There’s Still Life
Stephen Patman on the Return of Chapterhouse
by Rob Levy
While it wasn’t known thirty-five years ago, Chapterhouse’s debut album, Whirlpool, would become a classic. A dense album filled with shoegaze, dreampop, and indie sounds, smattered with big beats and swirling melodies, it was an awkward arrival at the time. One that wasn’t easy to pigeonhole with their contemporaries or dismiss easily, the record found initial success in the United States before gaining appreciation, over time, in their native UK.
Chapterhouse was formed in Reading, England, in 1987 by school chums Andrew Sherriff (vocals and guitar), Stephen Patman (vocals and guitar), Ashley Bates (drums), Simon Rowe (guitars), and Jon Curtis (bass), who left the band in 1990. As a unit, the band wore their influences (acid rock, hip-hop, and bands like Spacemen 3 and the Jesus and Mary Chain) on their sleeves.
In 1989, determined to make a go of it as a band, the lads moved to London. In 1991, they released their debut album, Whirlpool, whose lead single, “Pearl,” featured a sped-up sample of John Bonham’s drum beat from Led Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks,” and “P.S.K. What Does it Mean?” by Schoolly D. It also featured two other seminal tracks, “Breather,” and “Falling Down.”
In 1993, they tapped into their passion for acid house and electronic music for Blood Music. While not as hazy, the record retained some of the sonic elements found on their debut.
Lead single “We Are The Beautiful” found success on American college radio, but the album didn’t generate the buzz their label hoped for. Grunge and Britpop arrived, and the band, feeling like they were on the outside looking in, broke up in 1994.
From 2008 to 2010, they reformed and toured intermittently before being dormant once more. With pop careers behind them, Patman, Bates, and Sheriff turned to composing music.
Now, with the thirty-fifth anniversary of their debut album, the band has reformed. Having played a few dates in London, they are currently stateside, touring as part of the Slide Away Music Festival.
• •
Rob Levy: Are you surprised at the reception the band’s return has received?
Stephen Patman: It has been a pleasant surprise. We hadn’t really any idea, especially in the UK, how well we’d be received. Since the ’90s, we’ve always had a stronger following in the States, Asia, and South America. But we never had much feedback from the UK.
I think that, in some ways, the passage of time has been quite an asset in the United States and elsewhere in that people have kept a love for the band, and there’s been a scene of new bands who have been influenced by us and bands we came up with.
When we announced we were reforming, we kept these shows small, and we only did them to fill around the London show for the 35th anniversary of Whirlpool.
We booked the London show, realizing that it was on a Wednesday. We wanted to do warm-up shows in a small place up in Hebden Bridge, a quaint little town where a lot of big bands play at this small working men’s club, because it’s such a cool venue.
So we booked that, and they wanted us to do the show on that next Friday, so we had these days between the shows. Then, we had promoters contacting us, and things fell together naturally.
And did that open the doors for booking other shows?
It did. We have been getting offers from all over the place since then.
What do you think of the current popularity and resurgence of shoegaze music?
It’s been brewing for a long time. We felt when we reformed sixteen years ago that it was already beginning.
What is cool is that last week, when I looked out at the crowd, there were three generations of people seeing us play. Overall, I think what helped us was seeing Slowdive and Ride come back and gain new audiences.
What does touring look like going forward?
We are doing our first-ever Irish shows. We never got over there the first time around. We’re also doing South America in September. In October, we’re doing two weeks in seven or eight countries. I think we’re doing Japan and Asia in February of next year. Hopefully, after that, we will move on to Australia.
Will you be coming back to the States?
The plan is to come back to the States in April of next year. We are finally getting our US visas, which has been a massively expensive task. We managed to get our year-long visa, which means we can come back and tour again without that process having to be done again.
With regards to touring, we’ve all got lives, and we’re not getting any younger.
I think more than a couple of weeks on tour and in the trot is kind of our limit without it becoming a real slog.
With Chapterhouse playing together again, is there a chance for any new music?
Oddly enough, we had been thinking about reforming for quite a while. But it never really felt like there was enough enthusiasm to make it happen.
But we did ask ourselves that even if we didn’t tour again, maybe we should start writing again because Simon, our guitarist, is enthusiastic about writing stuff. He’s even started writing some songs with us in mind. But, at the time, Andy, Ashley, and I were all full-time, in-house composers at a music production company. We went freelance a few years ago, so now we’ve got much more flexible time to work on stuff.
So, yeah, that’s in the cards. After this US tour, we are going to have most of the summer free until we go to South America. We might spend a bit of that time putting some ideas together.
How long did it take to record Whirlpool?
Whirlpool was a long process. We met Spaceman 3’s manager. They introduced him to us. He started bringing us up to their studio in Rugby. We started recording songs without any real intent. We already had songs we’d gotten down, and we were writing more gradually.
The Freefall EP came together, and then the next EP came afterwards. So, Whirlpool ended up being the conclusion of a couple of years of writing with no real intention of making a full album.
Quite a lot of it had been recorded in this smaller studio on a 16-track, and once we knew it was destined for the album, we transferred it to a 24-track, redid the drums, and made it album-worthy. Some of the tracks were recorded close together, and others a year apart.
With Whirlpool, we picked which songs were going on an EP, a B-side, or the album. It was quite organic. Our second album, Blood Music, was a more concise process.
How did the Schoolly D sample end up on “Pearl”?
That is a funny one because we went on tour in the States later that year, and everyone was going on about us having the same backbeat as Siouxsie and the Banshees (in their hit “Kiss Them For Me”).
It turns out that we’d done “Pearl” with (producer) Ralph Jezzard, and we’d put a loop of “When the Levee Breaks” on it and used the Schoolly D loop in the breakdown.
Our label boss was going out with Stephen Hague, who was also a producer. He remixed “Falling Down” for the album, and he must have heard “Pearl.” At the same time, he was producing Siouxsie’s album, Superstition, and mysteriously, that loop ended up on “Kiss Them For Me.”
It’s on a couple of different records, so I’m not suggesting anything here, but we know who used it first.
What made you guys decide to reform and play live again?
I think what triggered our thoughts of playing again was compiling the box set for Cherry Red Records. It came out a couple of years ago. For that, we wanted to retell the story of Chapterhouse in its entirety. We wanted to show everything in chronological order, as well as everything that happened after Blood Music that no one ever heard.
As we were working on that, I was mastering a lot of the demos we had, some of which were on cassette. We had all these demos, some of which we’d completely forgotten we’d recorded or written; it was like hearing them for the first time.
It felt good to tell the story. Especially since there are other bands like Slowdive and Ride, or the bands that were on Creation Records, who got more exposure at the time.
What do you think is the legacy of the band?
I think that maybe the legacy is that we offered a slightly alternative take on the whole concept of what shoegaze was. It’s one of the reasons why we’re maybe not as popular as other bands. We didn’t stay in one little box as much. We pushed the boundaries a bit more, which, for some purists, was difficult to take.
It was a very white scene then and we all grew up in the ‘70s as kids of disco — it was all you heard through the radio. Then Blondie and early rap came along in the early ‘80s, and afterwards, we got into Funkadelic, Parliament, and Sly and the Family Stone. We also had the influence of soul music from people like Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and Sam and Dave.
So, I think, we brought in a kind of groove and some black music influence, which I don’t think really exhibited itself in any of the other bands that are considered shoegaze.
I know you guys are all still friends, but how does it feel to be back in the band again?
We are really pleased with the way it’s come together. I think we’re playing better than we ever have. I think it’s because we are better musicians. We’re singing better than we ever have before. ◼
