Chapterhouse were one of the original shoegaze bands. Their debut album Whirlpool (1991) remains one of the high water marks of the genre, and their underrated second album Blood Music (1993) saw the band combine shoegaze with electronic and dance music. In 2023 Cherry Red released the comprehensive boxset Chapterhouse, which brought both albums, their wonderful non-album EP tracks including the iconic ‘Mesmerise’, the remix album Pentamerous Metamorphosis in which Global Communication reworked Blood Music to brilliant results, and most excitingly the demos for the album in between Whirlpool and Blood Music that Dedicated rejected back in the day, and demos for what might have been another album following Blood Music had Chapterhouse not split up. Since then, the band’s original demos have been rediscovered and are being released by Sonic Cathedral as the White House Demos EP. OUTSIDELEFT’s shoegaze correspondent Jonathan Thornton caught up with Chapterhouse original members Stephen Patman (vocals, guitars), Andrew Sherriff (vocals, guitars) and Ashley Bates (drums) before the release party for the EP at Rough Trade East.
OUTSIDELEFT: Chapterhouse’s White House Demos have just been released
today by Sonic Cathedral. Can you tell us the story of these demos and how you
came to find them again?
Stephen: Well, it was when the box set got released, we
started doing some more social media. And then Christian (Savill, Slowdive
guitarist) who I used to hang out with, we used to work together in Reading
when we were teenagers, when the bands were starting up. And he got in touch,
saying, great about the box set. And then he said, do you remember those demos
you did? Because he was one of the first people I'd given the cassette to when
we’d done them, and he really loved them. And he said, I'm actually going into
the White House next week to record, because he still uses it with his band Monster
Movie and other recordings he's done over the years. And I said, oh yeah, why don't
you ask Martin (Nichols, head of White House Recording Studio) if he's still
got it on archive? And he came back saying, yeah, Martin's looked it up in his
roller decks, January ’89, and we were like, oh, wow. He said he’d dig it out.
So I got Martin, the guy that owns the place, and we recorded it with the time,
to digitize them for me and send them over. They sounded surprisingly good. So
we thought, yeah, they’ll need a little bit of mastering and stuff, but these
could be released. So we thought we’d ask Nat (Cramp, Sonic Cathedral) if he’d
be up for it, and he was really keen.
OL: I’m guessing that was the first time that you would have
heard those tapes for many years now. What was it like coming back to them?
Stephen: Well, it was, it rang a few bells! We probably
hadn't heard them since a year or two afterwards, because we used them to give
out to a few people like our first manager and friends and stuff. But other
than that, we kind of forgot about it really,
Andrew: Yeah, and also, I think, just because they were only
on cassette! I haven’t got a cassette player anymore, so you don't really go
back and listen to a lot of that stuff. And I just assumed that they wouldn't
be that good. So I was really surprised when I heard how good they were,
because they sounded better than some of the other versions, we did later on.Stephen: Considering they were basically recorded live in a
day, in a room and with maybe a couple of overdubs. It was all basically played
as a band, which is quite unusual now for studio recording. I think the guy
there is so used to having bands coming through, needing to get stuff done
really fast that he’s got a bit of a system on the go. He could get good
results with a very short space of time.
Ashley: It's more like recording a Peel session, really,
Andrew: Four tracks, one day, a couple of overdubs! Except
they were a bit stricter at BBC.
Ashley: Yeah, with overdubs. Dale Griffin (Peel session
producer)!
OL: So was that the first time that you guys were in the
studio as a band?
Stephen: Yeah. They’re the only tracks we actually own
ourselves, because they were the only ones that haven't been paid for by a
record label. And the guy managed to find the record of the check that Simon
(Rowe, Chapterhouse guitarist) paid them with!
OL: He must be really organised!
Stephen: I think he’s a bit on the spectrum. He kept the
check! Which meant we had proof of payment, which is kind of nice. It means we’ve
been able to release it without any hassle at all.
OL: On the early recordings, it’s much easier to hear the
influence of Spacemen 3 and Sonic Youth than on the later recordings….
Stephen: It was a natural development.
Andrew: Yeah, it was kind of a natural development.
Stephen: It naturally changed over the years. So it wasn’t
like, oh, let's make it sound more like this.
Andrew: I think on the box set you can see the progression,
because we did it in a time frame, It's one of the reasons we wanted to do
that. We started off doing covers of bands, songs by the Stooges, the Byrds,
even an old Pebbles band, which I dug out the other day – Kit & The
Outlaws, that was, And the sound was kind of there from us playing that stuff. We
thought, we better start writing our own. And naturally had them in that style
Stephen: I mean at that point, I think I had just turned 19,
Andy and Simon were 18, and Ashley was 16…
Ashley: I must have been 16 or 17
Andrew: And you know, that was what we were into. I mean
amongst other stuff, but we were really into fuzz guitar and droney kind of
psychedelic kind of stuff. So I'd say, like, ‘Ecstasy’, the way it slows down
into ‘Ecstasy II’ is kind of inspired by ‘Peace Frog’ by the Doors. And so these
little elements crept in from different things. Like this track that I’m going
to play tonight that I think had a bit of an influence on the riff on ‘Die Die
Die’ as well. But they were the first four songs we've ever written. So that's
basically pretty raw, pretty naked!
Stephen: But yeah, we obviously were pretty good right from
start!
Andrew: Yeah, and those were probably only played in pubs in
Reading.
