The Chloës Interview & Gallery, Part 2

The Interview, Part 2.

In In part 2 of our inter­view with the Chloës, the ladies talk about the joys and pit­falls of audi­tion­ing drum­mers, key­boardist Lysandra Chapman’s mind-con­trol tech­niques, and the dif­fi­culty of break­ing into the Dallas-Fort Worth music scene. Plus, Lysandra reveals how she came to speak Icelandic.

Mercury Photo BureauTell me about how you audi­tioned drum­mers before you chose Leila [Wright]?

Lysandra ChapmanSo we lost our drum­mer; she was great — she had writ­ten a song, it was so great. And I will say, it was very dis­ap­point­ing. She was in a rela­tion­ship, and it went bad, and she had to leave. And it was 1 of those very imme­di­ate [sit­u­a­tions]; it wasn’t like I’m giv­ing you advance notice. And we were about to the point where we could play [in pub­lic], we thought. We were really close. But that def­i­nitely put a damper on things.

So [audi­tions were] prob­a­bly a 6 week process; we started going on Craigslist, and we got a girl 1^st, and, there is a cer­tain — this sounds very petty, but we have a cer­tain look in this band, and you kinda have to fit that look in some way. I mean, obvi­ously, we all look very dif­fer­ent, but she was very typ­i­cal of girl rock/​punk bands. [speak­ing to Brandie [Dawson]] You might be bet­ter able to describe it.

Brandie DawsonShe was quite a bit older than us.

LysandraI think she might have done pretty well in, like, a “rage” girl-punk band. She was prob­a­bly near­ing 50? And it sucked, because that’s not what we ascribe to. We don’t want to, in any way, dis­cour­age any woman, but you have to look at what we’re try­ing to put across, and there is some sort of image we were try­ing for. And that was very hard on us; [we want to pro­mote] all women doing rock. […] It was good, but it just didn’t feel right. […] We did keep her on the shortlist.

BrandieWe had another girl come in who didn’t even have a drum set.

LysandraShe asked us to pro­vide a drum set.

BrandieIt was like, Okay … ?

Lysandra[Then] we opened up [the audi­tions] to men. Because, we thought, We don’t hate men; we’ll let a man in, and we got a guy [who] was freak­ing phenomenal.

BrandieHe was a great drummer.

LysandraOh, my God! Like, any band would love to have this guy, but the prob­lem was […] he had Asperger’s [Syndrome]; […] he had a han­dler. And [the han­dler] walked in, and he explained the sit­u­a­tion: that he does not talk; that he would talk for him […].

However, I have to say this; this is really funny: [the han­dler] was so nice. He was gonna help us load out; like he’d be par­tic­i­pa­tory in the band, like he would be a help­ing hand, even ’though he was [the drummer’s] han­dler. So I thought that was really sweet. Like, he was really will­ing to get this guy [work], and I actu­ally think that, for some bands that are in a cer­tain niche, like some crazy “math-rock” band, I think [he] would work really well. For us, it prob­a­bly wasn’t our scene. I wish we’d had the fore­thought to go, Not for us, but this crazy band over here: you would really work really well in […].

[…] That was prob­a­bly our low point; we didn’t know what we were gonna do. […] And this guy at our rehearsal space said, You gotta check out this girl, Leila. She had a band in high school, and she’s been play­ing with some guys. […] She’s on this tour of Europe, back­pack­ing. And I’m like, Ohmygod! Is she gonna be like this, total gra­nola girl? Is she gonna be — […] And she walks in, and she’s this blonde bomb­shell. And [she] has her own gear. And sets up. And like, That’s it! Every song we had, I’m like, This girl gets it. I mean, it was right on, man! We didn’t even rehearse; she had it! [We were so con­fi­dent that she was the right choice, that] when she was try­ing to load up [after the audi­tion], we said, Just leave your gear!

Leila Wright[…] I had been try­ing to […] get some­thing together for so long, and […] I’d been try­ing as many avenues as I could, and I just wasn’t get­ting any feed­back. I was part of this teach­ers’ group, and I sent out [an email] blast, Hey, any­body want to start a band? I got back 1 response that was like, Well, I did choir in high school … and I’m like, Arrggh!

MPB[laugh­ter] Could have been inter­est­ing; could have been the next Polyphonic Spree! [laugh­ter con­tin­ues]

LeilaBut then I went to — it’s like a ran­dom series of events; com­pletely ran­dom, and out of my, like, com­fort zone? […] That led to me meet­ing this guy, who was a friend of a friend of a friend, and when I got that Facebook mes­sage, it was like, Hey, you wanna come prac­tice with us for Catching Chloë? I remem­ber we were in Germany in this crazy, mod­ern hotel and I was bounc­ing off the walls with my mom, Look at this band Catching Chloë! That is such a cool name! It was like a gift from the universe.

LysandraShe totally men­tioned our old name!

