Rock legend Jimi Hendrix once said: “Anybody can do anything, it’s up to themselves. All it takes is the right intentions.” This maxim dominates rock; it permeates its pounding riffs and passionate melodies. His words seem ironic when we once believed that thousands of years ago the Gods forced Sisyphus to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain where it would then fall back on its own weight. For us then, rock was the symbol of punishing, futile labor. Well, if Sisyphus had been anything like as extraordinary as Zico Chain, he’d have taken that rock and smashed it.
Zico Chain are a band that “had to go there to come back”. After losing everything including their record label, they were forced to squat in cold, derelict houses whilst penning their new album The Devil in Your Heart. Their music blazes with tenacious optimism that grabs you by the shoulders and forces your fist to beat the air in time to the relentless drums. Rock has become criminally underappreciated in recent years, but with the successes of bands like 30 Seconds to Mars, Cloud Control and Skrillex it’s slowly being pushed back up that hill into mainstream consciousness. Zico Chain is a not just a band, it’s a revolution.
I caught up with lead singer Chris Glithero ahead of their unmissable tour that will be coming to York’s Fibbers on March 2nd.
You have an incredible range of songs on your new album – not one sounds the same so it’s impossible to get bored! How did the writing process of The Devil in Your Heart work?
There was a lot of pressure on us at the time, I mean we were in a squat house, it was freezing cold in there and we must have re-written every song at least three or four times. I can still sing all the choruses we had written on top of the songs we have now! But it was a very creative process and we just spent days and days and days and days and days on end – it didn’t happen quickly! We were in these houses for 6-9months but we just wrote whatever we felt at the time…. We did learn not to drink and write at the same time though because, you know, you do tend to butcher things *laughs*.
It sounds like this album has been a real labour of love – how did you carry on making music in the face of everything?
I went to a Rise Against show a while ago in Camden and they had a merchant with a stand that basically had a lot of books on it (which I thought was really great for a band to be selling books at their show) and I bought a couple and I was quite inspired. It was basically about giving up all your material things in life and just getting on and being happy with the minimal… it’s almost a Buddhist approach you know? And I just tried to take a lot of that on board because at the time Zico were really depressed. I hate to say that, but we really were *laughs*. We were on the edge of madness and it was nice to just give up on everything and say “let’s just make our music”. I really don’t want to put it across as a negative experience, it was hard at the time, but genuinely it’s one of the best things we ever did.
So optimism is the fuel of this album?
We were trying to take all the negatives and turn it into something positive and think ‘how can we be creative from this? How can we look on the bright side of it?’ and really make something from our situation rather than moan about it. So all of the songs no matter what the theme, generally have an optimistic edge.
One of our songs, ‘Case #44PQ 110807’ was written about the Sophie Lancaster case and I wrote a song inspired by her story and her fiancée actually got in touch with us about the song and he ended up doing all the art work on the album. He’s a good friend of ours now – we’ve donated to charities of his choice and stuff, have got some ideas for videos with him. It’s nice to be able to create something positive out of pain.
When you guys first started out things moved pretty quick – you got signed and were then whipped over to America after a bit of UK touring. Are you keen to take things a bit slower this time and pace yourselves or does the fast paced lifestyle suit the band well?
*Laughs* We can’t do anything slowly. It was only two months ago, at the start of December when we said to each other “we need to build a team”. And now we’ve got online regional press, we’ve got a booking agent – we’ve built it all up in a month… and it was the month most people have off! We are fast. And if it ends up like last time when we end up racing round for 12months on tour then so be it – I think that’s just what we like!
You’ve earned an amazing reputation for live shows and are coming to Fibbers on March 2nd. Do you prefer playing at festivals like Download or smaller more intimate venues?
I honestly don’t know! I love them both for very different reasons. I think the Download festival was a great experience and it was a great gig but I’ve never been able to put my finger on what the answer to this question is! It depends how much I’m enjoying myself and that doesn’t necessarily depend on how many people are there. You know, I can enjoy myself in a rehearsal! It just depends on how involved I get in the music. It doesn’t matter to us whether it’s a small venue or a stadium, they’re all just big parties for us when we get up and have a gig. I’m a little bit of a selfish frontman actually *laughs* I kind of just shut my eyes and get lost and at the end I open them again and there are people there. We’re feeling a little bad about it at the moment so we’re going to try and get some more audience interaction. We’ve done the garage band, head down hair on your face thing already! We’re going to try and take it to the next level.
