Rising To The Masses: CHUB

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Before the first riffs echo through the fields of Catton Park, we are diving head first into the pulse-pounding world of the New Blood Stage at Bloodstock 2024. So grab your backstage pass, tune your senses, and join us as we explore the stories, inspirations, and the relentless drive of the bands who are rising to the masses! Introducing CHUB…

How would you describe your band to someone who’s never heard you?

Our favourite descriptions we’ve heard are “metal infused party punk”, “geezer metal”, “avant-garde punk”… We’re a bunch of metal heads playing punk music.

Tell us about your band’s origin story. How did you all come together?

We’ve been friends for 15 years at least each. We were talking about how pissed off we were about the general election after Boris got in, and basically decided we wanna go shout at people about it. It was pure coincidence we all played different instruments, we’re all self taught so we don’t stick to one genre and play what we feel like. Just wanted to start a project for fun with the boys!

What song would you recommend for someone’s first listen of your band?

Describe your songwriting process. How do you create your music?

Zakk: Ben goes “DOO DOO DA DOO DOO DA DOO” and Greg figures it out on guitar.

Ben: I’ll come up with a basic hook/chorus, present it to the boys and we’ll build on it until it gets stuck in our heads.

Kyle: Someone will play something and we’ll all kinda look at each other and do the stank face.

Greg: If we’re humming it on the way home we know it’s a good one.

How do you handle creative disagreements within the band?

Greg: Fist fight.
Real talk though, diplomacy. If it’s 3 to 1 the 1 has to suck it up. It’s pretty rare that we solidly disagree anyway, we’ve been friends for 15 years and know how to communicate with each other.

What are your musical influences?

Pffft, God…

Kyle: My top 3 are Opeth, Gojira and Mastodon. But I love jazz and house and weird weeb stuff as well.

Ben: It’s a mixture of local Brighton punk bands and bigger acts like IDLES, The Clash, Wine Lips, Bad Nerves…

Zakk: I got into bass because of Geezer Butler and Nikki Sixx, but in recent years, it’s like a combination of Airbourne, The Chats and Geddy Lee.

Greg: I guess just like a lot of prog metal, finger style guitar. When I write riffs I’m trying to fuse that with a punky catchy twist.

What’s the story behind your band name?

We all really like fish, locks and boners. IT’S CHUB WITH ONE B!

What’s your guilty pleasure music outside of metal?

No such thing as a guilty pleasure! But if we had to choose…

Kyle: I listen to loads of chip tune and game OSTs, anime songs…

Greg: Love a bit of bluegrass.

Ben: I fucking love Tchaikovsky.

Zakk: 2009 to 2013 pop. Katy Perry, Lady Gaga…

All: Vengaboys, Hall and Oates, love some cheese.

Tell us about your most memorable live performance or tour experience.

Green Light Festival in Eastbourne, it was the first show where the crowd went apeshit crazy for the whole thing. None of us could sleep that night!

What’s the most challenging aspect of being a metal band in today’s music industry?

Greg: Making connections in new towns, getting promoters to take a chance on you.

Kyle: Yeah, getting your foot in the door is so hard. We’re booking our first tour right now and most people won’t give you the time of day unless you know someone. I spend just as much time on our social media making content as I do playing our music… You’ve gotta be business minded really. Which most musicians are not interested in at all!

Any advice for other aspiring metal musicians?

Do what you feel like, don’t stick to a genre cause you feel like you have to. Play whatever you want and do it for fun and the love of music. Get involved in your local scene cause you’ll meet so many cool people. Shout out Eastbourne Music Collective and the beautiful Brighton scene!

What’s next after Bloodstock for the band?

First tour in September! Locked in London, Bristol, Southampton and Cambridge so far. We’ll have two singles, QUIT and Beer Bong Song out before Bloodstock, got two more cooking for October/November with music videos, bunch of gigs around the South East. Hoping to return to Rebellion Festival next year!

How do you choose album artwork or visuals for your releases?

We kinda like gross-out, dumb humour. We love supporting local artists, we’ve got a couple paintings by our pal Charlie Cestari of Droop (@i.willpaint.yournext.gigposter on Insta) that we’re using for QUIT and another single further down the road. Zakk (bass) is an editor by trade so he always gets involved with editing and shooting videos. And our pal Zak Comyns (@zakcomyns) was the one who brought our glorious mascot Microwave Dave to life.

What’s the most unexpected inspiration for one of your songs?

We’ve got a couple songs about Dungeons and Dragons, Eye of the Beholder and Gelatinous Cube. We’re all huge nerds with a penchant for fantasy! We’re writing an Elden Ring song soon…

What’s the best gig you’ve attended as a fan and why?

God, we’ve been to so many…

Ben: Limp Bizkit at Gunnersbury Park is up there…

Greg: System of a Down at Download 2011. Please come back!

Zakk: Airbourne 2011 when Joel climbed the whole stage.

Kyle: Probably The Chats at Chalk, only gig I’ve been to where it was just a non stop pit across the whole crowd. They played everything double speed…

Ben: 2012 Download Killswitch Engage. It rained all day and the heavens parted to a gorgeous sunset during the break of Arms of Sorrow… I cried tears of joy! They killed it at Bloodstock last year too.

Have you faced any challenges as an unsigned band? How do you overcome them?

We started right before Covid so we couldn’t actually get together to write or practise for ages! There’s also so many great bands in Brighton, so getting our foot in the door and anyone to notice us was tough. We had to push through, play where we could and go out of our way to make our live show stand out. Fair bit of playing to empty rooms!

How do you stay motivated during creative slumps?

Kyle: We’re all creatives so we haven’t really had a time when none of us had any ideas!

Zakk: I’ll push myself to try for 15 minutes, and if somethings happening I’ll take it for all it’s got, otherwise at least I’ve done 15 minutes!

Ben: I write my best lyrics when I’m angry. There’s been a lot to be pissed off about politically recently…

Greg: Don’t force it, do what you feel like and it’ll come to you. Trust the process!

CHUB are set to play The Hopical Storm New Blood Stage On Saturday 10th August 2024.