t do us any favours.’
John Peel was one of the people who really supported The Chords, even before you put any records out…
‘Well, we did have a deal with Jimmy Pursey for a short time, as he had his own label through Polydor. But then we went on tour with the Undertones and he turned up at one of the gigs, at Guildford Civic Hall. We hadn’t been getting on with him because, although he was a very charismatic guy and did try hard for us, he also wanted us to release our records with scooters and targets on the sleeves. We really weren’t into that sort of thing… Anyway, he turned up at this gig and he was already very pissed, and he caused a massive riot over the stage and PA and everything, so we decided to part company. We were left with no record deal, or so we thought, but luckily John Walters, who was Peels’ producer, came to see us at the Marquee and asked if we’d like to record a session. We agreed to do it, of course, and Peel ended up playing it four times so the next thing we knew, we had loads of record companies after us. To this day, I still think that session was probably the best recordings we ever did. We were fresh and hungry and it really showed. Peel became a big champion for us, and he’s still sorely missed. I’d listen to his radio show and he’d play Swell Maps followed by Nina Hagen, followed by us ! Surely that’s the way that music should be heard ! But nowadays, you’re just told that you don’t fit the bill. It’s MOR here and it’s Indie there… everything has to fit in a pocket. But it wasn’t like that for him. If he liked something, he liked it and that was all that was important. I can only ever be grateful to the man.’
When the music press started to build-up the ‘Mod Revival’, were you wary about it or was it something you embraced ?
‘The truth of the matter is, we’d been rehearsing since 1978 and had played at a couple of pubs in South London. We’d tried out a few different drummers and then found Brett, who came in and got the job. A few weeks after that we had a gig in Deptford, so I came home from school, got changed and went down there expecting the usual three or four people in the audience. But this time I turned up and the place was packed ! Billy had been going to see The Jam and knew a lot of these new Mods so loads of them came along, as well as Gary Bushell and someone from the NME. Well, that was it. Whether we wanted to be part of that scene or not, we were in it. As everyone knows, it’s hard enough to get an audience when you’re starting-out, so we weren’t going to turn it down. It just happened. But a lot of the scene was still very DIY at that point and I liked that. There were no Svengali’s trying to create something and it was great. A few weeks later we did another gig in Waterloo,and loads of people turned up again. People were calling them Mods, but to me, they might as well have been Punks, because they were just people who were enjoying the music. Some of them were wearing parkas, but really they were just following the music. Mods liked us but whether we were really a Mod band, I don’t know. We certainly weren’t going to discourage them, but by that point, especially after Punk had happened, I really wouldn’t have been able to say what a Mod band would be.’
I remember thinking at the time that it was funny seeing all these kids with was seeing all these kids with ‘The Who’ on the back of their parkas, because by then, The Who sounded more like a hard rock band !
‘Exactly ! I remember people saying to us in 1981 that we’d really changed ,so I’d just ask them if they liked The Who ? When they said ‘Yeah’, I’d just say – ‘I Can’t Explain’ or ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Just there, you had a definitive Sixties Mod classic and a Seventies Rock thing with synthesizers ! Even fashion-wise, by 1969 Daltrey had long hair, Townsend was in a boiler suit, Entwistle had a beard and they were playing seven minute songs. Does anyone want to carry on wearing the same clothes for three years in a row ? Actually, I might do, as it goes, but it’s not because I want to, hahaha !’
I think The Chords eventually suffered from being identified alongside the ‘Mod Revival’ bands, rather than being appreciated for their own merits ?
To be honest, I think it was the Mod label that destroyed The Chords in the long run. In the beginning it made us popular, but it destroyed us when the fashions moved on. If we hadn’t been associated with it, maybe we wouldn’t have ever got as far as we did, and I’m sure the same thing happened with other bands. But there was a lot of other things that affected the outcome rather than just the music and fashion. We were still young and there was a lot of inner turmoil, plus we had never really signed a proper record deal. We had no manager and we were young kids and who had no-one advising us, so it didn’t take much to tip things over.’
‘The truth of the matter is, we’d been rehearsing since 1978 and had played at a couple of pubs in South London. We’d tried out a few different drummers and then found Brett, who came in and got the job. A few weeks after that we had a gig in Deptford, so I came home from school, got changed and went down there expecting the usual three or four people in the audience. But this time I turned up and the place was packed ! Billy had been going to see The Jam and knew a lot of these new Mods so loads of them came along, as well as Gary Bushell and someone from the NME. Well, that was it. Whether we wanted to be part of that scene or not, we were in it. As everyone knows, it’s hard enough to get an audience when you’re starting-out, so we weren’t going to turn it down. It just happened. But a lot of the scene was still very DIY at that point and I liked that. There were no Svengali’s trying to create something and it was great. A few weeks later we did another gig in Waterloo,and loads of people turned up again. People were calling them Mods, but to me, they might as well have been Punks, because they were just people who were enjoying the music. Some of them were wearing parkas, but really they were just following the music. Mods liked us but whether we were really a Mod band, I don’t know. We certainly weren’t going to discourage them, but by that point, especially after Punk had happened, I really wouldn’t have been able to say what a Mod band would be.’
I remember thinking at the time that it was funny seeing all these kids with was seeing all these kids with ‘The Who’ on the back of their parkas, because by then, The Who sounded more like a hard rock band !
