FEATURE: Spotlight: Chubby and the Gang

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

Chubby and the Gang

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IT is high time that…

I put Chubby and the Gang in my Spotlight feature. The West London band are formed of Charlie ‘Chubby Charles’ Manning-Walker, guitarists Ethan Stahl and Tom ‘Razor’ Hardwick, bassist Maegan Brooks Mills and drummer Joe McMahon. Their album, Speed Kills, was released year; it ranks alongside the very best from 2020. It is a great debut album that you should own. Though, in a somewhat Spinal Tap manner, Chubby and the Gang have been dubbed one of the loudest bands around, that is not to say they lack hooks, a sense of emotional and sonic balance and nuance. Their lyrics are full of compelling lines and stories. The compositions are rich enough so that one explores songs multiple times to get to the bottom of that. However, they are a direct band that are punchy and physical. I am going to end with a review for Speed Kills. Before I get there, it is worth quoting a few interviews. It allows for a better sense of who the band are and where they are going. The West London-formed crew are heading for bigger things. Charlie Manning/Manning-Walker tends to do the interview talking, so we will be hearing from him. Last year, NME highlighted one of Britain’s most promising young bands. Manning explains how, even though Chubby and the Gang are quite intense, they are accessible and musical:

“The nickname ‘Chubby’ was initially thrust upon Charlie Manning by others, but by the time of recording his new band’s first single in 2019 he had learned to embrace it. The newly christened Chubby and The Gang went on to record their debut album over a manic two-day stretch last autumn, having barely mustered 10 rehearsals together as a band.

Not that you would know it, though. ‘Speed Kills’, originally released in January and now set for a remastered re-release on their new label Partisan [IDLES, Fontaines DC], is a thrilling white-knuckle ride through multiple flavours of hardcore punk. For Manning, it marks the culmination of well over a decade of putting in the hard yards in London’s tight-knit punk scene, although he also considers it something of a departure from the music that he has loved for so long.

I’m 30 now, and I’ve been in hardcore bands since I was 15,” he says. “I’m not bored of hardcore, but sometimes you just need to do something else that isn’t just angsty, you know what I mean? I wanted to do something musical: I wanted to have a record that had handclaps, organ and harmonica on it. I wanted it to be a more accessible record.”

The sonic diversity he describes is indeed on display on ‘Speed Kills’, although the pacing of the record, which crams 13 tracks into just 28 pummelling minutes, is practically breakneck. It’s a discipline that Manning honed during his time in bands such as Arms Race and Violent Reaction, members of the New Wave of British hardcore that emerged in the early 2010s. It was on that circuit that he got to know the other members of Chubby and The Gang, who themselves had been members of such Brighton hardcore bands as Vile Spirit.

Manning describes writing as a “constant nervous twitch” and he believes in the power of direct storytelling. “I think music now is steeped in metaphor, and that’s fine — but it’s not how my brain works,” he says. “I’d rather tell a story about a really specific event that happened rather than make a vague thing that anyone can interpret in their own different way. I’d rather just be like: ‘Look, I was here at this time in this place, and then this thing happened and it ended up like this’.”

“‘Speed Kills’ was done in two days, but this one was done in 10 days. Man, 10 days felt like two years to me: at the end of it I was really losing my fucking marbles,” Manning admits. “The usual recording process in the community of bands that I play in is to get in there, get it all out and that’s it. [On this album] I was overthinking everything, thinking: ‘Is this shit or is it good?’ But I’m proud of it, man. I think it’s a step up, definitely”.

Last year was not ideal for a band who wanted to come out of the traps with Speed Kills and tour it as widely as possible. I know that Chubby and the Gang have some gigs lined up soon. It is a welcome relief after quite a tough 2020. CLASH chatted with Charlie Manning late last year as he reflected on 2020:

“How has 2020 been for you so far? Have you held up alright?

We’ve recorded our second album during this pandemic so we’ve been busy as a band. We were a bit back and forth during the first lockdown, but then once that passed, we went up to Leeds and recorded the whole second thing and it’s getting mixed as we speak.

This year’s been a bit weird for us as a band because a lot of things have happened for us, but also fuck all has happened, you know what I mean? We signed a new deal, got all this press stuff, then the flipside is that we’re stuck in our rooms just staring at the walls.