MPBI didn’t know there was an old band name.

Lysandra[…] We had Catching Chloë — [April Wenzel] hears me, I’m sure — I did not like our band name. 

LeilaIt was con­fus­ing. [Promoters and MCs] would say Chasing Chloë, Counting Chloë, …

LysandraIt was so hard; at every gig we had, they said it wrong!

LeilaAnd [the name change] came about com­pletely spon­ta­neously; we were at the prac­tice space when —.

LysandraShe says it came about spon­ta­neously, but it’s a funny thing — it’s totally not; it’s totally engineered.

LeilaWhat‽

LysandraTotally engi­neered by me. She had —

LeilaReally‽ This is totally news to me!

LysandraOh, my God, I totally engi­neered that.

LeilaWe were […] on this load up thing out­side, and some guy walked by and like, Huh, who’re you with?

LysandraNo no no no; you’re miss­ing it. You’re think­ing all wrong; what hap­pe­nend is, you guys had gone out for sushi. […] For the 1^st freakin’ time ever, I was in the space before you guys were. You guys had walked in, and I said, Oh, look, it’s the Chloës. It was the same night. […] And you said, Oh; I like that. And, I was thinkin’ the whole time —

LeilaYou minx!

LysandraI know. And I was sneaky. I didn’t think it would hap­pen that quickly; I thought it would plant the seed. You instantly were like, I really like that name, and so, like, later on, we went out, and April’s like, I think that’d be really good if we shorten that up, and then that guy walked by —

LeilaHad you com­mu­ni­cated with April before this?

LysandraNot at all. No, no, not at all. ’cause I’d been in [the rehearsal] space for, like, 30 min­utes, playin’ around, and I was look­ing at our posters, and I was like […], How will I plant the seed? I’m not tak­ing credit, because if nobody would’ve agreed to it, it never would have hap­pened. […] But it worked, and then that guy said [what he said], and April said, We’re the Chloës. It was just fast — 1 night, yeah.

LeilaIt’s much eas­ier to remem­ber. And […] there’s a secret back story to the name […]. This is my per­sonal inter­pre­ta­tion, after sev­eral mar­ti­nis, but I stay true to this. It’s like that bad-ass part of your­self that comes out, ’cause peo­ple can’t always be bad-ass-raahwr! all the time, like on. It’s that moment when you’re on and you’re, like, in it; that’s when you’re like a Chloë.

LysandraI love that, and I think, lately, I don’t know if I’ve told you guys, but I’ve had 2 peo­ple say this to me recently, that Chloës is so much like that movie, Heathers. Like that’s such a token, like, ’90s name? Of like the, uh, white, bitchy, girl; you know, but there’s a power in that? And look, let’s be hon­est, I mean, we can’t pre­tend to not be white girls. I mean, we are who we are; we’re these cau­casian women who are in a band together. And 2 peo­ple have said the same thing to me, that it denotes this kind of cool name that had some power. [Sidenote: At this point, local slam poet Tapestry joins us; dur­ing the ensu­ing con­ver­sa­tion Lysandra men­tions that she and the other women met him through Chris Sanders.] Someone who’s kind of a bit bitchy, but [also] a lit­tle bit pow­er­ful and cool, and was like, I kinda like that. […]

MPBSo, tell me how you met Chris Sanders.

LysandraEasy. Like, the 1^st NMF we were at, the 1^st Norman Music Festival, he played after us. And he called us, and he said, We like you. I think he might have Facebook mes­saged us […], and he reached out to April and said, I want to have you guys play here more often. And that was prob­a­bly the 1^st act of kind­ness that any other band gave us.

MPBYou told me ear­lier how hard it is for women’s bands to make it in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

LeilaThat’s any bands. It’s not women; Dallas is a com­pete­tive scene. It’s a good scene, but it’s like, you do for your own, and it’s a very dif­fer­ent vibe. We love play­ing in Oklahoma.

MPBI’ve only been inter­view­ing bands since last October, and I fig­ured out really quickly that the bands in Norman and Oklahoma City all help each other.

LysandraTotally. They don’t do that in Dallas […]. If you get to a point that you can ben­e­fit each other, then it works. Someone will allow — I will help you, because it will ben­e­fit me. That’s never been a moti­va­tion for Chris, or from Brother Gruesome — we’ve played with Brother Gruesome, and I’m pretty close to them; Brian Cagle, The Planets Align, the Venditos, and Kerry Myers — she doesn’t even play music, but came in and said, I really like you guys, and I want to help; and you’re not from here, but I don’t care! — and Skating Polly, who are going gang­busters, I mean, how­ever, still really like us, and we really like them. And, sadly, let’s be hon­est; I’m the same age as David Mayo. [laugh­ter]

MPBThat’s Kelli’s [Sidenote: Kelli Mayo of Skating Polly.] dad.