‘Exactly ! I remember people saying to us in 1981 that we’d really changed ,so I’d just ask them if they liked The Who ? When they said ‘Yeah’, I’d just say – ‘I Can’t Explain’ or ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Just there, you had a definitive Sixties Mod classic and a Seventies Rock thing with synthesizers ! Even fashion-wise, by 1969 Daltrey had long hair, Townsend was in a boiler suit, Entwistle had a beard and they were playing seven minute songs. Does anyone want to carry on wearing the same clothes for three years in a row ? Actually, I might do, as it goes, but it’s not because I want to, hahaha !’
I think The Chords eventually suffered from being identified alongside the ‘Mod Revival’ bands, rather than being appreciated for their own merits ?
To be honest, I think it was the Mod label that destroyed The Chords in the long run. In the beginning it made us popular, but it destroyed us when the fashions moved on. If we hadn’t been associated with it, maybe we wouldn’t have ever got as far as we did, and I’m sure the same thing happened with other bands. But there was a lot of other things that affected the outcome rather than just the music and fashion. We were still young and there was a lot of inner turmoil, plus we had never really signed a proper record deal. We had no manager and we were young kids and who had no-one advising us, so it didn’t take much to tip things over.’
You’d also done a lot of things in a very short space of time…
‘Definitely. When that line-up came together, we played our first gig in Deptford and then three gigs aleter, we were playing the Rainbow with The Jam ! That was insane when you consider it was first band that any of us had been in. We probably should have had more time to mess around and play, but then again, if we had spent another year in a band that was as volatile as we were, without those things happening, maybe we wouldn’t have lasted. As it happened, the music press weren’t very generous to the Mod thing. They built it up and then dropped it in favour of the Two Tone thing. There were probably a few of the bands involved in the Mod movement that really didn’t help things, but we had a much tougher sound than most of the bands and it would have been good if we had been judged on our own merits rather than just as part of the movement.’
I agree with that… The Chords records still stand up as great songs, while other bands from the same time just sound like a part of that era…
‘Well, yeah… the NME and Sounds both made ‘Something’s Missing’, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ and ‘British Way of Life’ their Singles of The Week, and you’ve got to remember that there were a lot of great records being released at that time. They didn’t review them because they were ‘Mod’ records, they were doing it because they thought they were great records. I wrote a lot of those songs in 1978 before anyone had called us a Mod band and I just wrote them hoping they might sound half-as-good as the Buzzcocks or the Undertones. At the end of the day, I never had to put a parka on to write a song !’
Funnily enough, one of the things that has happened over then years is that fans are now more open to different things and tend to accept bands just on the grounds of whether they sound good, rather than what genre they were supposed to be a part of…
‘Well, we played at Rebellion, the only ‘Mod’ band to play that year, so I was a bit wary. But we played in a big room in front of 500 people, and it clearly wasn’t 500 Mods ! They just came to see us because they wanted to hear the songs and afterwards people were telling me that they’d been waiting 30 years for that. Later on, while I was watching the Buzzcocks and The Damned, people were coming up to say they thought we were brilliant ! It was great to get that kind of response, but even back at the time, I think The Chords probably sold more records to people who were into Punk and New Wave than to people who were just into Mod. Particularly when we played outside of London, you might get a crowd of Mods down at the front, but the rest of the club would be full of punks and anyone else who had bought our records. Sometimes there were fights back then, but now it’s just people who love the music regardless of whatever else they’re into, and that’s great.’
You’ve already mentioned that you were unhappy with the support you got from Polydor . I’ve heard elsewhere that they often seemed to sign-up bands that had created a bit of a buzz, but then virtually left them to their own devices with very little promotion…
‘The thing was that we never signed to Polydor. We signed to Jimmy Pursey’s label, which was a subsidiary of Polydor. We thought we had left it altogether, but then, when the John Peel session created a lot of interest with other labels, Polydor suddenly decided to check the contract that we’d signed with Jimmy. They found a clause that said if the contract fell-through with Jimmy, they had the option to take us on. So they used that to take us on with a deal that gave us no A&R man or any decent promotion. Of course, they also had The Jam, who were the biggest band in the UK at the time, so where do you think their priorities were ? We may as well have had no record deal at all. There was one guy at Polydor who liked us and did his best for us, but he was on his own and it wasn’t enough. I have to admit, we were all still young and drunk and disorderly so that probably didn’t help, but that’s how it turned out. Whatever success The Chords had was under their own steam. I think the same thing happened with other bands, like The Jolt and Protex. They released some great records but didn’t get any decent promotion either. I don’t want to sound like a bitter old man, but that’s what happened to us and I’m sure it still happens to a lot of bands who sign contracts only to find that they’re stuck in a hole with no way out.’
‘Definitely. When that line-up came together, we played our first gig in Deptford and then three gigs aleter, we were playing the Rainbow with The Jam ! That was insane when you consider it was first band that any of us had been in. We probably should have had more time to mess around and play, but then again, if we had spent another year in a band that was as volatile as we were, without those things happening, maybe we wouldn’t have lasted. As it happened, the music press weren’t very generous to the Mod thing. They built it up and then dropped it in favour of the Two Tone thing. There were probably a few of the bands involved in the Mod movement that really didn’t help things, but we had a much tougher sound than most of the bands and it would have been good if we had been judged on our own merits rather than just as part of the movement.’
I agree with that… The Chords records still stand up as great songs, while other bands from the same time just sound like a part of that era…
‘Well, yeah… the NME and Sounds both made ‘Something’s Missing’, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ and ‘British Way of Life’ their Singles of The Week, and you’ve got to remember that there were a lot of great records being released at that time. They didn’t review them because they were ‘Mod’ records, they were doing it because they thought they were great records. I wrote a lot of those songs in 1978 before anyone had called us a Mod band and I just wrote them hoping they might sound half-as-good as the Buzzcocks or the Undertones. At the end of the day, I never had to put a parka on to write a song !’
