Chronicles in the News

THE CHRONICLES Catch On
A detailed interview with Jesse and Joe Chisholm  
(as seen in Space Junkies Magazine January 2006)
 
Wednesday Elektra [Wednesday]: How did 2005 treat The Chronicles?

Joe Chisholm [Joe]: Only when I reflect back now do I acknowledge how much has been done in one year. 2005 started with a binder of a dozen songs in varying stages of completion. The Chronicles didn't exist then. Jesse and I were committed then to putting our resources together, finding the right band mates and having a full-length CD out before year's end - looking back at where we were, it seems now like a grandiose plan.

Our most worthwhile investment in time and money was joining the Songwriters Association of Canada. It's one of the many resources that we have heavily relied on to continue honing our craft as songwriters. There have been seminars and workshops, books, magazines, and the Internet - all of these resources have taught us about both the art and business of music. But the greatest resource has been the scrutiny of industry insiders. It's just such an advantage having mentors, teachers and critics such as Christopher Ward, John Capek, Lisa Dalbello and Moe Berg to draw on - people who have been there and don't sugar coat what they tell you. You need thick skin to put your heart and soul on the firing squad but if you want to be commercially successful, you can’t get by only on the praises of friends and family.

We were already using Tim Cassidy to sing demos for us at the beginning of the year. We were happy enough with the encouragement that we were getting from various industry types in terms of how our songs were developing so we still needed to put the rest of the band together. I can't tell you how tired we were with the drum loop banks we were using on our demos and we were in search of a drummer. Andre was already fronting his own alt/country band called Canteen Knockout. He is also producing other indie acts ranging from Folk to Metal. Andre had an ad on "Kick In The Head.com" looking for a rock-drumming gig. We called him up, interviewed him, swapped some CDs, and kept in touch and after a listen and a few chats Andre bought into the project. By summer we were sufficiently rehearsed,  the music was sufficiently rewritten and we were ready to record. My cousin and her husband have a roadside diner near Guelph [Ontario, Canada] and they introduced me to Brian Hewson who owns the recording studio we use, Escarpment Sound Studio. At the end of August we went in to record our first 5 songs. Originally we planned on finishing the full-length CD before Christmas but we spent the balance of 2005 promoting our EP to college and Internet radio stations.

Wednesday: Please tell us a little bit about your band along with who's currently in it and what motivated you to start the band in the first place?

Jesse: The Genesis of The Chronicles is dad and I - a father/son song writing duo. Everyone thinks that is so cool. Music traditionally divided the generations so how wild is it that we can be on the same page when it comes to song writing?

Add Tim Cassidy and Andre Skinner to The Chronicles have representation from the teens, 20's, 30's and 40's - that's not something you see in every band.

Joe:  Jesse's musical history includes dabbling with piano lessons and then drum lessons. Aptitude was there, but no passion.  Jesse found his groove playing my guitar. It was a chore to get Jesse to practice his piano and then drum lessons. As for the guitar - it was a challenge to pry it out of his hands. More than once Jesse could be found asleep on top of his bed with his hands still holding the guitar.

Jesse and I had long conversations about the evolution of popular music and what was good and bad about it. We both felt that too much of contemporary commercial music was uninspired. How much of the pop music of the last 5 years will be called classic-anything in 20 years and still listened to? So Jesse and I challenged each other to see if we could do better.

Jesse's 2004 Christmas present was a four-track Korg cassette recorder. A lot of what is now The Chronicles' music started as lyrical ideas or melodies we put down on that Korg.

Tim was Chronicle #3, helping us demo tunes that we could use to get some industry feed back. Then Andre came our way and that makes up the compliment of the band. We are "bass-playerless" right now. Two different bassists fell through and when we went to the studio, Jesse and I had to handle the bass lines - which was no sweat because we wrote our own bass lines for our demos anyway.


Wednesday: Have any of you been apart of other bands in the past? If so, how are they similar or different from what you're currently doing in The Chronicles?

Jesse Chisholm [Jesse]: I put together a high school band called The Togas. We played at Etobicoke CI (Alma mater to David Wilcox and Jeff Healey). It was more a party in white sheets than musical creation with a future. We had fun with it for a few weeks and that was a wrap. Then we gave our sheets back to our parents.

Joe: When Jesse's mother and I were married we played in a band called Skid Row (before the more infamous Skid Row). Cathy Sisler was the creative genius of the band and the only songwriter amongst us. Sadly I lost touch with Cathy. I own a couple of her paintings. She was a hell of a songwriter. Before and after that, I have almost always played with female singers. We did covers or I didn't participate in the writing process. Part of it might have been that I didn't pretend to be able to write from a woman's perspective.

