EAMON SANDWITH of THE CHATS: Just Being Honest
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
They were the trio of kids from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland who nobody had heard of, practicing in a shed while taking the piss in songs about ordinary everyday occurrences. It was one of those occurrences – the beloved ‘smoko’ break that all employees look forward to – that was the catalyst for a single that saw The Chats become a beloved viral sensation overnight.
Five years on and with a small line-up change (guitarist Josh ‘Pricey’ Price being replaced by Josh Hardy from The Unknowns) The Chats are still making their presence felt, with two rip-snorting EP’s and a killer debut album under their belts already.
Never taking themselves seriously but delivering live performances that will leave you buzzing for days the trio have – like many other bands across the world – had many of their plans put on hold thanks to Covid, but they certainly haven’t been sitting around, twiddling their thumbs. Instead they been using the break to write some new material and re-centre themselves.
Now with travel between New Zealand and Australia beginning to open up, The Chats have been added to the exceptional Elemental Nights line-up. Not only that, but they will be playing the fantastic The Hollywood Theatre in Avondale, which is just the icing on the cake.
I caught up with lead vocalist and bassist Eamon Sandwith for a bit of a yarn about just what he has been up to since The Chats were last in New Zealand…
New Zealand last had the pleasure of seeing The Chats for Laneway in 2020 just before the world of live music came to a grinding halt. That set was a definitive highlight of the day! In some ways, it must feel like a lifetime ago since you were down our ways?
“Yeah, it feels likes ages. I like look back, and that was like probably a year and a couple of months ago now, feels like years you know?”
Well Covid certainly hasn’t helped with that at all…
“Yeah totally.”
For the exceptional Elemental Nights, it has been announced that The Chats will indeed be joining the line-up, which is very exciting. However, everything always seems to be hanging by a string these days, unpredictable Covid lockdowns a consistent fear…
How has it affected you guys day to day wise? Because The Chats were building one hell of a momentum and then suddenly, the world just stood still.
“Well when we put out our album it was like the start of the whole country shutting down, so obviously it was a bit of a drag, but you know I think in some ways it gave people more time to listen to it maybe. But yeah obviously we could not play shows which kind of sucked, but you know it was also sort of good, being at home, not living out of a suitcase and staying in random places and stuff.
Being based in one spot for that long was like really cool… for me at least.” [chuckles]
I was going to ask if that was possibly the silver lining to this whole wretched situation that everyone has been dealing with. As I said before, your popularity exploded overnight and all of a sudden you were here, there and everywhere!
The relief of being able to just hit pause, centre yourself and remember what home cooking tastes like must have been rather nice… [chuckles]
[laughs] “Yeah, exactly. It was definitely cool to just kind of stay grounded for a bit in the same spot.”
I assume you still continued to work on music though. Did you use the time to play around with some new ideas etc?
“Yeah definitely, I was trying to write like a new song every day, just so I wouldn’t feel like I was wasting a bunch of time.”
The Chats have been through a little bit of an evolution with your guitarist Pricey leaving the band. He has now been replaced by Josh Hardy. So, I wanted to ask, what does Josh bring to the band?
“Well he has brought his own, like, little style, like he’s got a real style when it comes to playing guitar, he’s got like his little reverbs and tricks up his sleeve and stuff. Like he brings his guitar skills obviously, but he is also a great writer and I have really enjoyed having someone to write with and make up some stuff with rather than having to do it myself you know?”
So Josh has given you a bit more of a sounding board in the writing division?
“Yeah because having someone else there, they’ll think of something for a song that you might not have thought of yourself you know?”
And he has fitted in seamlessly I take it? No teething stage or anything like that?
“No, nah, he’s fit like a glove, he’s awesome. He’s been in his band since he was like fourteen or something, he’s always just been a real gun for music, so he’s just slid in. We’ve all been mates for years, so it seemed like the perfect fit…”
I was listening to one of your tracks the other day and it made me think of something that I had read in an interview with you before; I have always admired your distaste in gate-keeping within the music scene and elitism in the world of musical genres. Hence the term ‘shed rock’ which is a term you yourself coined to describe your sound.