Funnily enough, one of the things that has happened over then years is that fans are now more open to different things and tend to accept bands just on the grounds of whether they sound good, rather than what genre they were supposed to be a part of…
‘Well, we played at Rebellion, the only ‘Mod’ band to play that year, so I was a bit wary. But we played in a big room in front of 500 people, and it clearly wasn’t 500 Mods ! They just came to see us because they wanted to hear the songs and afterwards people were telling me that they’d been waiting 30 years for that. Later on, while I was watching the Buzzcocks and The Damned, people were coming up to say they thought we were brilliant ! It was great to get that kind of response, but even back at the time, I think The Chords probably sold more records to people who were into Punk and New Wave than to people who were just into Mod. Particularly when we played outside of London, you might get a crowd of Mods down at the front, but the rest of the club would be full of punks and anyone else who had bought our records. Sometimes there were fights back then, but now it’s just people who love the music regardless of whatever else they’re into, and that’s great.’
You’ve already mentioned that you were unhappy with the support you got from Polydor . I’ve heard elsewhere that they often seemed to sign-up bands that had created a bit of a buzz, but then virtually left them to their own devices with very little promotion…
‘The thing was that we never signed to Polydor. We signed to Jimmy Pursey’s label, which was a subsidiary of Polydor. We thought we had left it altogether, but then, when the John Peel session created a lot of interest with other labels, Polydor suddenly decided to check the contract that we’d signed with Jimmy. They found a clause that said if the contract fell-through with Jimmy, they had the option to take us on. So they used that to take us on with a deal that gave us no A&R man or any decent promotion. Of course, they also had The Jam, who were the biggest band in the UK at the time, so where do you think their priorities were ? We may as well have had no record deal at all. There was one guy at Polydor who liked us and did his best for us, but he was on his own and it wasn’t enough. I have to admit, we were all still young and drunk and disorderly so that probably didn’t help, but that’s how it turned out. Whatever success The Chords had was under their own steam. I think the same thing happened with other bands, like The Jolt and Protex. They released some great records but didn’t get any decent promotion either. I don’t want to sound like a bitter old man, but that’s what happened to us and I’m sure it still happens to a lot of bands who sign contracts only to find that they’re stuck in a hole with no way out.’
Soon after the release of the ‘So Far Away’ album, you parted ways with your singer, Billy Hassett. Why did that happen so soon after the album release ?
‘Well, by 1980 we’d been so nearly there with three or four singles, so there was a lot of pressure on me as the songwriter and the band as a whole. Polydor kept telling us that we needed to get a hit, as if we hadn’t already been trying. But at the same time, Billy got married. We went on tour when ‘In My Street’ was released, but it started to feel as if there was a lot of distance between us. As I said, we didn’t have a manager or anyone to help us, so we just had to try to sort things out for ourselves. But it got to the stage that we couldn’t really work with him. We decided to give it to the end of the year to see if we could make it work, but it just didn’t happen so we split with him. The one thing I regret now is that I didn’t try to take on the vocals, but we all thought it was best to continue as a four-piece. All three of us made the decision because we had to. Things were happening and maybe we blew them out of proportion, but we had to try to make it work.’
Until that point, you’d always been a solid band, so do you think that split unsettled things as far as the bands’ future was concerned ?
‘To be honest, by that point we’d become so pigeon-holed that I felt we needed a clean-break to try to do something different. I was starting to listen to some of the new stuff that was coming out, like Joy Division or Echo and the Bunnymen, and that was what I was more interested in and not just being stuck with a supposedly Mod sound. I don’t know if we succeeded in doing that with the last few singles, but I was really trying to do something that was different rather than just repeating what we’d already done.’
The band split-up after the final single ‘Turn Away Again’ in 1981. Why did you decide to end the band?
‘The Polydor deal came to an end and while there were a few indie labels that were interested in taking us on, I felt that whatever we did, it didn’t really matter anymore. ‘One More Minute’ had been a really good single but ‘Turn Away Again’ felt like a book-end to all of it. We had a second album ready to record, but I wanted a clean-break. I wanted to try something with a new band, which is what me and Brett did. The Chords had started to feel like a bad marriage, so the best thing to do was to walk away. I think we made the right decision to do what we did. I wouldn’t have wanted to carry on making records just because we were under contract.’
Soon after The Chords split, you and Brett formed a new band called Agent Orange…
‘It was basically a continuation of what we’d been trying to do with The Chords in the later days, but with Grant Fleming. The songs were a mish-mash of styles and a bit more broadly Punk rather than Mod. It was really a case that we just wanted to carry on playing music and didn’t think about anything else too much. We were offered quite a good deal with Virgin, but that blew up in our face which was pretty sad because we’d been working on it for two years and particularly tried not to use the Chords connection. I think we’d really done it very honestly, but unfortunately nothing came of it.’
And after that, you were involved in another band called ‘Gatecrash Heaven’…
‘That was another follow-on, this time from what we were doing with Agent Orange. We got a management deal and went to America, which didn’t result in anything for us in the end, but we did get to stay in New York for almost a year, which was a lot of fun. Musically, it was more of a rock’n’roll thing, I suppose. It was around the same time that Big Audio Dynamite and Westworld were having some success, you know, all those former Punk guys who’d gone a bit rocky but still had that kind of edge. We weren’t exactly like that, but it was more in that direction. After that finished, I came back to London, started taking lots of drugs and getting in to the Rave scene. I think I decided that I’d been too serious for too long and just wanted to have a bit of fun !’
