Looking Inwardly: An Interview with Mark Burgess of The Chameleons

Listening to The Chamelons is like smelling a perfume you once knew. Once that certain aroma captures your attention you are transported back to that very moment where you first experienced it. That moment you met someone, left someone, starved, cried, laughed. This Manchester-based paragon banded in 1981, a year that was rich with budding avant-garde, post-punk legends such as Bauhaus, Modern English, Dead Can Dance and Clan of Xymox. Mark Burgess was on vocals and bass, Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding doing the guitar work and John Lever on drums. They were involved in the BBC John Peel sessions era, who showcased prodigies such as Joy Division, Cocteau twins and The Smiths .The Chameleons went on to produce the 1983 debut album  "Scripts of the Bridge" followed by  "What does anything thing mean? Basically" and "Strange Times". By 1987 they were disbanded only to reform briefly, years later, in 2000.  They're an underdog in terms of lyrically charged, glimmery, subtly psychedelic British post-punk, that has a depth unmatched. Sometimes, with such an illustrious musical affinity,  you don't get the honesty that they have and continue to have.  Mark Burgess, who now performs this original material under the title The ChameleonsVox, is on tour now. They will be at the Pandemonium event alongside Theatre of Hate, Soft kill, Ötzi and The Ink Bats on 9/9 in Oakland.  He invites us in on this interview with very introspective stories recalling his time working with the BBC sessions, his moments as human/artist trying to navigate through this world and his love for the bay area. 

You are now returning to the bay after two years since doing the “Script of the Bridge” tour. Your last show with us at the Elbo Room in SF sold out.  One of my friends and local DJ's  said that in 1982 “Script of the Bridge” was the Number One played album on bay area radio station KUSF! I was happy to hear that!  You’re coming back on 9/8 with Theatre of Hate and Soft Kill.   What was your reaction to the current excitement as well as lasting legacy The Chameleons have in the current music scene? Who is in your line up this tour?

It never ceases to surprise me when we get an excited reaction to the news that we’re coming into a city to play. That’s something I’ve never taken for granted., I mean, that’s a pretty good feeling, right? It definitely gives us a very positive outlook and makes us more excited about doing them. I’ve personally been performing this material a long time and I’d be a liar if I said that my enthusiasm never waned. On occasion it has, but never when we get those kinds of reactions to a tour announcement. I think for me, personally, it helps me focus too on trying to want to make the shows the best we’ve shows we’ve done. Whether we succeed or not is entirely subjective but it definitely motivates everyone to focus that little bit more than we would when it’s felt kind of routine. Having said that, the times performing this music HAS felt routine is quite rare. We get a lot of direct feedback and there’s often excitement around an upcoming show, maybe not every date on a tour but certainly key places.

The line-up SHOULD have been the same line-up as the last time we were in town, myself on bass on vocals, Neil Dwerryhouse on guitar, Chris Oliver on guitar and Yves Altana on drums. Unfortunately, Chris has had complications around his passport and visa applications, which resulted in him having to withdraw from the tour and I’ve had to ask my old friend and past collaborator, Justin Lomery, who’s currently based in New York, to step in. Justin has played a few tours with me both here and in Europe so I was very relieved not to say overjoyed that he’s stepping in, cause he’s a great guitar player with a real passion for this music. I’m looking forward very much to having him back on board. Those people who are familiar with some of my recordings outside of Chameleons will know the name Yves Altana. I’ve made a couple of albums with him over the years and performed quite a few number of tours with him too. He’s a very talented multi-instrumentalist, guitar being his strongest, but took over drum duty a couple of years ago when John Lever got injured and continued with that after John eventually left the band. Anyone who’s been around long enough to see The Sons Of God U.S. tour in 1994 might remember Yves played guitar on that, as did Neil Dwerryhouse who’s also with me currently. 

I'm really glad that worked out with Justin Lomery. I know a lot of bands who have had to cancel their U.S. shows due to passport complications. 