Do you still consider yourself shed rock, or have you upgraded now to one of those fancy shed and unit combo deals?
[laughs] “Yeah well funnily enough we don’t practice in a shed anymore, we’re a proper rehearsal space band now…”
Nice!
“But I don’t know, I think it was more the whole spirit behind it that made that term so applicable to us, you know?”
But do you still see yourself as shed rock?
“Yeah, I suppose so, the whole reason I started saying that whole shed rock thing was because I didn’t wanna label anything as punk rock or whatever because there are so many – as you said before – there are so many people who are like ‘That’s not punk’ you know ‘blah, blah, blah’ whatever and there’s just like so many rules and its lame.
So I thought from pretty much the start lets separate ourselves from that, even though our music is very like punk style or whatever, but yeah, I would definitely say that we are probably still shed rock you know? It’s kind of our thing I suppose.”
I personally think if you had to put your music in a genre – and I loathe having to define any band like that sometimes – that The Chats would definitely fit into the punk genre, but I would probably define that even further by calling it DIY.
“Yeah, yeah totally.”
And I say that, because your music is honest, you’re not trying to be anything or anyone. You are just yourselves, which was hugely refreshing, and, in my mind, it is one of the main reasons you became so popular. Honesty.
Speaking of honesty, I really love the track ‘AC/DC CD’ that you brought out in November last year. I mean who doesn’t love AC/DC, and even if somehow you didn’t, you cannot deny how well regarded and influential they have been across their career.
But the thing I love most about the song, is that cheeky bit of Chats humour, where you call them the ‘second greatest band in the world’ and then at the end of the track, announce yourselves as the first.
[chuckles] Is that just reaffirming to the world that that is the place that you see yourselves at?
“Awwww nah, nah, nah [laughs] no, I just thought it would be pretty tongue in cheek, the whole concept of that song being a tribute to another band, and then at the end, turn it right around and say that ‘we’re still better!’ [mutual laughter] Its sort of set up like a joke almost.”
Yeah, I just thought it was brilliant. So that is not a single that features on the album High Risk Behaviour…
“Nah, we recorded that after the album had come out…”
…so is that going to be included on the next album? Or do you plan on keeping it a standalone?
“Umm I don’t know, we haven’t really had that conversation yet, but I reckon it will probably just be on a record, no point leaving it off.”
Yeah well, I have to agree there! As I said, it is a brilliant little tune and I love the fact that it is a tribute to fellow Aussie legends.
Now the track ‘Smoko’, is a track that is synonymous with the name The Chats and will more than likely live on for years as it is just one of those songs.
But how do you personally look back on it now? The Chats have been around since 2016, so you had five years basically of that song forever being linked to who you are as not only a band but as an artist.
“I think I’m definitely more fond of it then I used to be. At the start it was sort of annoying, everyone just knowing that one song by us, like people would come to the shows and be like ‘Play Smoko!’ or whatever and that would piss us off. And people would like just yell it at me on the street, like ‘Awww are you on smoko mate?’ I worked at Coles for like a year after that so I just had people fuckin punish me at work totally with it!
But looking back now its been like, three or four years now, it was so weird that that happened and like it was such a big thing on the internet for a while. [chuckles]
And its even weirder in a way that we are still playing shows and stuff you know? Because I think a lot of people expected it to be a one hit wonder kind of thing and that we would fade away or whatever. But we’re still doing shows… somehow!”
What an absolute dick move to hassle an artist with their own material! And as for people turning up to a show knowing only one track, c’mon. It’s not that hard to learn a few more songs before turning up, have some respect for yourself as a fan…
As for the fact that you are still going, well personally, I have seen The Chats every time they have played in Auckland, and I think the reason behind that, the reason why you are still going is the absolute just crazy energy that you bring to the stage.