‘Well, by 1980 we’d been so nearly there with three or four singles, so there was a lot of pressure on me as the songwriter and the band as a whole. Polydor kept telling us that we needed to get a hit, as if we hadn’t already been trying. But at the same time, Billy got married. We went on tour when ‘In My Street’ was released, but it started to feel as if there was a lot of distance between us. As I said, we didn’t have a manager or anyone to help us, so we just had to try to sort things out for ourselves. But it got to the stage that we couldn’t really work with him. We decided to give it to the end of the year to see if we could make it work, but it just didn’t happen so we split with him. The one thing I regret now is that I didn’t try to take on the vocals, but we all thought it was best to continue as a four-piece. All three of us made the decision because we had to. Things were happening and maybe we blew them out of proportion, but we had to try to make it work.’
Until that point, you’d always been a solid band, so do you think that split unsettled things as far as the bands’ future was concerned ?
‘To be honest, by that point we’d become so pigeon-holed that I felt we needed a clean-break to try to do something different. I was starting to listen to some of the new stuff that was coming out, like Joy Division or Echo and the Bunnymen, and that was what I was more interested in and not just being stuck with a supposedly Mod sound. I don’t know if we succeeded in doing that with the last few singles, but I was really trying to do something that was different rather than just repeating what we’d already done.’
The band split-up after the final single ‘Turn Away Again’ in 1981. Why did you decide to end the band?
‘The Polydor deal came to an end and while there were a few indie labels that were interested in taking us on, I felt that whatever we did, it didn’t really matter anymore. ‘One More Minute’ had been a really good single but ‘Turn Away Again’ felt like a book-end to all of it. We had a second album ready to record, but I wanted a clean-break. I wanted to try something with a new band, which is what me and Brett did. The Chords had started to feel like a bad marriage, so the best thing to do was to walk away. I think we made the right decision to do what we did. I wouldn’t have wanted to carry on making records just because we were under contract.’
Soon after The Chords split, you and Brett formed a new band called Agent Orange…
‘It was basically a continuation of what we’d been trying to do with The Chords in the later days, but with Grant Fleming. The songs were a mish-mash of styles and a bit more broadly Punk rather than Mod. It was really a case that we just wanted to carry on playing music and didn’t think about anything else too much. We were offered quite a good deal with Virgin, but that blew up in our face which was pretty sad because we’d been working on it for two years and particularly tried not to use the Chords connection. I think we’d really done it very honestly, but unfortunately nothing came of it.’
And after that, you were involved in another band called ‘Gatecrash Heaven’…
‘That was another follow-on, this time from what we were doing with Agent Orange. We got a management deal and went to America, which didn’t result in anything for us in the end, but we did get to stay in New York for almost a year, which was a lot of fun. Musically, it was more of a rock’n’roll thing, I suppose. It was around the same time that Big Audio Dynamite and Westworld were having some success, you know, all those former Punk guys who’d gone a bit rocky but still had that kind of edge. We weren’t exactly like that, but it was more in that direction. After that finished, I came back to London, started taking lots of drugs and getting in to the Rave scene. I think I decided that I’d been too serious for too long and just wanted to have a bit of fun !’
The Chords eventually reformed with the original four members in 2010, but I think there had been a few partial reunions before then ?
‘Yeah, nn 1996, I’d been hanging out with a load of those Brit-Poppers and I think Noel Gallagher had said in an interview that he thought that The Chords were brilliant, so I had this idea to get the band back together to play a short tour. Grant, who had been in Agent Orange, played bass for us that time, so it was nearly all of us. We did a short tour , including one date at the 100 Club which was apparently the biggest crowd they’d ever managed to pack in there. They actually drank the bar dry before we even went on ! But we didn’t do anything else until three years later, when we played a one-off with all four members at some Mod All-Dayer at the Town & Country. We played one other thing in Liverpool the following year, but then that was it for the next ten years. I just got on doing my own stuff under the name Pope. But in 2010 we were asked to support Paul Weller on the Isle of Wight, so we decided to play some other gigs around that. We played six or seven dates and did a single to go with it, but that was really the only time that the original version of The Chords has been together and played more than just a one-off gig. The gig at The Garage was the first time we’d played together in over ten years, which was why it attracted such a big crowd , but personally it wasn’t a gig that I enjoyed at all. I didn’t really like the place and I wasn’t really happy about playing those dates. I still gave it 100% onstage because I’d never want to cheat the people who had turned up to see us, regardless of what had been happening before the gig. I don’t want to go into all the problems we were having, but basically I think it was a case that, just because someone had been in the original band it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best person to do it now. And, you know, I think that’s why I’m enjoying playing with the current band, because we do a different job and have a different way of looking at it. I enjoy singing the songs, we can move things along and it just seems much more progressive to me. I enjoy doing this much more than, say, just getting back together once every five years to play a festival or something. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that and some of the other guys from The Chords are really into it, but I’ve always been a songwriter so I want things to move along.’
Surely that’s what validates a band and keeps it fresh, rather than just becoming a nostalgia thing…
‘Well, yeah. But even if the original members had wanted to do that, it would have been very difficult because Billy lives in Japan and has done for twenty years. The only way he could come back to do anything with us would be if he could squeeze it in around his holidays. Which I’m not complaining about, but at the same time it would be frustrating for me because we’d only have a couple of days to do something and even if we managed to get it done, he’d still have to go back home and everything would fall apart again. I don’t know if I’d want to do things like that as I’m too much into playing music to just settle for doing it once in a while.’