Personally though, nothing much has changed. I’m still working doing my electrician stuff. I can’t complain really; I’ve not been ill, I’m eating healthier, exercising more, doing all that good shit.

I think there’s been a real shift in people as well. Especially in London where you’re working all the time, all the time, all the time, I think people have took the time to stop and think about it and realise how absurd the situation is, you know. Working forty, fifty hours a week or whatever non-stop, you realise this is a bit insane. You also have more time to lament on how shit the government is.

Has music always played an important part in your life?

Yeah, definitely. I know a lot of people come away with soft shit when they talk about ‘discovering’ music, but I do think that without music I would be in a much darker place. When I was a kid, I was a reckless little shit, and I think getting into punk music at an early age levelled me out a little bit.

Has London’s hardcore scene managed to stay connected without live performances this year?

I think the internet helps. People get to chat to each other over the internet and make shows, plan for shows when they come back and all that. There’s a big UK hardcore festival called ‘UK Hardcore Returns’ which is gonna happen as soon as they lift the lockdown basically which should be fun.

I tend not to be on the internet that much anyway but I think people using the internet to talk about what’s gonna happen when we all get back and stuff is a good thing. But, it’s difficult, man. I think when you’re involved in an underground scene, you’re doing what you’re doing for the love of it anyway. So, when you can’t do it, you’re not gonna go anywhere; you’re still gonna be there because you love it, you know what I mean?

How do you feel now that you’ve signed to Partisan Records?

Yeah man, big time. They approached us in March time, something like that, then we had a few zoom meetings and signed literally as lockdown was coming in. But they’ve been really sweet to us. We’ve recorded the new LP for them and they’ve been good at every turn really”.

Just before coming to a review for Speed Kills, Rolling Stone recently featured Chubby and the Gang. The band are making their music known in America. In the interview, we also hear from the producer of Speed Kills (and the band’s forthcoming album, The Mutt’s Nuts), Jonah Falco:

“Direct, demonstrative, restless, reckless, and wry — that’s what Manning Walker is, and that’s the kind of music Chubby and the Gang make. Speed Kills melded his deep punk and hardcore roots with a love of early rock & roll. The guitars grooved like buzzsaw teeth, the drums beat down in swinging blows, and Manning Walker roared tales of street brawls, speed binges, crooked cops, and systemic rot. The songs on the band’s second album, The Mutt’s Nuts, out August 27th, hit just as hard, but with a far more expansive sound that bolsters Manning Walker’s dispatches on work, heartbreak, racism, inequality, and the grace and grit of London.

“Speed Kills was like 2,000 mile-per-hour rock & roll, one ballad, one acoustic song,” says Jonah Falco, the drummer for Toronto hardcore heroes Fucked Up, who now lives in London and produced both Chubby albums. “The Mutt’s Nuts, there’s four or five stations of total musical relief. It’s like these rolling hills of taste, and it’s really great to see that flow going through.”

Though Chubby and the Gang demoed, developed, and fine-tuned The Mutt’s Nuts over several months, the songs still feel tied to Manning Walker’s flat. There’s a pervasive sense of being trapped — trapped in dead-end jobs, in an unfair criminal justice system, by longing, depression, and expectation, the illusion of meritocracy, and circumstances beyond one’s control that those in power have determined will seal your fate anyway.

On early single “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice,” Manning Walker fumes at the inequality of opportunity, capturing the way so many are screwed no matter what they do by mixing his metaphors: “They say lightning don’t strike twice/But these still feel like loaded dice.” “Coming Up Tough” takes aim at the carceral state’s lack of interest in rehabilitation, inspired by a family member who, at a young age, got into a fight that went wrong, then spent 20 years in prison and re-entered a world that wanted nothing to do with him: “How can you prove them wrong/If no one even gives you a chance?” On “It’s Me Who’ll Pay,” one of a couple of anthems for this era of stagnant wages and crushing productivity demands, Manning Walker bellows what could be a Chubby and the Gang thesis statement: “Sell my soul to the fucking job? No way/If time is money then it’s me who’ll pay/And all the coppers and politicians keep it all in place.”

