It's always a pleasure to have a chat with a band that actually have something to say. Room Thirteen got the chance to have a word with The (very lovely) Chapman Family before their gig at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester. As a band that seem to have done so much already, the first thing we were wondering was why on earth they've only just got round to releasing "Burn Your Town"...

R13: So, having formed in 2006, you played Glastonbury in 2008, were on the NME Radar in 2009 and performed at SXSW in 2010... why has it taken until 2011 for the debut album to arrive?! What the heck have you been doing!?
Paul: We're terrible procrastinators. (laughs)
Pop: Politics. We could have released the album in 2009 but it wasn't the time- we were still finding our feet sound wise about what we wanted to do and what we wanted to represent. Then in 2010 we had the songs but we didn't have the label. The music industry's a tricky little assault course!
Paul: We're quite perfectionists as well. There were a few tracks we wanted to redo and do a different take on so we had a few talks with the label about that as well.
Kingsley: Plus we're all fucking skint! Its not like were on a major label-it'd be fine but we never had Daddy Warbucks filling our coffers.
(Paul looks confused)
Kingsley: It's an "Annie" reference, Paul!
Paul: What?!

R13: Figuratively speaking, are you the same band you were when you first started writing some of the tracks on "Burn Your Town"? Did growth make it more difficult to mould one complete sound?
Paul: I think so yeah because the singles we had before, like 'Virgins' is now in a completely different shape on the album. I think we just evolve naturally anyway when we're writing songs.
Phil: Yeah, we do it live as well- change things around so we're not doing the same version time and time again. We change the intro or the outro on stuff so it flows.
Kingsley: ...evolving? Like an ape? Are you pretty much likening the history of the band to the film "2001"? We're creating as well! It's not all Darwin! Personally speaking I didn't really know what I was doing at the start at all. And then there's the famous thing of Pop not being able to play his bass when we first got him in. You just get better at it. Back in 2009 it would have been easy to just release something but it would have been rubbish.
Pop: The best place to write and to learn is at gigs. That's how you build your sound. You can apply the same science to making albums as pleasurable to listen to as set lists.

R13: So with that philosophy in mind what can we expect from coming to see you play live?
Pop: If anyone's seen us before, the thing that always stuck us out among other people is the sort of passion and aggression in the live show. It wasn't about all this posturing, there was no real banter, it wasn't about being personalities. It was all about the music and hitting people with it. We've never really lost that, we've just fine tuned it and crafted what we had. We've taken a big lump of noise and sound and twisted turned it into something that's a bit more fully formed and a bit more interesting.
Phil: There's a bit more contrast to it. We've made the highlights brighter and the shadows darker.
Kingsley: When we started we just wanted to be different to other stuff. Between 2005 and 2006 there were just so many bands that were so half-arsed. We just wanted to try something different that was exciting for us to play but also exciting for us to see. That might mean sometimes smashing something up or being horrible and loud, but being kind of romantic at the same time. Something for everyone. Like 'Sunday Night at the Palladium'. Or 'The Royal Variety Show'.
Paul: Yeah, you get your comedy turn. Then the cast of 'Oliver!'come out.
Kingsley: Yes, that'll be nice. Then Susan Boyle and Ken Dodd.
Paul: Then Bradley Walsh comes out, everyone takes a bow and leaves the stage.
Kingsley: Dead easy. Yes, that is essentially what we're trying to convey.

R13: Well, I was going to say... as with most buzz bands you've had a lot of things said about you in the past. If you had a chance to shake that all away Etch-A-Sketch style, is that what you'd like to say instead?!
Paul: I wouldn't say anything then! 'Yes, we're like Susan Boyle and Ken Dodd...'
Kingsley: We did kind of have everything wiped away though. When we did this stuff in 2009, it's dead nice at the time having NME going 'these are ones to watch!' but we didn't have the opportunity to really hammer the point home that we were trying to do at the time. Maybe because we're not the most fashionable or buzzy people as a band, we're never following a bandwagon. So we never fell off the bandwagon in the first place because we were never fucking near it. (laughs)
Paul: We were just sat on the side of the road.
Kingsley: 'There goes the bandwagon!' (waves) 'See ya! Bye! Look there's The Vaccines! It's alright, we'll get the bus. Fuck off then!' (laughs)