‘Yeah, nn 1996, I’d been hanging out with a load of those Brit-Poppers and I think Noel Gallagher had said in an interview that he thought that The Chords were brilliant, so I had this idea to get the band back together to play a short tour. Grant, who had been in Agent Orange, played bass for us that time, so it was nearly all of us. We did a short tour , including one date at the 100 Club which was apparently the biggest crowd they’d ever managed to pack in there. They actually drank the bar dry before we even went on ! But we didn’t do anything else until three years later, when we played a one-off with all four members at some Mod All-Dayer at the Town & Country. We played one other thing in Liverpool the following year, but then that was it for the next ten years. I just got on doing my own stuff under the name Pope. But in 2010 we were asked to support Paul Weller on the Isle of Wight, so we decided to play some other gigs around that. We played six or seven dates and did a single to go with it, but that was really the only time that the original version of The Chords has been together and played more than just a one-off gig. The gig at The Garage was the first time we’d played together in over ten years, which was why it attracted such a big crowd , but personally it wasn’t a gig that I enjoyed at all. I didn’t really like the place and I wasn’t really happy about playing those dates. I still gave it 100% onstage because I’d never want to cheat the people who had turned up to see us, regardless of what had been happening before the gig. I don’t want to go into all the problems we were having, but basically I think it was a case that, just because someone had been in the original band it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best person to do it now. And, you know, I think that’s why I’m enjoying playing with the current band, because we do a different job and have a different way of looking at it. I enjoy singing the songs, we can move things along and it just seems much more progressive to me. I enjoy doing this much more than, say, just getting back together once every five years to play a festival or something. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that and some of the other guys from The Chords are really into it, but I’ve always been a songwriter so I want things to move along.’
Surely that’s what validates a band and keeps it fresh, rather than just becoming a nostalgia thing…
‘Well, yeah. But even if the original members had wanted to do that, it would have been very difficult because Billy lives in Japan and has done for twenty years. The only way he could come back to do anything with us would be if he could squeeze it in around his holidays. Which I’m not complaining about, but at the same time it would be frustrating for me because we’d only have a couple of days to do something and even if we managed to get it done, he’d still have to go back home and everything would fall apart again. I don’t know if I’d want to do things like that as I’m too much into playing music to just settle for doing it once in a while.’
You did manage to release a CD single when you played those gigs in 2010, featuring the new song, ‘Another Thing Coming’. How did you put that together ?
‘When we decided to do that tour, I didn’t want it to be just a nostalgia thing and suggested that we record something new for it but as Billy was in Japan, we couldn’t get together to work on something. So I suggested ‘Another Thing Coming’ which I had written for the first Pope album, but also seemed to be appropriate for The Chords. So we sent the files over to Billy via computer, he added his vocals to them and when we got them back, we brought Martin in to record the bass parts. It was a nightmare, but it was the only way we could do it. I won’t say that it was a particularly great track, but at least it was something new and it was the only way we could do it at the time.’
While you were playing as Pope, you had started to include old Chords songs in your set again…
‘Well, Brett was also playing with me, so we took the attitude that they were songs that we had done in the past, so why not ? We wouldn’t play a lot, maybe two or three in the set and perhaps another one at the end, but we realised that people would turn up to hear those songs but also enjoy the new ones. It was a way we could get them interested in our new albums and I think that was fair enough. It’s the same as if I went to see one of my favourite bands – I’d feel cheated if they only played their new songs. It’s always about getting the balance right and in our case it was one of the things that helped us to be able to release three Pope albums over six years, which isn’t a bad achievement when we all had full-time jobs at the same time.’
That’s why it’s so annoying when people start saying that bands shouldn’t reform, or musicians shouldn’t play songs from their previous bands… At the end of the day, if you wrote or recorded those songs, you’ve got every right to play them !
‘I’ve even had criticism for calling the current band ‘The Chords UK’, but my attitude has been, if you don’t like it, I’m not forcing you to come to the gigs or listen to it. A lot of the people who get upset never saw The Chords in their heyday so they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Fortunately, there seems to be plenty of people who do like it and are glad that we’re doing it.’
In recent years, The Chords have also been able to go and tour in places like Australia and Japan, which you never had the opportunity to do originally…
‘That was great, and it all came together from one little message I got on Facebook… ‘Hello, you don’t know me but would you like to come and play in Australia ?’ First of all, I thought it was someone having a laugh, but when we realised he was serious, we said we’d love to do it. So this bloke (legendary FNL associate Grazza, to be precise !) put it all together. He got the whole thing going and it was brilliant. Plus, we were able to stop-off in Japan as Billy was already there, which made it easy to set that up as well. It was fantastic, I loved playing in Australia, and my whole life changed for the better, because that was where I met my wife ! So, yeah, if we get a chance to do something like that now, why shouldn’t we do it ? As far as I’m concerned, I play a lot better now than I did when I was 18. I mean it more and feel it more, so there’s no argument why we shouldn’t still be doing it. The only thing I don’t do so much now is jump around onstage, but I probably only did that in the beginning to hide the fact that I couldn’t play that well !’