“Dont’ fall”, “Here Today” and “Second Skin”  to name a few are just a few of your songs that highlights the pain and struggles in life while simultaneously having a positive edge to it.  Your songs have a sort of rebirthing quality to them. As if maybe one minute you are going “up on the down escalator” (to be cheeky) and you're crying and losing it and then your lyrics bring back this glimmer of hope, a realistic hope and you might even find yourself smiling, getting ready to pick yourself up and face the day, the month, the problem with a shred of virtue still present.  What was some of your situations you were in that helped write these songs? 

Oh God yeah, I mean life even now, is a bit of a roller coaster. I mean there’s a common arc through all of them really that stems from a feeling of alienation, of being the outsider, but I’ve never felt that things are totally hopeless or anything. I mean, yeah, it gets harder to see that hope or to hang on to it, no question but events and circumstances, or consequences haven’t been able to stamp out that light of hope I carry completely. I mean, I believe in following paths, finding the right one and following it, although right and wrong are not really good words to describe them, there is no wrong path or right path really, just this one or that one and often they can converge into the same present, what sets them apart are the experiences and lessons and consequences of cause and effect that are unique to them. They don’t all necessarily have the same destinations however, so it pays to listen to one’s instincts and not be afraid of taking hard, long, analytical or critical looks at oneself. All of my lyrics are born from direct experience of life and the interpretation of the reality around me and the alienation I’ve always felt from society. 

I’ve noticed in other interviews you mention that the audience has approached you with some detailed experiences of listening to your music. I have to say when I did at the Elbo Room I found you to be such a kind and generous spirit. It must be pretty incredible to be performing all over the world and hearing such personal stories that were inspired from listening your your records.

Yes, it is incredible and also incredibly powerful. You know, I’ve had people in tears holding me (saying) it’s meant so much to them. It’s the real reason why I do this, why I continue to perform this music instead of just moving on and relegating it to history. This is too important to people to just let it die, and the increasing relevance of it, the power of it, demands that I continue to perform it. Working out a way of doing both, making more music outside of it and continuing to perform it has been a little problematic for me. I’m not wealthy and I have to make a living just like everyone else. Those kinds of complexities can be tricky to deal with to be honest. It’s the kinds of reactions and encounters that you speak about that brings the purpose of what I’m doing into focus. People can and have got very cynical about the music and it’s ability for change, especially rock based music, which many see as being largely irrelevant these days. If you’re not the Beatles or the Sex Pistols, you know, changing the fabric of society why bother? Surely, then in light of that rock music is rather superficial. What they fail to see is the impact it has on a personal level for people and how that can change the world in ways that, despite not being globally visible, are just as significant if not more so. “He saves a single life, saves the world entire". So that kind of feedback, the kind your talking about, is never, ever lost on me. 

 I’ve always been curious about the album art. They all have their own dream like quality to them. The cover art of “Script of the Bridge” has a new romantic feel to it while “Strange Times” has this sort of surrealistic take. I read that Reg Smithies was the artist. Can you tell me a little bit on the ideas/story behind presenting your albums by this cover art?

I can try but my instant take it on it is, not really and I doubt that Reg could either. "Script of the Bridge" is somewhat easier in that all of the places on there were places we went to, they’re real places. A freeway bridge that you cross on your way to cenotaph that stands in a park surrounded by the lights of Greater Manchester. The castle is Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland, a place we used to visit often and still do. The colours and the face represent something we saw there one night, Easter Sunday actually in 1982. 

"What Does Anything Mean? Basically!" I have no idea. It’s my favourite of all the sleeves, which is why I like to use it so much promoting the band I suppose. I liked it immediately but once it had been placed against the cloud backdrop I LOVED it. Gorgeous. What does it mean? Fuck knows.

"Strange Times"... well, I’m not sure again but I suspect it’s Reg just having some fun. The characters on the table are the usual Reg "surrealistic creations". His girlfriend at the time is looking on, opposite him, while he draws his own hand reaching in and interacting with it. It wasn’t designed to be a record sleeve, he just showed it to me as something he’d done and I immediately knew that was it. None of the records had titles when he worked on what became the sleeves, they just seemed to fit naturally to each other. 