Stephen: Yeah, I think that we'd only done four gigs before
this recording. And so the set basically consisted of these four songs, and
then, like, a Stooges song. And I think we might have started doing ‘Rain’ by
then, the Beatles cover. I suppose, basically, as we got older, we got bit more
sophisticated. I mean, we've still kept noise noisy distorted guitars in, but I
think the songs became a bit more nuanced. And as we may have felt at the time,
less naive
Andrew: I think in some ways, you right. that if you're to
keep the band and the music fresh, you have to try out different things. And
there are some things that work better than others. Or, in retrospect, there's
some avenues we might not have gone down. But at the time, it seemed like a
good thing to do. And bands like Beatles, they kept it fresh by reinventing
themselves, or adding new influences and everything. And that's what makes it
exciting, rather than if they were playing ‘Love Me Do’ the whole way through!
OL: I was really excited that the box set contains the demos
that would have been the album in between Whirlpool and Blood Music.
I really love those recordings. Were you pleasantly surprised coming back to
them at how good they sound?
Andrew: We knew that that second album was really good, but the
label wouldn't release it. So we had to kind of move on from those songs.
Stephen: Yeah, most of what we called the Courtyard Demos on
that album were meant to be the second album before Blood Music. We
spent quite a long time demoing those tracks and the label kind of weren't
really that interested. They were pushing to get some more singles. So
inevitably, it got a bit changed, I think also we worked with a bunch of
producers on some of the songs. So some of those demos actually ended up being
songs on Blood Music. They were kind of through the filter of a producer
that we were working with, and sliding into other songs that were moving
towards more electronic sounding. To us, it all felt natural. It didn't feel
like there was any kind of conscious move. But it was, I suppose, adjusting to
expectations of what the label were wanting for us. We weren’t able to continue
any further without appeasing them somehow.
OL: It must have been super frustrating,
Andrew: Well, yeah. I mean, we knew they were good songs. We
worked hard on them, and then they would turn around and say, no.
OL: It must have been really nice to see them come out so
that the fans can enjoy them.
Andrew: It was another reason why we did that running order,
so it almost is the album that never was.
Stephen: I think if you took the tracks that were officially
released, it doesn't tell the full story, really. If you use that to base your
opinion on Chapterhouse, you would be a bit misguided by it. So it was nice to
readdress misconceptions, like that we somehow suddenly switched to a new sound
in a cynical jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of way. It wasn’t. It was evolving
gradually. On some of those songs, you can hear some of the elements that
became Blood Music entering into them.
OL: How do you feel about the term shoegaze these days?
Andrew: I mean, I don't mind it, really. At first it was
meant as a sort of insult…
Ashley: Kind of slightly derogatory. It was still kind of
mild though!
Andrew: It was mild. It was better than the Scene That Celebrates
Itself! With shoegaze, people who pick it up now, they don't know that it was
an insult
Ashley: I would use the word now, because it's the
description for the genre. It's only knowing at the time that it was sort of
meant to be derogatory that it had that about it.
Andrew: I remember reading an interview quite recently with
Pete Kember. He was he was asked about shoegaze and how popular it was, and he
said, out of all the genres at the time, he would have never thought that it
was the one that would end up being the biggest of that era, really! And weirdly
enough, it kind of is, apart from the Britpop stuff Oasis and all that. So it's
interesting. I think it's appeal was that it wasn't laddish and kind of toxic,
like a lot of stuff was back then. It was just about the music. And I think
that people can see that and relate to it.
OL: It’s part of the problem with being pioneers. There was
always the sense that Chapterhouse were slightly out of time, which meant that
people were only going to appreciate them afterwards. Which is presumably no
comfort at the time, but must be quite nice now!
Andrew: yeah. Music has a life of its own, really.
And people can judge it as they find it. I think at the time, when you're in a
band, you're much more connected to the music. So the criticism hits you more
directly. But I think now it's good because you just hear the good stuff.
OL: The big question: what are the chances of a Chapterhouse
reunion?
Andrew: We’ve talked about it, and I think there is a chance
that we could do it. I think there's enough interest. In a way, we reformed
slightly too early. So I think there is a chance, but a lot of things would
need to align at the same time. We've also talked about recordings and stuff.
So I can't say for sure, but there's a definite ‘Watch this space!’ kind of
feel about it. In some way or another, we could do something, whether it's
recording or doing some live shows.
OL: Excellent. Well, very much been looking forward to that.
Andrew: Yeah. Did you catch any of the 2010 shows?
OL: I did not. Unfortunately, it coincided with me being out
of the country, so I missed it all.
Stephen: You know, we have been talking about, it, yes, but
it's not sure. We've been discussing writing new stuff, at least, and we have
talked about doing some shows. But we've just got to figure out logistics,
really, and whether everyone's fully 100% up for it. It took us quite a bit of rehearsal
to get match ready last time!
Ashley: Yeah, we’re definitely not match fit at the moment!
Stephen: No, we need to spend a couple of months in a gym I
think!
Andrew: And everybody’s spread out in different parts of the
country as well. So, yeah, that makes it a little bit more tricky.
OL: Yeah, that never makes it easy.
Stephen: Yeah, but we’re getting a lot of gig offers. So
we're just trying to figure out whether it's something that's feasible or not.
OL: Excellent, fingers crossed! Thank you for speaking with us.
Essential Information:
The White House EP is released on Shoegaze label Sonic Cathedral. Order from their Bandcamp shop.
The Cherry Red Box Set 'Chapterhouse' is still available too.
