Chevelle, a 3-piece band (three brothers) that is already big in the US, are currently in Europe for a few headlining shows and some festival gigs. Their show at the Melkweg, Amsterdam, June 5th, proved to us that getting big for Chevelle in Europe is just a matter of time. Gaining territory by doing live shows is what the band needs and probably will lead them to success over here in Europe. The Melkweg that night was pretty loaded with Chevelle fans, singing along which was something the band probably did not expect! Before the show that night, we spoke with Pete (Guitars/Vocals) and Joe (Bass).

In Holland you did interviews before with Aardschok, the interviewer called you “The Bee Gee’s of metal in that interview, what do you think of that?!
Pete: they did? Because we are brothers? Sam did that interview I believe. I was really sick the last time we came here.
Joe: that is funny! I like the Bee Gee’s! Were they referring to our style?
Pitfather: no, I think it was meant ironically because you are brothers.

I think they might compare you to them because in one way you are also successful but in metal. It all goes pretty fast for you guys.
Pete: yes is going fast. We got signed in 1998. It is going well now, back home the album is about to go platinum. And now we are coming here and sort of starting over again. Which is pretty interesting.

That is one of our questions: how it is to start all over again in Europe. Interesting?
Pete: it is weird to play here, I just hope we got fans here. It is hard to say, as you know we only played once before here (in 013, Tilburg, supporting Audioslave, Pitfather). We are going to try.
Joe: Tilburg where we played last time is 2 hours away from here, I hope people drive off to see us here again.
Pitfather: more people come to Amsterdam for shows. Tilburg is a bit far away for most people.
Pete: yeah it felt kinda far away back then!

For your new album, Wonder What’s Next, you worked with an other producer then before, how was that?
Pete: it was an interesting experience. What happened was we used Garth Richardson because he did the Mudvayne record and we saw that as something really loud and really tough. We wanted that sound, that intensity for our new record. We went to Vancouver, Canada for nine weeks. It was kinda hard for us because we got there at September 10th and the next day was the tragedy of September 11th. We were out of the country for that time, away from our families. Making a record is not easy, else everybody would do it. We focused hard on what we wanted to project on the record. We worked hard on the vocals and the songs. It came out great I find.

We are not familiar to your previous album, can you describe the differences?
Pete: yeah, it was called Point #1. It was done with an Indie producer, Steve Albini. He is pretty big back home. The reason we used him was that he was close by in Chicago and we loved some of the records he has done. But it was not a very good projection of the record what we wanted it to be. We did that one in 2 weeks and we did the next and latest record in 11 weeks. We had a much better idea of what we wanted now.

I have read somewhere that at that time you seemed happy about the production and later you were not so happy about it anymore.
Pete: it is interesting because you always want to project a positive spin. And we liked to do that but you can not always do that. We are learning about the business and ourselves. You have to be really honest with who we are and be honest to people with what you tell them. Really tell them what you think. I think young bands can learn a lot from older bands and what they have done. It is important for us to spread the word that if things are difficult in certain areas that they watch out for those, if you know what I mean. It was difficult for us to leave for nine weeks and I do not think we will be doing that on the next record.

The songs of Point #1, are you perhaps using them again in the future? I mean you can because most people do not know that album, because the distribution was not that good.
Pete: we probably are going to let that be its own thing. It is a hard record to find but if you look closely you can buy it somewhere. But we have new ideas to move forward with.

For tonight’s show, will there be songs from Point #1?
Pete: maybe. We did that in London and we did not have any old songs on the setlist but we played 2 older songs anyway that people wanted to hear.

Do you think the new record will give you success here in Europe?
Pete: I sure hope so. We definitely want to appeal to everyone. We are over here because we care. I hope people will like it and if they do they will come back some time for us. We will see what happens, it is going well so far.
Pitfather: but this is only a small tour.
Pete: yeah, I think it is a bit too early to tell right now. But we are really into what we are doing. I think maybe our next record is a better time to judge that kind of things.