LysandraRight. And so we’re the same age. They were as sup­port­ive of us as we were of them, and it’s like, we don’t get that, by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, in Dallas. So this is our home, really; I mean, we joked, the other night, that we were gonna be a lit­tle bit “ghetto” and play in Dallas. […] But we get audi­ences here; we have fans who really like us, and at least take a chance on us and come out, you know? It’s very dif­fi­cult, and the funny thing is, it’s hard to pay peo­ple back. Chris and Todd [Fagin] and Levi [Watson] [Sidenote: Todd and Levi com­prise Brother Gruesome.] want to come out, and it’s like, We will give you a gig, but we can’t promise what you give us here. And that’s just dis­ap­point­ing; that kinda weighs on my heart […].

MPBI wouldn’t have met you guys, if it hadn’t been for Chris. I wouldn’t have met Skating Polly if it hadn’t been for Chris. And there’re prob­a­bly sev­eral other musi­cians I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for him. I think a lot of peo­ple owe that guy.

LysandraThat guy is top notch, man —

LeilaYeah, top notch —

MPBSo, before the great record­ing fiasco [Sidenote: See part 1 of the inter­view to learn about this.] [laugh­ter], I had each of you talk about some of your favorite band songs. Maybe we could try it again?

LeilaOkay, I already did my cou­ple of songs, but I’ll step up for the — the name of the album, Vanish, is the “umbrella” of how awe­some and empow­er­ing that was. And I think, the premise was — so, you look at the album art, and it’s like this girl run­ning towards the city, and on the back, there’s this guy on the bed and it’s got the open win­dow? And I think all of these songs are like empow­ered of a female who owns her rela­tion­ship [turns to Lysandra] — what are you whis­per­ing? — you cut me off —

LysandraNo, I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude, but it sounds so much like Madonna; like, is this ’80s Madonna?

MPBOh, in the background?

LysandraIn the back­groud; sorry; it was so weird — we were, like, watch­ing you [indi­cates Leila] in […] your lit­tle heart-shaped Lolita sun­glasses, and Madonna is [play­ing] in the back­ground, and it’s just like — any­way, it’s a dude, and it’s like van­ish­ing, and —

LeilaThe theme is like, do what you — make your rela­tion­ships what you want them to be, and all of the songs are very rela­tion­ship-based in how men and women inter­act with each other.

Tiffany ByrdYou know, dude, Nothing Lasts is 1 of my favorite songs. I think it’s because I like the way it builds; like, it starts out slow, and then it just gets heav­ier and heav­ier, and by the end, April’s like, scream­ing hard­core — I dunno, it just sounds good; it’s fun to play. As far as over­all songs just to lis­ten to, I would say Run Run Run, because of the words, the mean­ing behind it all — [a train goes past sound­ing its horn — Ed.] — the 1 time I talk, the train comes? [laugh­ter]

MPBThat song was inspired by Brandie, right? There’s the metaphor for what run­ning rep­re­sents, plus a lit­eral part that’s about the act of run­ning marathons.

LysandraWhich, if you knew us […], is a far-fetched notion! But, no, I mean you guys are actu­ally phys­i­cally fit. I’ll take that back to me.

When [April] sent me that track […], I could hear what she wants out of it, and it was the most beau­ti­ful song I’ve ever heard, and it really got more and more beau­ti­ful as it was built and grown. And I just said, What is that about? And I lit­er­ally don’t lis­ten to lines, so when you ask me about lyrics, I’m ter­ri­ble. Blewehewehweh!

BrandieLysandra makes the sounds instead of singing the words.

LysandraI make sounds; I speak that Sigur Rós lan­guage. You know, it’s all about the feel­ing. And [April] said it started from Brandie doing these marathons, and she said it was such a beau­ti­ful notion that she was run­ning, and what is she run­ning for? And she said that then it trans­lated over to life, and not just rela­tion­ships, but life, and, I can see the dirt, and I know that I’m on ground. I still get goose­bumps; it’s so spir­i­tu­ally mov­ing, that if you’re in such a sh*t place in your life, there’s no dis­tance you can’t recover from. [the actual lyric is There will be no dis­tance that I can’t run from — Ed.] I can step out­side; I can put my foot on the ground; and at least I know I’m real. I mean, I don’t know if you guys have ever been there, but I’ve been there: where you […] feel so — like you’re noth­ing in this uni­verse. But that notion of, You are some­thing, because you can put your put your foot out, and you’re on the same ground as every­body else, so you have just as much opportunity. […]

Read part 1 of the interview

Read part 3 of the interview 

Gallery: OPOLIS

In In mid-April, the Chloës donated their time and tal­ent to a fundraiser for Robb Hayes, gui­tarist for Oklahoma punk rock­ers Debris’. Local musi­cians John Wayne’s Bitches opened, while Tulsa favorites Broncho drew the show to its con­clu­sion. Please enjoy these pic­tures of sequins, sun­glasses and scorch­ing rock ’n’ roll.