Tim Cassidy fronts the Jeff Healey's house band. A lot of Toronto musicians know him from Healey's open mic jams on Tuesday nights - a gig that he hosts. Last year I met Tim there. At the time he was just one of many who was getting up and playing or singing a song or two. He also moonlights doing one and two man shows of cover tunes with guitar and PA in hand. I really liked his voice and singing style. I was delighted to hear he was between bands and available. Tim bought into the idea that he would never get rich singing other people's songs and he agreed to come over and do some demos.

Andre has been behind the kit for a wild variety of Toronto acts such as Jack DeKyzer, Pope Factory, Slit Slot and The Wayne Cast Trio.  Andre front's his own Alt/Country band called "Canteen Knockout."

Wednesday: Why the name "The Chronicles" and what does it mean to you as a band?

Joe: A band name was an agonizing process. For a number of reasons, a number of potential band names went by the wayside, including The Kinetics, Lyz Dexic, Warp Drive and Jesse's fave, The Righteous MILFS. There were pages of potential band names. Some were taken, some had no URL available and some sucked. It's tough. As a music act we didn't have a readily identifiable identity and a band name is a commitment - even more than putting a bumper sticker on your car. Will the sticker still be funny 5 years from now? But The Chronicles are who we are. This project "Chronicles" the entire history of the collaboration of Jesse and Joe Chisholm. Our first co-write was "Chronic." So, we are The Chronicles.

Jesse: To me, the name The Chronicles refers to the documentation and evolution of music - our band is represented by a unique range in age.  The music we love and respect spans an even larger time frame. We draw from our peers and those who have come before us. This effectively "chronicles" the history of popular music. Our influences really show in our music - if you're a Led Zeppelin fan you'll know what I mean.

Wednesday: What was it that initially turned you on to playing/writing music? Were there any family influences and/or famous people that you looked up to for inspiration?

Joe: My Dad played mandolin and Jews Harp with a Blue Grass troop. Just a bunch of guys that got together for some cool ones and made a little music in the Montreal suburb that I grew up in. My Dad never took his music seriously but he encouraged me to play a musical instrument. I never made it as a violinist, the school choir pretty much has secret practices at secret locations and I eventually got the hint. But I learned guitar from a neighbor, Tracy McLeod, who played bass in a high school band. I dabbled with songwriting - generally in times of deep sadness. Understanding nothing about the craft of songwriting, my first drafts were nothing like the top 10 hits I listened to and I decided I couldn't write and I gave up.

Jesse: Jimmy Page stands out as one of my greatest motivating influences. I shamelessly worship at the altar of all things Led Zeppelin. Seriously, both my parents were into music - My mom sings. I was encouraged at a young age to play a musical instrument. One year I got both of Dave Bidini's (Rheostatics) books for Christmas, "For Those About to Rock" and "On A Cold Road." Both of those books demystified Rock and showed me what humble beginnings a musician could have.


Wednesday: When you sit down to pen out a song, either lyrically and/or writing the instrumental pieces, where do you draw your inspiration?

Joe: I would say that the lyrics that I write and what Jesse writes are quite different. I write as an observer of the human experience. I draw on years of being a brown nosing student of human nature. Jesse tends to be from a bigger picture, drawing on his observations of sociological ills we find ourselves in. When we meet in the middle, that's where humor seems to inspire our work. Songs like "Chronic" or "Captain's Daughter" may or may not be thought provoking but they are certainly amusing.

Jesse: Yeah, most of my lyrics are from social or political angst. I try to come up with new satirical methods so I don't sound "Emo." I also dream vividly and a lot of ideas materialize from that. It comes out like scrambled eggs and then I sort it out in the light of day.

Wednesday: How did the song "Chronic Malcontent" come to be and what's the song about?

Joe:  Everyone who knows me hears "Chronic" as my own self-revealing confession. Maybe even an apology [Laughs]. There is some autobiographical element to it but I have drawn on observations of hundreds of people I know and see as chronic malcontents - some who I love dearly.

I am restless and I live with a constant state of "dis-ease." It doesn't mean I am a whiner but others look more comfortable, more content than I feel. For most of my adult life I have bought into the notion that with more self awareness and more self help I would find balance and know peace. Then I would be "OK." Now, I say fuck it - I am what I am - "I have my discontent and I contend that that's a lot." Lisa Delbello described the song as the tale of a lovable loser. But for me, that's not all there is to it.

This song is the epiphany of realizing who you are and being OK with that; finding acceptance of your own malcontent instead of pounding it into submission with the misguided objective of finding happiness from changing. Great songs, as John Capek writes, reflect Zeitgeist (the spirit of the times). So we will see how many can relate enough to make this their anthem:

"I don't know what you read or what you saw on Dr. Phil, but when you start that psycho-babble I'm familiar with that drill. I'm not trying to change you, why try to fix me? Serenity makes me nuts but I love calamity."