R13: Despite all of your success, according to your Twitter feed you were caught taking snaps of "Burn Your Town" in HMV... does this mean that this whole fame and success thing is still something you're getting used to?
Kingsley: When you start a band, all I wanted was to have your band name on a little bit of plastic in a rack in HMV. You could probably make that yourself and go in and do it and take a picture and that'd be awesome, but going into a random one and seeing it in there... that's amazing as far as I'm concerned. Everything's still amazing.
R13: But that's great to hear! Unlike those bands we spoke about earlier that aren't really interested in what's happening all around them...
Kingsley: Its just the most amazing thing in the world! But if you want to be in a band it's hard work. And it's boring! You have to sit in shitty little rooms drinking nothing but bad lager and eating sandwiches and getting deaf. Its not glamorous. Maybe that's why they're so disinterested. They're just so full of...
R13: Angst?
Kingsley: Bread.

R13: Has there been anywhere you've been to on tour that you expected to hate and ended up having a pretty good time?
Pop: (immediately) Leicester.
(They all laugh)
Pop: We played Leicester on Saturday and we played there about a month ago with The Joy Formidable and it was probably the worst date on the tour because of the crowd. It was just like playing in front of a corn field of apathy. They were just waving about a little bit, staring at you, then after a song finished they'd sort of look at each other to see if they should clap.
R13: Did they not know how a gig worked?
Paul: They were just there to see The Joy Formidable!
Pop: When they came on it was like the second coming! We were watching from the side of the stage and it there was crowd surfing...it was like watching Nirvana in the 90s they went crazy! It was like 'cheers lads!' So when we went back we were like, 'listen, don't be expecting much tonight, bit of a sad crowd'. Then it was actually probably one of the better dates on this tour so far. .
Kingsley: It's always the places you'd least expect. I'd love to say Japan. Within about six hours of landing we were in a karaoke bar. (To Paul) Weren't you heckling a homeless person?
Paul: Heckling?? He (Pop) was trying to interview an old man! It wasn't 'boooo homeless! You suck!'
Pop: I was trying to get some nice online content while we were there and in my drunken wisdom I thought it'd be brilliant online content if I spoke to an old man about Hachiko the Dog.
Paul: Not thinking for one second that he might not speak any English...

R13: Have you ever had a peek at your Wikipedia page? On there it states, 'Like many Teessiders, the favourite food of The Chapman Family is the parmo.' Is this actually true of is it just some casual ill-informed racism?
Pop: I hate parmo's!
Paul: We all hate parmo's and he (Kingsley) is a vegetarian. It's a bit of non-descript meat flattened and fried and covered in bechamel sauce. It's horrible.
R13: Have you got any interesting true facts you would like to replace that non-fact with?
Pop: (pauses) The favourite food of The Chapman Family is Burger King? (laughs)
Kingsley: Mine's those little Quorn savoury eggs.
Paul: And wine.
Kingsley: Yes, wine. (Smiling) Lots of wine.
Pop: I'd love to know who wrote that. I went on there and deleted it, and then two minutes later...it was back!
R13: They really want to spread that rumour.
Phil: It's that fucking parmo house in Stockton isn't it!
Kingsley: A picture of us in the window, 'Endorsed by The Chapman Family!'

R13: Which family would be a good opponent for The Chapman Family on 'Family Fortunes'? And would you play for the money or the car?
Collectively: Money.
Kingsley: It was always a shit car as well. Erm. The Manson Family might get a bit stabby.
Paul: Jedward? We'd take them to the cleaners.
Kingsley: But what if they beat us?
Paul: The Lighthouse Family. Sly & The Family Stone? (laughs)
Pop: I still think Jedward. We'd kill Jedward.

R13: So, just to wrap things up, if anyone reading isn't familiar with The Chapman Family, which one song from "Burn Your Town" should they listen to to get the full flavour of what you're about?
Kingsley and Paul: All of it.
Pop: 'A Million Dollars'. If you want the Chapman ethos wrapped up in one little... well I say little...
Kingsley: A little eight minutes.
Pop: It's got the melodies, it's got the frenetic sound, it's quite aggressive, it's quite dark. There's little elements of our live show in there and I think its quite good at representing us as a whole.

A big fat Parmo-loving thankyou to the lads for chatting to us. You can catch The Chapman Family at various festival dates this year, including at the Camden Crawl in May. Also remember to go out and buy "Burn Your Town"...every penny helps!