‘When we decided to do that tour, I didn’t want it to be just a nostalgia thing and suggested that we record something new for it but as Billy was in Japan, we couldn’t get together to work on something. So I suggested ‘Another Thing Coming’ which I had written for the first Pope album, but also seemed to be appropriate for The Chords. So we sent the files over to Billy via computer, he added his vocals to them and when we got them back, we brought Martin in to record the bass parts. It was a nightmare, but it was the only way we could do it. I won’t say that it was a particularly great track, but at least it was something new and it was the only way we could do it at the time.’
While you were playing as Pope, you had started to include old Chords songs in your set again…
‘Well, Brett was also playing with me, so we took the attitude that they were songs that we had done in the past, so why not ? We wouldn’t play a lot, maybe two or three in the set and perhaps another one at the end, but we realised that people would turn up to hear those songs but also enjoy the new ones. It was a way we could get them interested in our new albums and I think that was fair enough. It’s the same as if I went to see one of my favourite bands – I’d feel cheated if they only played their new songs. It’s always about getting the balance right and in our case it was one of the things that helped us to be able to release three Pope albums over six years, which isn’t a bad achievement when we all had full-time jobs at the same time.’
That’s why it’s so annoying when people start saying that bands shouldn’t reform, or musicians shouldn’t play songs from their previous bands… At the end of the day, if you wrote or recorded those songs, you’ve got every right to play them !
‘I’ve even had criticism for calling the current band ‘The Chords UK’, but my attitude has been, if you don’t like it, I’m not forcing you to come to the gigs or listen to it. A lot of the people who get upset never saw The Chords in their heyday so they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Fortunately, there seems to be plenty of people who do like it and are glad that we’re doing it.’
In recent years, The Chords have also been able to go and tour in places like Australia and Japan, which you never had the opportunity to do originally…
‘That was great, and it all came together from one little message I got on Facebook… ‘Hello, you don’t know me but would you like to come and play in Australia ?’ First of all, I thought it was someone having a laugh, but when we realised he was serious, we said we’d love to do it. So this bloke (legendary FNL associate Grazza, to be precise !) put it all together. He got the whole thing going and it was brilliant. Plus, we were able to stop-off in Japan as Billy was already there, which made it easy to set that up as well. It was fantastic, I loved playing in Australia, and my whole life changed for the better, because that was where I met my wife ! So, yeah, if we get a chance to do something like that now, why shouldn’t we do it ? As far as I’m concerned, I play a lot better now than I did when I was 18. I mean it more and feel it more, so there’s no argument why we shouldn’t still be doing it. The only thing I don’t do so much now is jump around onstage, but I probably only did that in the beginning to hide the fact that I couldn’t play that well !’
On the subject of Japan, I’ve heard that Billy occasionally plays gigs over there with local musicians as the J-Chords…
‘Yeah, well that’s how Chords UK came about. Unbeknown to me, Billy had played a few gigs over there with these three Japanese guys. One day, someone sent me a link on youtube and it turned-out to be the J-Chords playing ‘Maybe Tomorrow’, which I thought they were rather good ! Anyway, as they were based in Japan they got a lot of support slots when British bands went there, everyone from 999 to The Zombies, and they started to get a bit of a name for themselves. When we went out there, I met the other guys from his band and they were really nice so, afterwards, I said to Billy, almost as a joke, that I didn’t really want to wait another three or four years to do The Chords thing again and maybe I should start playing as Chords UK. But he thought it was a great idea, like a sort of franchise, and said I should do it. So it actually came from a bit of a joke to begin with, but then we thought, why not ? We just wanted to keep the music going rather than burying it until the next time we got a chance to do The Chords again’
Do you think there’s any big difference between the way you write for The Chords, Chords UK or the material you’ve done under your own name ?
‘When we started playing as Chords UK, we were just playing Chords songs how we all wanted to hear them. I hadn’t really intended to record a Chords UK album but gradually, more and more people started asking about a new record and eventually it came together. I think there’s more of a band-sound to this album, as opposed to the Pope albums. Sandy is a really good guitar player while Mic and Kenny are a great rhythm section, so there’s a lot more life in it. When we made the Pope albums, most of it was just Brett playing drums and me playing everything else, so it was a bit cut-and-paste in places and mostly a studio thing. But there’s definitely more of a band-feel to this album. There were actually a few tracks which we recorded but decided to leave out because they sounded a bit too much like the stuff I did before and I was conscious of that. But whether anyone else would have noticed is another thing…’
You must also have been conscious that by using the Chords UK name, you had an established reputation to live up to…
‘I wanted it to sound like a Chords album, but without just repeating what we’d already done. I wanted to make an album that was still the same band, but also had room for different styles. If you listen to bands like the Stones or The Clash, they can go out of the box with what they’re doing, but it will always sound like them. Funnily enough, one of the things that made me decide to make this album was when someone sent me a bootleg recording of the final Chords gig in 1981. It didn’t sound how I remembered it at all and we actually played seven new songs that night, two of which ended up on this album. Listening to them again and hearing how we were changing at the time, I started thinking, where would The Chords have been if they had continued ? What would we have sounded like in 1988 or 1998 or 2008 ? It gave me a challenge to see what we would sound like in 2016. I didn’t see the point in just going back and trying to recreate what we used to be, because if you’re going to do that you might just as well stay at home and listen to the old records. If we were going to do it, we had to be true to what we are now.’