I came up with the lyrical hook. Jesse is a rhythm-creating machine, spitting out two or three catchy and imaginative riffs a day. I can't keep up with him. On the day in question he saved "Chronic" from being the 12 bar blues tune I would have created. On the day in question, Jesse was playing his "riff du Jour," while I was reading my words, thinking about rhythm. A marriage was formed when I said, "Hey I like your music for my song more than mine. Play it again and let me sing along."   The song structure is completely non-conformist – which, oddly enough is true to the song.

Wednesday: Are you currently working on any new material? If so, when can the readers expect to see/hear it by?

Joe: Well we are going to take a short list of ten songs and choose 6 to make up the balance of the "Chronic Malcontent" CD. We have no timeline for that. We are already sandbagging a few tunes for what we expect to be our second recording project, which if we were to do it now would be called, "Dr. Suess and Other Influences." We have some great ideas for that already.

For those who just can't wait, we have just packaged an EP for consumers, which are the same 5 songs we have been sending out to college and Internet radio. It's $7.00 and fans are contacting us directly from our website to get a copy.

Wednesday: Where do you generally write and record your music? Any recording advice for start-up musicians/bands?

Joe: We started with a 4-track Korg cassette recorder, which is still good enough for trying things out. We now have Sonar by Cakewalk to record on our computer. The Korg still serves a purpose as it makes a fine interface to get our instruments or microphone into the recording tracks on the computer. We have been recording at Escarpment Sound Studios (http://www.escarpmentsound.com) which is in a rural setting between Guelph and Acton. Brian Hewson owns it and is the sound engineer. The studio is a converted barn, which includes a live room with huge cathedral ceilings. The drum sounds and vocal sounds especially are spectacular. Andre (drums) is a producer himself and has a studio in the east end of Toronto. He was drooling over the facilities and amazed with the sound we captured on our EP. Brian charges between $55 and $75 an hour including his engineering and all his gear.

Jesse was really digging one of many instruments available for use up there - his 1972 Les Paul Jr. I fell in love with an old tube amp he has. I have a 1940-something Gibson semi-acoustic, which used to belong to my late uncle. "A House is on Fire" features the marriage of that classic guitar and the amplifier it was designed for. Plugged into that amp, playing that guitar, I felt like I was at Sun Records 50 years ago.

Technology is really bringing down the cost of recording but home recording can be a real trap. I have software at home equal to that in some studios. But I don't have the know-how so it is ambitious to think that I can produce an album and cut quality recordings in my living room. And if you are "gear head" inclined at all, you can one-more-thing yourself to financial death: "I just need to buy one more interface, one more piece of software, one more keyboard, one more set of speakers, one more book that will explain it all and so on."

My software I have now is better than I am. I don't have the green Vulcan geek blood to learn it and frankly, I would rather write songs than learn to be a sound engineer. I believe that anything you don't take the time to learn yourself, you are a slave to someone else. So I want to know enough about everything that if someone is talking bullshit to me, I can smell it. So I need to know something about recording - the learning curve on the Sonar has been excruciating. On the Korg I had a bag full of tricks and could get 6 or 7 track songs down in no time. Sometimes I spend an entire day trying to figure out what I am doing wrong with my Sonar and I don't get anything done. I know enough to make my own demos. With those I can take them to band mates or to industry insiders for their comments. Recording isn't so expensive when you arrive prepared.

Don't record a song only to shop it around and have industry types tell you it's not finished. Also, it's pricey to be experimenting while you are on the clock. Other than amp settings and a few improvisations, everyone should be as prepared as possible when you arrive at the studio.


Wednesday: What's the music scene like in Toronto for bands in the Rock genre such as yourselves? Any favorite local bands you care to share with us?

Joe: There are just so many good acts in Toronto and area that are worth mentioning and I wouldn't want to forget. So I will avoid the question by just saying the two acts I most recently saw were Free Press and Edam Ant and I really liked both of them.


Wednesday: How tough is it being an independent band in today's market and where does The Chronicles fit into it all?

Joe: The Toronto market is a double-edged sword. In one respect, the resources are here, there are venues here and there are fans here. But the market is saturated. Especially in a town like this that has a "go big or go home" mentality with all it's big league sports and headline acts coming through town, it's hard for indie bands to compete for entertainment dollars. Add to that there are so many bands in the city you see a situation all to often where great musical talent is playing for far too little in front of far too few.

My guess is that getting outside of the 416 area code where there aren't as many competing forces for entertainment dollars, indie bands can make a real impression with live audiences and make some money doing it too.

That said, I think the timing for being an indie band is ideal. Technology is opening new doors. Record companies and commercial radio stations used to be the gatekeepers to accessing an audience - not any more. Now artists can connect with fans. We have become musicians and music fans again, instead of product and consumers. A record deal use to be perceived as the "Stanley Cup" for unsigned acts. Artists are smarter now. Record deals can be career ending, while acts as diverse as The Pretenders, Steve Vai and Dolly Parton have become indie artists all over again. Back in my day, The Beatles started their own label - Apple Records and Led Zeppelin at the conclusion of their obligation to Atlantic Records, formed Swan Song Records. Alanna Miles will have a new record out soon. I have been told she was only waiting for a recording contract to expire so she could put this out without them having their hooks in her.

