Chamber Band - We Write Concept Albums Based in Established Universes, and You Can Too!

We Write Concept Albums Based in Established Universes, and You Can Too!

I have the elevator pitch for Chamber Band prepped in my back pocket, prepared for any rando I meet who asks what I do during non-daylight hours:

“We write indie-rock based in established universes.”

The usual response to this is a slight nod and a confounded grin. It does sound a bit rehearsed when I say it, I’ll admit. But better that than stumbling, tumbling word garbage, right?

If I feel like my pitch has landed, and I have said rando on the hook, I’ll add:

“Our first album was a collection of love songs based in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.”

and/ or

“Our latest album is a series of protest anthems based in the world of The Hunger Games.”

This usually elicits a real response. Now they understand. Or, at least they can pretend to. Before, we were talking about music in the theoretical. I might as well have been dancing about architecture. But now… Now I’ve handed them something concrete: properties they’ve heard of. Properties they may actually have an opinion about, or know someone that does. They have a brother who is into ‘that sort of thing.’ Or a niece who ‘went as that character for Halloween.’ They aren’t necessarily going to spread the good word about Chamber Band and all that Chamber Band does, just yet, but they’re considering how I, as a person they’ve just met, who is this band, could play into that relationship. Will the brother want to hear about a person from a band they randomly met? Does said niece even like music, yet?

I then drop the name of the band — Chamber Band — and tell them to look us up on Google. We’re the first thing to show up under that name, inexplicably. (Bad news for anyone hoping to actually start an honest-to-God chamber band. Sorry, y’all.)

This works. This has worked. And not once, in my years of using this elevator pitch has a single person ever responded to the fact that my band produces content that exists in established universes with a “Why?”

It’s a good question, and one I’m sure you’re asking yourself right now.

With the near-endless promotion that has surrounded this past release, I’ve been questioned a lot on what we write and why we write it. In my answers, I wrestle between three truths,

sometimes conflicting:

1) The first truth is that it is really, really, REALLY convenient, from a publicity perspective. That goes without saying. I love Deities, our Dungeons & Dragons album, but I’d be kidding myself if I thought it would have made as big of a splash if it wasn’t about something that already existed. We were able to hit two markets at once: the tabletop gang, and the music lovers gang. Together, those two groups propped a debut album from a debut band up, and put us in an advantageous position going into album number two.

2) The second truth, and the one that’s more important to me, is that by writing within an established universe, it actually limits what can be done. With five band members, all with five differing musical tastes, and a huge swath of life experiences to draw upon, it can be near-impossible to decide what should and shouldn’t represent us. By leaning on an established property, and allowing that property to make the rules for us, we can solve conflict by pointing to the external, as opposed to the (entirely subjective) internal.

So when we come to a point where we’re like, should this violin part be in or not, we say, well does it help bring us into the world or not? And we can say, yeah it does, or no, it doesn’t. Which, to me, is a far more fun conversation than, “Hey, do you guys like this violin part?”

3) The third truth is that we can write as honestly in someone else’s world as we can in our own. I don’t need to namecheck actual places or people in my life to talk about them. In fact, I feel more safe with the one degree of separation a fantasy realm provides.

Pretty cool, right? It’s the same trick that musical theater writers have used for over a hundred years now. Take your own feelings and put them in someone else’s mouth.

There’s a reason those two Venn diagrams overlap. And it’s because our first album actually started as a musical.

I’m now one of five (!) songwriters in the band, but in the beginning, it was pretty much just me. I came up with core songs of Deities over the course of a rainy week, back when I was living in Los Angeles. I stole the song structures and melodies from a musical I co-wrote a few years before then, that had since petered out. The inspiration was that I had a universal coincidence on my side: ten years ago I bought my first acoustic guitar, had my first real long-term girlfriend, and played my first game of Dungeons & Dragons.

The band formed around that album, which you can take a listen to for free here:

href=”http://chamberband.bandcamp.com/album/deities”>Deities by Chamber Band</a></iframe>

When it came time to move on from that concept, we were faced with the question: do we do the same thing, again?

