Chapel Club, Audio, Brighton, Feb 8 (From The Argus)

Chapel Club, Audio, Brighton, Feb 8

6:00am Monday 8th February 2010

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Just when it seemed the music writers’ hot tipping had subsided for a little while, along comes another group of well-groomed young men destined to be the next big thing.

Univeral Records plumped for Chapel Club on the back of three shows at a pub in Dalston, East London, last September and it is rumoured heaps of cash changed hands after a giant bidding war.

That was vehemently denied by all involved, but not before a good old natter had gone on in the music pages.

Lewis Bowman, a well-spoken, considered young man, who loves to write poetry and organise club nights, is the band’s lead singer.

He says he and his band are very nice – with which I concur – and that is part of the reason so many A&R men were willing to bet their budgets on them.

When I ask about some highbrow references he has made previously to Frank O’Hara’s expressive poetry and Ernest Hemmingway’s devas-tating novels, however, I hit a nerve.

“People keep asking about poets and stuff,” Bowman says. “Every time it gets written down I get upset and annoyed about it because it makes me sound pompous.

“The thing is, every time I read a book, I won’t sit down and read Marian Keys, I will read something that I’ve heard might actually have a difference to the way I think about the world, my life.

“I don’t see the point in reading rubbish. In the same way I don’t see the point in going to the movies and seeing some Disney cartoon when you could see something more challenging.”

We move on to the lazy comparisons people have made after only two singles.

“People might call us pop which I don’t mind as long as it’s interesting pop, with a degree of intelligence. That’s what Ricky Gervais did. You can be entertaining, while not being thoughtless and stereotypically run-of-the-mill about things.

“You can put some thought into something without being purposefully obtuse and confusing.”

For the record, Chapel Club are certainly not pop. He says they came together over a shared love of New Order, The Pixies and Deerhunter. Each one of the five members also has other influences. For guitarist Mike, it’s ambient musician Steve Reich; for bass player Liam it’s metal; for Lewis, jazz is the thing.

To me, new single Oh Maybe I, released as a taster before their February debut tour and follow-up to Surfacing – a cover of 1930s popular-music standard Dream A Little Dream Of Me with a few lyrical additions and added grunge – hints at the gothic gloom of Joy Division.

“We’re quite a happy bunch, really. Perhaps the comparisons come from the fact every lyric I write I mean. It always comes from somewhere, some experience I have or me trying to get in the head of something. I never write anything that wouldn’t ring true to me.

“Lots of the songs have lighter touches. There is some humour.

Oh Maybe I is quite arch in tone – whoever that guy is singing that song, whoever that character is, it’s a waspish, spiteful idea. If anything, we are trying to articulate that love and life is complex.”

*8pm, £5, call 01273 606906

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