‘Yeah, well that’s how Chords UK came about. Unbeknown to me, Billy had played a few gigs over there with these three Japanese guys. One day, someone sent me a link on youtube and it turned-out to be the J-Chords playing ‘Maybe Tomorrow’, which I thought they were rather good ! Anyway, as they were based in Japan they got a lot of support slots when British bands went there, everyone from 999 to The Zombies, and they started to get a bit of a name for themselves. When we went out there, I met the other guys from his band and they were really nice so, afterwards, I said to Billy, almost as a joke, that I didn’t really want to wait another three or four years to do The Chords thing again and maybe I should start playing as Chords UK. But he thought it was a great idea, like a sort of franchise, and said I should do it. So it actually came from a bit of a joke to begin with, but then we thought, why not ? We just wanted to keep the music going rather than burying it until the next time we got a chance to do The Chords again’
Do you think there’s any big difference between the way you write for The Chords, Chords UK or the material you’ve done under your own name ?
‘When we started playing as Chords UK, we were just playing Chords songs how we all wanted to hear them. I hadn’t really intended to record a Chords UK album but gradually, more and more people started asking about a new record and eventually it came together. I think there’s more of a band-sound to this album, as opposed to the Pope albums. Sandy is a really good guitar player while Mic and Kenny are a great rhythm section, so there’s a lot more life in it. When we made the Pope albums, most of it was just Brett playing drums and me playing everything else, so it was a bit cut-and-paste in places and mostly a studio thing. But there’s definitely more of a band-feel to this album. There were actually a few tracks which we recorded but decided to leave out because they sounded a bit too much like the stuff I did before and I was conscious of that. But whether anyone else would have noticed is another thing…’
You must also have been conscious that by using the Chords UK name, you had an established reputation to live up to…
‘I wanted it to sound like a Chords album, but without just repeating what we’d already done. I wanted to make an album that was still the same band, but also had room for different styles. If you listen to bands like the Stones or The Clash, they can go out of the box with what they’re doing, but it will always sound like them. Funnily enough, one of the things that made me decide to make this album was when someone sent me a bootleg recording of the final Chords gig in 1981. It didn’t sound how I remembered it at all and we actually played seven new songs that night, two of which ended up on this album. Listening to them again and hearing how we were changing at the time, I started thinking, where would The Chords have been if they had continued ? What would we have sounded like in 1988 or 1998 or 2008 ? It gave me a challenge to see what we would sound like in 2016. I didn’t see the point in just going back and trying to recreate what we used to be, because if you’re going to do that you might just as well stay at home and listen to the old records. If we were going to do it, we had to be true to what we are now.’
The same thing applies to the lyrics. The things that concern you now are probably going to be different to what concerned you at 18…
‘Yeah, that’s all part of the journey. If you’re not writing about what’s going on around you, then you probably shouldn’t be writing. It’s as simple as that. There only song on the album which talks about things that I did in the past is ‘Dreams of Yesterday’, but even that is making the point that I’m still doing this now and my reasons for doing it haven’t really changed. I mean, I talk in that song about the old Marquee on Wardour Street which is long-gone and I do miss it, but there are still some great venues around where we can go and play or see other bands. These things are always changing and no doubt there are kids out there right now who love certain venues and will feel the same way about them in thirty years time. At the end of the day, if you love the music, you’ll always find a way to get on with it.’
A lot of the songs on the new album are almost like stories or narratives. Do you prefer writing that way ?
‘I think I started doing that on the ‘Peace of Mind’ album, trying to write in a different way so I didn’t run out of things to say. But I’ve found it’s a bit more interesting to write things like that. You should try to write about things that you see around you if you want people to relate to it, but you can also add-in some fictitious characters and talk about the ways that they’ve changed as they’ve grown older, just to make it a bit more interesting. It’s like the things that Ray Davies used to write about. I didn’t get into The Kinks when they first came out because I was a bit too young, but when I heard their records ten years later, I could still connect to what he was singing about because it was always a bit more earthy. Or a song like ‘Substitute’… it’s 50 years old, but how many teenagers can still relate those feelings of alienation and insecurity, even now ?’
You do have a couple of sneaky references to some of your older songs on the new album…
‘Yeah, I love doing that kind of thing. A lot of bands that I like have done that. The Clash did it, Mott The Hoople did it, The Beatles actually did it quite a lot… it’s just nice to do that sort of thing. We used the refrain from ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ at the end of ‘I Can’t Let Go’, just because it sounded good. The two songs are different, but they actually have a similar chord sequence, so it fitted just right. It’s just a bit of fun to round things off like that.’
You funded this album through a Pledge campaign. Were you happy with the way it turned out ?
‘Yeah, but I was a bit nervous at first. You’re really sticking your head on the block when you start something like that. You have to go out and say, this is what we’re going to do and this is what we need… We really had to be committed to what we were doing and that’s even before we got any of the money to do it. But we were able to get in touch with people who had bought the Pope albums and we posted stuff on Facebook, so word got around and it only took two and a half months to raise what we needed. Then we started work straight away and had to get it done in a certain time. It’s not like it is when you’re just writing stuff for yourself and you can take time-off if you want to, or put it all on hold for a few months. It was more like the old days in a way, when the record company would tell you that they wanted to release a new single and you had to have it written, recorded and produced by a certain date. But it also made us very productive. At the beginning of the year, I had most of the tunes but none of the lyrics. But seven or eight months later, I’m sitting here and the whole thing has been done. It was a good kick up the arse for me ! We did it and it seems to have been really well-received. I was a bit worried that people were just going to expect ‘Something’s Missing, Part 10’, and I’m sure some of them did, but we’ve had so many nice emails and good reviews for the record that I think we must have done the right thing. I’ve been very heartened by the things that people have said about it and one of the best things was an email from Billy, who’d actually gone out and bought a copy of the album before I even got a chance to send him one. He sent a message telling me all the tracks that he really liked, and that was great. I wish he could have been a part of it, so it was really nice of him to write and say that he really enjoyed it.’