I made up a name for this phenomenon and I call it "dis-intermidiation." Mergers and acquisitions have created a very mature cycle for the music industry. There are what - 5 major labels now? When I was Jesse's age, there were dozens. A lot of my old LPs are on labels that don't exist anymore. There are only really three providers of commercial radio in Canada. Everything we listen to is likely Chorus Entertainment, Chum or Standard Broadcasting. Corruption abounds. Elliot Spitzer in the US nailed the majors for price fixing and a court estimated that what record companies had been robbing from consumers was in the billions dating back to 1998. Both Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne's record companies have been caught paying commercial radio to give their artists more favorable rotation. Now record companies (even the name "record" company makes it sound like a dinosaur) and commercial radio stations are no longer the gatekeepers. Artists can interact with fans without them.

With blogs, Internet radio and the advent of consumers buying hardware-less music (paid direct downloads) the cost of distribution just vanished and the record companies aren't putting promotion money in pockets for podcasts (yet). Under traditional entry-level recording contracts, a band could win a Juno, sell 500,000 units of a CD and have about $55,000 to show for it. Spread that between 5 band members and you still have artists living with parents or second income partners. Going the indie route, if you can fund recording at, say, $6,000 to record a 10 or 11 song CD, sell 10,000 on your own and you make the same money. Easy math, but for the record, we haven't accomplished that yet - so if anyone is eagerly awaiting the "Joe Chisholm Guid to Wealth from Indie Recording" please be patient.


Wednesday: What are your thoughts on free MP3 downloading and file sharing of independent music - are you for or against it and why?

Jesse: Unlike the angry drummer of Metallica, I am actually a big supporter of music downloading. It encourages the education of music education and a sense of where we have come. There are so many fantastic old recordings salvaged through the Internet for the next generation. It's also a great tool for new bands for promo. They make most of their money off of live shows and retail anyway. The only people besides the record industry that downloading hurts is Bono and that drummer who already makes enough money to revitalize the third world. At least one of them is trying…

Joe: What's an MP3? [Laughs].


Wednesday: Where can our readers go to check out samples of your songs and how can they get in touch with you?

Joe: We are in the cue at iTunes. There is such a backlog to get old catalogues uploaded and new artists up there that Indies sit at the back of the bus and wait. I was told that it would be May or June before fans can buy The Chronicles on iTunes. In the mean time, have a listen at:

http://www.myspace.com/chroniclesrock

http://www.byregion.net/profiles/omyword.html, http://www.newmusiccanada.com,

http://www.bandspace.com

http://www.jukeboxalive.com

http://www.sonicbids.com/chroniclesrock

You can buy tunes at Band Space, or if you want our CD, go to our web site at: http://www.chroniclesrock.com and contact us.

Jesse: These are great resources for new recording artists like us. They are free in many cases and reasonably priced in others. It's great for consumers, fans and bands. We are a community again. For those who have worked tirelessly on these web sites, Thank you.


Wednesday: What are your general future plans and where would you like to see The Chronicles by 2010?

Jesse: Spread the news to Billy Talent fans out there that there is an alternative. When I say Billy Talent fans, I'm referring to an entire army of people following modern music gone wrong. Now, I have paid to see Billy Talent, I bought the T-shirt, but how the music industry could be milking the same 2 year old CD while they pass by so much good music is beyond me. It's because the public accepts it, I guess. I would like to see us join the ranks and files of touring bands, earning our airplay on commercial radio and by 2010 it would be great to have and a couple of major tours done, here and abroad.

Joe: I still consider myself a student of the music industry but I hope I always will be. I feel committed to doing what we can to be a household name in 5 years. Who doesn't want that kind of affirmation? Every artist thinks he or she has the greatest song never written in him or her. Pat Pattison who is known by many songwriters as one of the greatest teachers and writers on the subject says, "Songwriting is a blue collar job - learn your craft, work at it every day." I would say that is a better way to think than having stars in your eyes about each song you write.  At the risk of being locked up I admit there are a number of voices in my head.  One of them is convinced we have something valuable to contribute to popular music and we will be rewarded accordingly. Another voice keeps singing my own song ("Lead Dog") back to me: 

"When you confess you have a dream, the others just don't get it. Like an aging hipster you don't want to be pathetic. You're torn between a good living and a good life, you ask if it's worth the work, the sweat, the strife?" 

There are a lot of forces at work that determine success and failure and even more that determine moderate success and superstar success so my plan is to put the work in, keep my head up and see what happens, come what may.

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