Tell us a little bit about Chub’s history. Can you give us a brief biography of each of the members and how the band and band name come to be?
By Chase & Jesse Chappell
A biography of each member? Who’s got the time! Jake and Devan always wanted to start a band, but every attempt ended after a jam or two. But one night driving home from seeing The Chats they drove by a “Chubb Security” van and thought “Chub would be a sick band name”. Inspired by both The Chats and the cool name, they formed and stuck to the new band. Isaac came on board on bass shortly after and then a while down the line (after recording our first album), Ryan jumped on board on guitar. Originally guitar was played by our friend Jansen.
Your music appears to draw inspiration from the punk and hard-core scene as well as Aussie punk bands like The Chats and Amyl and The Sniffers. What about this style of music resonates with Chub?
The Chats and Amyl make fast, fun and kick ass punk music without taking themselves too seriously. We like music that you can get drunk and fuck around to.
On the topic of influences, what bands are currently in your daily rotation?
Ramones, Blink, The Wonder Years, Turnstile, The Chats, Single Mothers, and Black Country, New Road to name a few.
As a Niagara based artist, how does it feel to be part of the new wave of Niagara musicians and the Niagara music community as a whole?
There’s a lot of cool bands featuring cool people making cool stuff. Daze Away, Mushroom Valley, and Sunshine Express to name a few. It’s sick to be around all that. It’s nice to really dig the art by your friends and to have them dig yours too.
Chub is playing in a scene that was popularized by hard-core acts such as Alexisonfire, Cancer Bats, Black Lungs, etc., do you see yourself carrying on the hard-core legacy of St. Catharines?
We don’t see ourselves as carrying on that kind of legacy. I think as soon as we start to see ourselves in that light it’s all over. The spirit and vision for the band is lost at that point. Hell, we’re not even that hard. Chub is fun. Our fan favourite song is called Shrek 2. Holy Face of Jesus does rip though.
In terms of legacy, what ambitions do you have as a band?
We’d like to continue to make music and put on shows. A small tour would be nice at some point down the road. Nothing major in mind as that’s not why we do it. We hope people continue to show up, have fun, and try not to hurt themselves too much.
Let’s shift gears and talk about your latest album “Munk Punk”. First, what is “munk” punk and what does this album mean to each of the band members?
Munk is supposed to be like “monk”, but it looks cooler beside “punk” when it’s spelt with a “u”. We wanted to make an album that covered a gambit of punk styles and come up with a title that allowed us to freely explore that. Monk felt cool. Pub punk, shed rock, monk punk. If you check urban dictionary, it means something else entirely, which is also funny and appropriate.
What is the creative process of Chub and what does each member bring to the table stylistically and creatively?
For "Munk Punk" and "7 Inches" we would just shoot the shit in Jake’s garage. Once one member had a neat idea on their respective instrument, we’d record it and build off it. In the early days we found a good chunk of the songs in the recording process. For the most part, we do all the recording and mixing in house, so we have that luxury. We’re totally DIY; Jake directs all the music videos and mixes all the music and Devan does all the merch, cover art, flyers, etc.
What song have you all written that personifies the essence of “Chub”?
It’s an unreleased song, it’ll be the opening track on the next album. It’s called “A Celebration of Rural Living”. We did a live version of it on our newest EP. The lyrics are funny but still aggressive and the bridge goes fuckin’ hard.
Your upcoming concert at Warehouse on April 20th is fast approaching. As band, what mantras, rituals or prep work do you abide by to ensure an airtight performance?
Just practice a bunch. Also practice drunk. We will be performing drunk, so we want to make sure we have practiced drunk. You come to Chub for the fun show, maybe you get an airtight performance or maybe you don’t. Regardless, you get the best fuckin’ night of yer life.
What does the year look like for Chub after this upcoming gig?
We’re putting on a big show with all our friends and favourite local bands. We will be announcing the details of that soon enough. It may or may not be happening in late May. Then we got something else cool potentially lined up for June. We’ll probably drop another album late this year. We’re going to keep doing what we do until we get bored or die, whatever comes first.
You can check them out this Thursday at Warehouse Concert Hall
Good shit, boys