 I think some of the most timeless recordings came from the BBC/ Peel Sessions- and you were apart of the chosen! Any thoughts on this moment in time for you and The Chameleons? What was it like to be apart of something so iconic?

AMAZING.. Definitely high amongst my favourite experiences with the band. We had no motives other than to be on that program, which we listened to religiously each evening Monday to Thursday. It was a nightly ritual for a while. We’d meet at a friends place after doing whatever it was we’d been doing that night: roll a few spliffs and listen to Peel. I’d been listening to him since his Radio Caroline days. I got into T.Rex as a young kid through John Peel and a lot of other things. WE all did. So, to actually be on the show was fantastic and having him hype the session the night before it went out, well, we didn’t expect that. We were floored by that. I’d never heard him do that before when he was promoting the following night’s session. I was stunned by that. The whole experience was surreal. Meeting him outside the BBC to give him the tape to have him phone me at home early the following Monday morning. I mean I thought it was a wind up for about 30 seconds. Recording at the BBC at Langham. We’d be given the choice to do it there immediately or wait for the new state or the art studio at Maida Vale to be finished. It was no - brainer. I knew how many great sessions had been recorded at Langham going back to the likes of Jimmy Hendrix and a fledgling David Bowie. And we learned so much with their engineers and producers. It was said that if they didn’t like it you’d be done and dusted by 10:30 pm. We never got out there before 3:00 a.m the following morning. I think the other reason why I loved those sessions so much was that by and large you’d do ideas that were barely developed or finished, because they were the freshest and the ones we were most excited about, and seeing as you had to record four songs in a single day it was very fast and spontaneous, but the producers and the engineers were good enough that they could capture that excitement and freshness. I think that’s why Peels sessions in particular still hold a place in people’s hearts when it comes to their favourite bands. You don’t have the weeks of production in there, the meticulous attention to detail, you just have the band raw and excited to be there. I mean I’d take The Smiths’ Radio Sessions over most of their records any day of the week for that very reason. ………..

I would have to agree with you on that one!  Those sessions do capture those candid moments. Your story alone makes me excited! What a whirl wind!

One of my musician acquaintances commented casually that the “music industry is an industry of rejection. Don’t let it get you down and stay focused”. Do you think this is a true statement from when you started out in 1981 up until now? 

Yes, I do and I think it’s a very good way of expressing it. It always seemed strange to me that they’d pick up on something or sign something that was obviously exciting people but then interject and re-interject elements they thought needed changing or fucking with, until what was great about it is lost or the band splinter cause they can’t agree. And then yeah the myriad of bands and talent out there that never even make it that far who might actually believe that these accountants that run the business actually know what they’re fuckin’ talking about. I’ve been really gratified to see the industry expand to the point where the mechanisations that were traditionally running it have become pretty much irrelevant. I mean, sure, if you throw a million dollars at a record chances are you get it to chart or on rotation or what not, but what genuine artist is interested in that anyway? It used to be important, I suppose, to the likes of early Bowie, but in recent years it’s become as hollow and as mundanely irrelevant as it ever was. It’s a hard question to answer though to be honest because while rejection is the norm in this business, I mean you have to be prepared for that. Unless you can show merit on your own, no one’s going to take notice and cause resources to fall into your lap from the sky. If you can’t mentally prepare and stand up to that kind of rejection you’re fucked, now more than ever. While that’s the norm, I never really experienced it. Within six months of joining the band and getting to grips with the song writing I found myself on John Peel’s show and CBS records. While it’s true the band was eventually dropped, that was what we wanted. We were happy to get out of that and it didn’t take us more than a few weeks to find a home somewhere else and when that went south we found another one, or another one found us. So, I’ve never really experienced that kind of rejection, although as I say I know it is the norm for artists and up and coming talent. 