“Maybe I felt like the world was closing in,” Manning Walker says. “We’d just had Brexit — can’t leave an island now. Can’t leave my room because there’s Covid. It just felt like the world’s shrinking and I got a lot of time to reflect on things I don’t like, so I expressed my dismay by writing songs about that”.

There are a couple of other interviews that I want to feature. PASTE had their say about the remarkable Speed Kills:

“Lead singer Charlie Manning-Walker (who apparently goes by Chubby Charles) has spent years in British straight-edge punk, so he’s got receipts, but there’s something especially snappy and satisfying about this project. What separates the Gang from their other bands is their discarding of discordant hardcore leanings for melodic fiery rock ‘n’ roll ones and occasional blues and surf undertones. “Trouble (You Were Always On My Mind)” incorporates ’60s doo-wop and surf-pop melodies while “Moscow” explodes into pit of flaming rhythm and blues. Much of the record is rooted in textbook riffs churned out at such a pace that they appear new and invigorated. It’s a reminder of why you fell in love with rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

Their barrelling energy is the core of their appeal, and trying to nod along to their brisk rhythms for any period of time will probably give you neck pain. Luckily, the album clocks in at 25 minutes, so if you do have the courage, blood alcohol level or amphetamine buzz (the last of which is referenced in the album title) to move along to this album in its entirety, you won’t be in super rough shape the next day. Take album highlight “Pariah Radio” for example: Try listening to that blistering song without feeling a nagging urge to pogo or envisioning yourself accidentally pinching a nerve.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ellie Chaplin

While cutting riffs and breakneck rhythms are their bread and butter, their lyrics are far from filler. They’ve got their eyes on the prize at all times—the preservation and well-being of the gang and its ethos—but it comes off as more lion-hearted devotion than a preachy stump speech. There’s hatred directed at “the boys in blue” for sure, but they don’t have a stick up their behind about it—there’s a jollyness to their music too. They couldn’t pull off lines like “I won’t be told what to do / Especially from the likes of you” unless it was barked with convincing viciousness and personality.

They also manage to rail against staunch, briefcase-equipped conservatism without sounding corny. Track one begins with retro, anti-juvenile delinquency spoken-word, which features a man talking about the evils of rock ‘n’ roll. The main source of such heresy according to this man is “the beat,” which couldn’t be more fitting given that the beat is what fuels Chubby and The Gang: Later on the album, they emphatically yell, “Can you feel the beat / It never went away / It’s always been out on the street!”

Speed Kills spray paints the spit, blood, sweat and tears of their working-class, misfit gang onto a wall of concrete. Its plain-spoken nature and ravishing charm is the perfect accompaniment to their absolute instrumental onslaught. Chubby and The Gang may be the first independent British hardcore punk band in a while to get this much attention, but as Speed Kills tries to hammer home: There’s an entire fringe scene back home that’s part of the gang and that helped shape Chubby’s ascent. It’s one for all, all for one”.

This is quite timely, I guess, as The Mutt’s Nuts is out on 27th August. The highly-anticipated follow-up to Speed Kills, go and pre-order the album. This is what Rough Trade had to write about the London band’s second studio album in as many years:

“West London five-piece Chubby and the Gang are balanced by two energies on The Mutt's Nuts 'a casual 'fuckit' on one side, an active 'fuck off' on the other. For every moment of punk imperfection, there's an intricate flurry of detail. For every enraged statement about modern life as war, there's a lyric like 'Hello heartbreak, my old friend' that catches you off guard. Made up of musicians from across the consistently thriving and criminally overlooked UK hardcore scene (ft. The Chisel, Big Cheese and more), Chubby and the Gang marinate its characteristic speed and sick-of-it-all energy in a mixture of 50s pop sounds. The result is a prickly take on the older, more melodic genres that punk derives from, chewing them up and spitting them out into something mangled but revitalized”.

After their second album comes out, there will be more dates and attention. Chubby and the Gang are one of the most important bands we have right now. I can notice small changes between albums; improvements and little tweaks that means they are growing and evolving – never keen to repeat themselves and cover the same ground. If you have not discovered the band then go and follow them on social media (as far as I can see, they do not have a Twitter account). They are a terrific band that produces…