‘Yeah, that’s all part of the journey. If you’re not writing about what’s going on around you, then you probably shouldn’t be writing. It’s as simple as that. There only song on the album which talks about things that I did in the past is ‘Dreams of Yesterday’, but even that is making the point that I’m still doing this now and my reasons for doing it haven’t really changed. I mean, I talk in that song about the old Marquee on Wardour Street which is long-gone and I do miss it, but there are still some great venues around where we can go and play or see other bands. These things are always changing and no doubt there are kids out there right now who love certain venues and will feel the same way about them in thirty years time. At the end of the day, if you love the music, you’ll always find a way to get on with it.’
A lot of the songs on the new album are almost like stories or narratives. Do you prefer writing that way ?
‘I think I started doing that on the ‘Peace of Mind’ album, trying to write in a different way so I didn’t run out of things to say. But I’ve found it’s a bit more interesting to write things like that. You should try to write about things that you see around you if you want people to relate to it, but you can also add-in some fictitious characters and talk about the ways that they’ve changed as they’ve grown older, just to make it a bit more interesting. It’s like the things that Ray Davies used to write about. I didn’t get into The Kinks when they first came out because I was a bit too young, but when I heard their records ten years later, I could still connect to what he was singing about because it was always a bit more earthy. Or a song like ‘Substitute’… it’s 50 years old, but how many teenagers can still relate those feelings of alienation and insecurity, even now ?’
You do have a couple of sneaky references to some of your older songs on the new album…
‘Yeah, I love doing that kind of thing. A lot of bands that I like have done that. The Clash did it, Mott The Hoople did it, The Beatles actually did it quite a lot… it’s just nice to do that sort of thing. We used the refrain from ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ at the end of ‘I Can’t Let Go’, just because it sounded good. The two songs are different, but they actually have a similar chord sequence, so it fitted just right. It’s just a bit of fun to round things off like that.’
You funded this album through a Pledge campaign. Were you happy with the way it turned out ?
‘Yeah, but I was a bit nervous at first. You’re really sticking your head on the block when you start something like that. You have to go out and say, this is what we’re going to do and this is what we need… We really had to be committed to what we were doing and that’s even before we got any of the money to do it. But we were able to get in touch with people who had bought the Pope albums and we posted stuff on Facebook, so word got around and it only took two and a half months to raise what we needed. Then we started work straight away and had to get it done in a certain time. It’s not like it is when you’re just writing stuff for yourself and you can take time-off if you want to, or put it all on hold for a few months. It was more like the old days in a way, when the record company would tell you that they wanted to release a new single and you had to have it written, recorded and produced by a certain date. But it also made us very productive. At the beginning of the year, I had most of the tunes but none of the lyrics. But seven or eight months later, I’m sitting here and the whole thing has been done. It was a good kick up the arse for me ! We did it and it seems to have been really well-received. I was a bit worried that people were just going to expect ‘Something’s Missing, Part 10’, and I’m sure some of them did, but we’ve had so many nice emails and good reviews for the record that I think we must have done the right thing. I’ve been very heartened by the things that people have said about it and one of the best things was an email from Billy, who’d actually gone out and bought a copy of the album before I even got a chance to send him one. He sent a message telling me all the tracks that he really liked, and that was great. I wish he could have been a part of it, so it was really nice of him to write and say that he really enjoyed it.’
Having had a pretty busy year with the band, have you had any chance to start thinking about what you might be doing next ?
‘There’s going to be an edited version of ‘Dreams of Yesterday’ coming out as a single pretty soon and we’re also intending to release an EP early next year. We’ve got three different versions of tracks from the album, so the EP will include them plus, I think, a new acoustic track. There are also a few more tracks that we recorded at the same time as the album, so we may put them at some point. And there’s also been some talk of releasing a live LP, so we’ve got a few things going on, even before we start thinking about another new album. We’ve been getting a lot of offers for gigs next year, including places like Spain and Norway, and I’ve been asked to go over to America to play some acoustic shows, as there’s a label that releases my solo stuff over there. So it looks as if we’re going to carry on being busy, whether we like it or not ... but I like it, so that's great !'
www.facebook.com/TheChordsUK
www.thechords.co.uk
And as a bonus, here are some links for videos of tracks from the ‘Take On Life’ album, courtesy of Mr Pope...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKcTnYI3Xp8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thbRj3FFjKc
‘There’s going to be an edited version of ‘Dreams of Yesterday’ coming out as a single pretty soon and we’re also intending to release an EP early next year. We’ve got three different versions of tracks from the album, so the EP will include them plus, I think, a new acoustic track. There are also a few more tracks that we recorded at the same time as the album, so we may put them at some point. And there’s also been some talk of releasing a live LP, so we’ve got a few things going on, even before we start thinking about another new album. We’ve been getting a lot of offers for gigs next year, including places like Spain and Norway, and I’ve been asked to go over to America to play some acoustic shows, as there’s a label that releases my solo stuff over there. So it looks as if we’re going to carry on being busy, whether we like it or not ... but I like it, so that's great !'
www.facebook.com/TheChordsUK
www.thechords.co.uk
And as a bonus, here are some links for videos of tracks from the ‘Take On Life’ album, courtesy of Mr Pope...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKcTnYI3Xp8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thbRj3FFjKc