Slowly in the charts folk music has been making a comeback with such new genres as the oxymoronic sounding ‘techno-folk’. Do you think rock could have a similar popular renaissance?
Yeah I reckon it will! I mean especially with the successes of bands like Skrillex and things. I was just working as a stage technician for Katy B so we went around the world to America and Australia and stuff and I saw how there’s definitely a bigger scene for dubstep than rock nowadays, and I didn’t think that was the case. So Rock’s going to have to update itself because of the technology, I mean not to get too geeky but the PA systems these days are built towards dance music and dance festivals which sound amazing, like, TV quality in front of 8,000 people but to do live music with rock it’s a lot harder to do that. So it’s going to have to update. But there is definitely a renaissance coming for rock.
But do you think changing the sound of rock will alienate fans that have supported it in the past?
I wonder that, but defining rock nowadays, I mean, I don’t know what it is any more. It’s changed so much over the last 40 years and you’ll always get people who preferred the sound of it 5 years ago or 10 years ago and everyone will cling to whatever decade they thought was the best but I think with Zico Chain we just try to incorporate as much of everything we like into the mix and try to have something for everyone, because that’s how we feel – we want it all! We try to use every aspect of rock music into our album and our music. It’s funny, we had a review from a chap on metal hammer who was talking about our album and he defined us as “the band who sound like everyone ever”… and he didn’t like us for that reason! *laughs* So I think it was my favourite review ever. I loved it!
What then makes a song for you, what’s that ‘sound’ that you guys look for?
I can get off on anything as long as there’s passion in it and it’s got a bit of soul in it. I can’t get off on how fast you play, or how good is your double kick, or how long you can scream for. I can listen to that for a song, but in terms of an album it doesn’t do anything for me. I’m a bit of a snob in that sense! But that means it can be pop, it can be reggae, folk – anything. I can get off on anything as long as there’s passion and soul in it. I thought that last Mumford and Sons album was amazing.
Obviously you guys met at University – would you say Uni is a great place for an aspiring rock band to grow?
I. Love. Uni. I’d go back tomorrow – it was amazing! *laughs* Yeah I mean definitely Uni’s just, in terms of creativity, you’ll never be in a place again when you’re surrounded by that many like minded people again. From the day you leave, that’s cut down to like, 1% than what you had at uni so just make the most of it. Meet as many people there as you can. You know, so many people will go on to do amazing things and in a few years you’ll be looking at them going ‘wow look what so-and-so has done’. It’s just a great place to make your contacts and build up a basis for whatever you’re going to do for the next 20, 30 years.
Well, with Uni comes partying and I heard Zico Chain has quite a party reputation – I even read you got in trouble with Spanish police for stealing a marrow??
*Groans* Aaaah yeah we did… If I’m honest I can’t remember too much about it! *laughs* To put it into perspective, I watched Hangover 2 a couple of days ago and there’s a bit at the end where they show photographs of their evening and we used to wake up the next day with a camera roll of photos on our phone of things that had gone on… So we’d get so many drinks down us we’d get absolutely plastered and we wouldn’t know where the hell we’d been or what we’d been up to until the next day. And the Marrow Incident was one of those things, we got a pretty severe leg beating for running from the Spanish police with a piece of fruit from a war memorial… and that’s about all we can remember! Both our manager and the police were pretty pissed off with us. We were a bit crazy but we’ve grown up a bit – I’ve got a boy now so we still like a good party but we’re a little more tame! … I believe that night though I was so drunk I ended up strangling my tour manager with his seat belt and threw him out of the taxi. Then I also went and bought another marrow to throw at him… But in the morning they found me sat humbly with my marrow on a bench outside the hotel waiting for them to come out so I could apologise.
And lastly, what does Zico Chain want to deliver now? What are you expecting from yourselves?
The great thing we know now is that we can make records, great sounding records, on our own without any industry people. Our aim is to take rock back to when punk bands used to make a record a year with 9 tracks. Those three years where we produced nothing was the most frustrating time of our lives but we know now that we need to keep working and I can guarantee if we’re not touring then we’ll be in the studio writing something – that’s how we’re going to work it. So basically you should expect lots more albums. We’re going to write so many albums that they annoy you!!