Gigslutz speaks to – WHITE BONE RATTLE

Following my sojourn down to Maidstone for the Maidstone Fringe Festival, I was taken aback by one band in particular and asked laid back drummer extraordinaire Liam Chrisp from White Bone Rattle if he’d mind spilling some beans.

Enjoy…

wbr

GS: Hello Liam, how are you mate?

LC: Yeah wicked mate, got free phone calls!

GS: Fair enough! Let’s get into it, tell me the essentials…

LC: Well we’re 2 set of brothers from Maidstone, me n Jamie our guitarist, then David lead singer and guitarist and Mark vocals & bass. Dave and I were best mates at school and at age 15 myself, Jamie and Dave had always wanted to start a band and my mate got a kit and Dave said he was a top singer, I said I was a top drummer and none of us believed each other so we met up, had a few beers and realised we could do it! After that the 3 of us with no bassist, started jamming in an empty warehouse and that was it. Mark joined the fray later down the road.

GS: So how come you could just drum then?

LC: I dunno I just could and realised it at about the age of 5. We knew Frank Noon of Def Leppard and used to go round his house. I sat on the kit and could just play, I had natural rhythm. Unlike you apparently? I’ve heard you sat up til 5am trying to play the basic start from I Am The Resurrection and ended up with bruises all over yer head?!

GS: Yes. So, influences?

LC: Well we started out playing punk stuff really. Sex Pistols n that. We were into Led Zep after that and Black Sabbath

GS: Can’t beat a bit of Sabbath.

LC: Nah, then as we got better we got into deeper stuff.

GS: Tell us about Creature of Curiosity, the debut album. It’s one of my favourite albums in years.

LC: Cheers man. Well James Sollis approached us and he loved the songs. He’d worked with all sorts of people like Cat Stevens and Depeche Mode and just said he’d love to record with us as he wanted to try out a new studio which was apparently right up our street. He’d heard we were looking for something unconventional. We went along to this place and it was an old abandoned mental home in Welling.

GS: Wasn’t the house I grew up in was it?!

LC: haha I dunno. Coulda been. It was called Goldie Leigh Hospital. The studio was in an old boiler room or something that apparently had a dark past including electric shock treatment n stuff. There were parts of the place still active so some of the guests shall we say, would wander in at times.

GS: Probably mistaken Dave for their room mate with his barnet?

LC: hahaha yeah! There was a huge store cupboard with horrible looking tools and scalpels that had been used years ago so we used those on the album to create effects and sounds and percussion.

GS: Christ on a bike, anything else?

LC: Every Tuesday was music therapy afternoon and we had to vacate the room. We left the mics recording one day and they’d all been in there going mad

GS:  Is that PC?

LC: dunno, going mad in there creating all sorts of noise hitting everything and when we played it back they’d done a cover of Rebel Yell!

GS: What?! No way?! That’s amazing! You need to play that backwards or something on the EP, slow it down and weird it out. Wow.

LC: Yeah we should. We’d stay over n get stoned and see loads of parrots flying about. It all kind of suited the feel of the album.

GS: Top stuff that.

L C: Yeah we took time with it, recorded it over 8 months to make sure we got it right. We funded the vinyls and CDs ourselves with the aim to release on a label. The artwork is something we’re so proud of and it was an incredible artist that got in touch called Sebastian Wahl from New York.

GS: The artwork seems to just match the sound somehow.

LC: Yeah it’s amazing. Psychadelic shit.

GS: So, labels...

LC: We had some offers to licence it and we were previously signed to a little label. But we wanted as many people as possible to hear it and on the label that wasn’t happening. We felt guilty charging people to buy it as so many people had helped and believed in us so we decided to just invite people to pay what they wanted for it.

GS: That’s cool of you. How did that go?

LC: Loads downloaded for free and some paid £100.

GS: How was it received?

LC: Really well. We got 5 stars in Artrocker, Tom Robinson BBC6 loved it and played it as did John Kennedy on XFM loads. Classic Rock bigged it up, so did the Fly, a few others too. We also supported Band of Skulls and Black Rebels off the back of it and Gary Moor of Thin Lizzy which was great for us. He loved the set.

GS: So it seems to me that you have everything a band needs to make it. Desire, humility and mega tunes. Why is it so hard?

LC: I just think there’s loads of good music out there. I also think we can just get better. We don’t make excuses and look for people to blame we just say we have to keep working and get better. Not just do an EP and send it around or wait for someone else to do that for us and then think “oh no one signed us, must be someone else’s fault”.

GS:  Well, that, is a refreshing attitude. Respect.

LC: Thanks. Some pretty big labels have come to us (not named in this interview for obvious reasons) and said “you’ve got something going there and you’re onto something, just keep going”.

So that’s our attitude, just work harder. So easy to blame others.

There are some good people approaching us now in various guises.

GS: The new EP then? I heard some of the tracks at your brilliant Maidstone Fringe gig and they definitely have a new feel to them, another flavour, and show that you’re growing and adding even more depth.

LC: Yeah I think it’s a big step up in terms of song writing and feel.

GS: What’s the plan then?

LC: Plan is to keep active and keep churning quality material out. We did a gig recently at The Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell for Mystic Sons label and they loved our set and recommended some radio pluggers to us so we’ve got that ready to go along with some online and digital PR. We’re putting everything we have into it.

We’re aiming to release it in about 6 weeks so end of June some time. We’d like a booking agent but not desperate as we’re willing to do the work ourselves, and we’re also being selective in where we play. We don’t just want to be a pub band.

GS: Top lads. Anything else you want to mention?

LC: Yeah mates of ours, a band called Syd Arthur. They’re doing really well and we want to do some stuff together. Weller loves them and they’re supporting him soon on tour. If you like us you’ll like them.

GS: Next gig?

LC: Next gig is at the Not Cool Festival at Hoxton Bar & Grill. But we’ll have some other stuff coming in as we’re getting lots of offers. Check bandcamp , facebook and whitebonerattle.com for info.

GS: Nice one. Anything interesting we don’t know?

LC: Yeah I don’t know if many people know but brothers are supposed to have amazing harmonies due to the connection.

GS: That’s really cool, didn’t know that. Dave and Mark certainly work well together.

LC: Oh and we once played a squat party in Hackney at 5am and everyone was off their faces, every drug you can imagine was on show and they were literally selling this drink with de-icer in it!

GS: Sounds cool! Gerrit?

Nice one Liam. See you soon.

LC: Cheers.

Go to whitebonerattle.bandcamp.com to download ‘Creature of Curiosity’ and whitebonerattle.com for general news.

@whitebonerattle

@gigslutz_david