And what really shows your professionalism, even for such a young band, is that even though all that shit was happening, each and every time you included ‘Smoko’ in your set, because you know that your fans would want to hear it. And every single time you played it with passion as if it were the first time ever. From the biggest stage at Laneway, right through to my personal favourite – insane – set at Whammy, you brought that energy.
“That was madness that show…”
Yeah it was good though! Those are the sort of shows that you come out of and you feel absolutely alive; your t-shirt is ripped, your covered in sweat – other peoples usually which is a bit gross…
[laughs]
…but you just feel so elated. And I think that is honestly half the reason why The Chats are still playing shows.
“Thank you – that is great to hear.”
Speaking of live shows, The Chats have had the opportunity to support some pretty big-name artists, that some bands would probably give a couple of limbs or a first-born child to play with – I mean Queens of the Stone Age, Iggy Pop…what has been the best experience for you personally so far to date?
“Well the Queens tour was a big one obviously, it was also a lovely tour because they were all so very nice. Iggy Pop was another good one, that was a pretty sick moment for us!”
Awww Iggy, holy shit, that’s like the grand-daddy of music royalty!
“Yeah totally, he was really cool. We met the Green Day dudes, like Billy Joe Armstrong, we met him and that was pretty big for me because I was a huge Green Day fan when I was a kid and he was like ‘Yeah I know The Chats man’” [laughs]
That must be pretty trippy when you hear your childhood hero acknowledge your very existence in person?
[laughs] “Yeah for sure”
Did you feel like you learnt anything in particular from those experiences?
“Yeah [chuckles] shit, I don’t know. I’m sure there is a lesson in there somewhere, I just got to figure out how to learn it.”
Well I learned one lesson from one of your interviews, and that is do not do the ‘eat a pie a day’ challenge while on tour under any circumstances… [laughs]
[laughs] “Oh yeah, yeah, definitely don’t do that. Definitely don’t eat multiple in a day either. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Seeing as you mentioned the word disaster, I did see that you had to cancel a few shows the other day as someone had injured themselves. May I ask what happened?
“Yeah, yeah, Josh had a bit of a head injury and he had to go to hospital and stuff, so we couldn’t play the show. But he’s alright, he’s gonna be fine.”
Ah, excellent, that is good to hear.
Well The Chats will be playing The Hollywood in Avondale for Elemental Nights, so you will have to remind everyone that head injuries are indeed bad and that there is no stage diving from the balcony section…
“Yeah, we’ll make sure to supply some contracts that say they can’t sue us if they get injured” [chuckles]
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Not sure if you know much about the venue itself, but it was actually built in 1924 and was the first cinema to be constructed in Auckland. It has also featured shows by some of the best talent New Zealand has to offer and a fair few international acts as well!
“Oh wow!”
Yeah, I think its going to be a very cool aesthetic for your sound. As well as a completely wild show as well.
“Yeah, I reckon it’s going to be great, we’re very much looking forward to it.”
So last question – what does the future hold for The Chats?
“Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago we demoed a bunch of new songs that will probably be on the new record. I think we are going to try and record it this year, probably put it out next year I reckon.”
And then obviously try and get back out into the world touring if at all possible?
“Yeah, yeah totally, we’re going to try and do that as well. Its all just like seeing how we can make it happen and stuff. It’s a bit hard at the moment. But we are definitely looking forward to coming over to New Zealand first.”
So are we!
“See ya there!”
The Chats are performing at The Hollywood Theatre in Avondale on the 27th July as part of Elemental Nights / Elemental AKL 2021. Tickets are still available from livenation.co.nz but get in quick as this show will be a sell out!
Photo Credits: Feature image supplied. Live images courtesy of Doug Peters / Ambient Light & Sarah Kidd / Ambient Light.
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