What do you think is the most important progress you made with this album?
Pete: what do you think Joe?
Joe: the recording in general definitely.
Pete: for me I think vocally and lyrically it is a big step up. The studio that we were in was pretty big, many rooms. I could take the rough mixes and go to an other room and finish the lyrics on. Keep writing, I had all these sheets and kept fixing lines up. That is a big progress, the writing. I got more productive in sticking to the point of focus. Songs like The Red and Comfortable Liar jump up to me as strong songs.

The song The Red, the video for it is also on the album. Can you tell a bit about it?
Pete: it is about ventilating your frustration so we thought about the AA meeting, it fits the concept real well. It was more a meeting for anger control. Straight to the point concepts. I loved it, it was funny and I had a chance for a little acting. I was on that stage for 10 hours doing the song 30 times but it was good. The recording for the video took about one day, 12 hours straight.

The title of your album, Wonder What’s Next, it comes from a period in your career of huge uncertainty. Is this still the case, is this still the way how you look at life?
Pete: the concept for the title came up from one song that is on the album. It is about dealing with everyday life, ups and downs and frustrations. That was the case and that sounded like the whole idea for the record. It is nice to be successful and sell records. But there is so much more involved like touring. Finishing the record is just a tiny part. In that way I do Wonder What’s Next.
Joe: it is just a philosophy of what we were thinking, bad stuff keeps happening all the time in this business. Sometimes things go well sometimes not.
Pete: it is a difficult thing and more so then every art form. If you are a painter, you can go on all by yourself. You are dealing with your own expression. You get paint on and ship that off to where it needs to go. We can not do that, just finish a record and ship it of and be done with it. We need to go out there and physically paint every night. Play. It gets draining and not everyone realizes how difficult that can be. But you can do amazing things. Like being in Amsterdam tonight!

After the second stage on Ozzfest last year you now play on the main stage. How is that being with all those famous people, like Ozzy himself?
Pete: it is crazy, we went to the Osbournes mainship in L.A and they had this press conference and I was up there. They had the singers of all bands playing on main stage, Jonathan Davies, Marilyn Manson and ME! Bands that are in business and brought amazing albums. And hopefully we are at the beginning of this. It is interesting cause only 2 bands from last year are coming back this year and that is Ozzy and us!

Are you coming to the European Ozzfest as well?
Pete: I don’t know, they did not really tell us yet, when is that?
Pitfather: that is not sure, September or something. Last year it was June but now this was not possible.
Pete: do you think it is a good thing to do, play there?
Pitfather: oh yeah, definitely. Things like Dynamo are gone now so more people come to things like Ozzfest. And last year it was in June which is a month of many festivals but in September this is not the case so I think this brings more people to the Ozzfest. If the weather is still good, many people want to go I guess.

Oh there is the tour manager already, just a few questions. I was wondering. You said in an other interview that it was hard to write songs while touring and that you only have a bit of time to finish these songs while touring.
Pete: yeah it is hard because it starts on the acoustic guitar. I can start ideas on the road, I have a tape deck but as far as writing is pretty hard on tour for us. If we are at home it is really productive, we work out the ideas. We try to do that this fall.

Sam once said that if everything keeps progressing like it is now, you will probably become a large band in a couple of years. What is the feeling you get with this, because playing in small venues is not quite possible then anymore. Are you going to miss the intimacy with the fans?
Pete: If you really have a bigger crowd you can always do a smaller show. I am not too worried about that because the business is so hard that all I care about is to stick with the reasons why we started making this music. And not let all of our creativity drive far beneath the idea of selling records and getting gigantic. We started this music because we wanted to do something creative and we did not like a lot of the music we heard on the radio by that time. It was just a way of expressing ourselves, to get out. Hopefully we can stick to that, the ideas we had when we started. It is a cool thing that people reacted to our record so much back in the stage. Because it was a record that we love to play the songs of every night. That is our focus and we try to do that the next record too.

Allright, last question, do you have any last thing to say to our viewers and your fans?
Pete: we hope that they like the record and if they do that they come out to see us play live. Because we really try to project that same intensity live. So come out and see us.

Ok, thanks a lot guys, we go see the show tonight to give the good example!

And they really did! Just before the support act started playing, not many people were present in the venue. However, when Chevelle started, it was quite packed with people really into this band.

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