  You are touring with Soft Kill right now. I know you collaborated with them on their 2016 album Choke. I know last week you announced that you had produced a recording session with Belgium band “An Orange Car Crashed”.  Looking forward to hearing this! How did you get involved with Soft Kill and AOCC?  

Well, Soft Kill contacted us with a view to putting together the 2015 tour we did and we became firm friends, added to which obviously we really liked the band. We play with a lot of bands and while many of them are good, a few outstanding and Soft Kill for my money are one of them. So when they asked if I’d do a spot of vocals on their record last year I was happy to do that. Now they’re bringing us out again having just toured with us in Europe, although, the European shows had nothing to do with us. Our agent in London phoned and asked if we’d mind if he featured this band he’d discovered from America, on the dates he was putting together, and told us it was a band called Soft Kill. He had no idea we knew them, which says something about our relationship with our agent, how we laughed.  AOCC were a band I met when were on the road in Belgium (Arlon to be exact) and we played with them a few times and became friends. I’d spent the weekend out there performing with them on an Adrian Borland tribute show they’d put together and it kind of cemented our friendship. So a couple of them came over when we played with The Mission last May at a festival and asked me to do it. I don’t really do much of that to be honest but in this case they’re such a great gang I fell in. I have to say it was a very enjoyable experience on every level. They’re very happy with the results too, which is a relief- haha!! I couldn’t stay for the mixing though, which is a bit of a bummer. 

Like what you were talking about earlier, it was as if your paths were converging.

I’m so sorry to hear about the passing of drummer John Lever earlier this year. I’m sure you have had quite the journey of the soul.  

Yeah, that was very hard to process seeing as over the last few years we hadn’t been on the best of terms, which I suppose is putting it lightly. I don’t know I mean, when I got the news I was shocked obviously that it had finally happened, but I couldn’t say I was surprised given his lifestyle choice. It was really was a ticking time-bomb. I mean, I was able to make my peace. I had a very strange experience a few days after I got the news, which I won’t go into, suffice to say it brought me a lot of peace. I think what I hate about those situations, aside from losing someone you love obviously, is all the social politics that come to bear after and around the event. It become so emotive and clouded that the really important factor, i.e. losing someone you love, gets completely lost in the bullshit. The living are to blame for that, not the dead. At any rate, yeah, it’s very, very strange to think that John isn’t out there right now being John, that we’ve lost one of us in a very real sense. I suppose I’m still processing that really and will be for years to come if I live that long. 

 When you come here for tour what are your feelings on San Francisco/ Oakland?

Well, my feelings for San Francisco have been there for years because I’ve made no secret that it’s one of my favourite cities in the world, one I’d dearly love not to have to leave. In recent years Oakland, too. I had an incredible roller coaster summer in Oakland some years back and the music I was finding that was coming out of the Bay was incredible. I mean it kind of reminded me of Manchester - circa 1978, which was a bit of a golden age really with the likes of The Fall and Joy Division. So yeah I have a massive amount of affection to the Bay Area and the music that’s come out of it. I mean, off the top of my head, Blackbird Blackbird, Blasted Canyons, Grass Widows, Wymond Miles, Tamaryn, The Oh Sees, some great talent and some great, great records. 

 All of your songs are emotionally charged in some way, some are more somber and existential than others, but is there any particular songs that you still perform that bring up pain for you? is there a sense of “re-living” certain situations via performance of certain songs? 

Well yeah, but my pain plays a huge part in who I am and as long as I can still feel that when I perform the music I know I’m still me, although, I like to think I am evolving as a person and dealing with a lot of that. To be honest, I wouldn’t perform the music if that wasn’t true. I mean people come to shows in the hope you’ll be able to recreate how that music made them feel when they first heard it, before they eyes, so I have to tap into that in order to give the music its potency, otherwise I’m just going through the motions. 

Better get your tickets to Pandemonium! The ChameleonsVox put on an incredible live show. You really shouldn't miss it. Such a great line up! Get your tickets here!