At that point, we didn’t know what a damn good concept can do for achieving ego-less peace of mind. All we knew was that we could do the same thing again, with a different coat of paint, or call Deities what it was and go a more conventional route.

So, what to do? If we’re talking beloved properties, there were very few in my mind that were as monumentally important to my being as Dungeons & Dragons. But, strategic minds eventually won out, and the attention that we could possibly get based on concept alone was too sweet to pass up.

Ultimately, the idea for the second album picked us. We were writing riffs before Deities was even being mastered — and the line for “Victory Tour” lent itself to a song about arrogance and pride. It melded in our minds as we read the first book. Just one of those cases of the universe telling us what to do. We just had to be wise enough to listen.

We originally only wanted to do a handful of songs. Victory Tour was the first out the gate, with Abernathy following shortly after, then All Propo. But the longer things went on, and the crazier our lives got, and the closer modern America looked to the dystopian world of Panem, we couldn’t help but toss another song or two in there. Suddenly, our little EP had a whopping 14 tracks, which was brought down to 12 through the process of recording and editing.

Careers was released October 6th, 2015 to “universal acclaim”. I say universal in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, as our audience isn’t quite large enough to reach the haters. Point is: our audience, who is really all we care about, is quite content with our follow-up. The most common thing we hear is that they were initially skeptical of an album based in the world of Panem, but they can appreciate it, just as thousands of people appreciate Deities, despite knowing next to nothing about Dungeons & Dragons.

You can listen to that here, as well:

href=”http://chamberband.bandcamp.com/album/careers”>Careers by Chamber Band</a></iframe>

Now, with Careers out and doing its thing, we again find ourselves writing music that feels emotionally honest, though untethered to any one property. At the end of the Victory Tour, we had a pow wow and decided that two concept albums does not make you a concept band, but three most certainly does. And while weighing the pros of cons of being what we already are, we discovered that there was simply no reason not to go whole hog into it. We were having our cake and eating it, too. We weren’t being hamstrung by our concepts. If anything, the only threat was of being marginalized, but in a world where a million plus bands are all competing for your attention, being compartmentalized isn’t the worst thing. It just gives you a brand.

As of this writing, we have a full length album in our pocket, with another in the works. We’re in the lucky position of really enjoying each other’s company, so creating new content is probably the easiest thing we do.

In our short time existing as a creative idea, we’ve already met a few bands that were inspired by what we started. We’ve seen even more, presumably uninformed by us, or unaware we even exist. And the great nerd rock movement continues on around us, doing their thing.

We’re just one example of what could work. And if this bit of history can lead you and I to any conclusions, let it be this: there are a million different ways to skin a cat, and even more ways you can get people’s attention. It doesn’t matter what path you choose, but whatever you do, do it honestly. The world has enough dishonest music, and let me tell you, when you’re up there on stage, singing your heart out about manticores and quarter quells, you’re going to be glad that at the core of it, there’s something within yourself you can connect to.

Chris Littler is the “blonde head of the Chamber Band hydra”, as well as a producer and writer. He lives in the neighborhood of Bushwick, in Brooklyn.

Both of Chamber Band’s albums are available to listen on Spotify. Chris encourages you to purchase through iTunes or Bandcamp, if possible.

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/chamber-band/id695112562

Band camp link: https://chamberband.bandcamp.com/album/careers

Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/artist/75gJeKvbn3dVsBR1j2koZQ

When it came time to move on from that concept, we were faced with the question: do we do the same thing, again?

You can listen to that here, as well:

<a href="http://chamberband.bandcamp.com/album/careers">Careers by Chamber Band</a>Now, with Careers out and doing its thing, we again find ourselves writing music that feels emotionally honest, though untethered to any one property. At the end of the Victory Tour, we had a pow wow and decided that two concept albums does not make you a concept band, but three most certainly does. And while weighing the pros of cons of being what we already are, we discovered that there was simply no reason not to go whole hog into it. We were having our cake and eating it, too. We weren’t being hamstrung by our concepts. If anything, the only threat was of being marginalized, but in a world where a million plus bands are all competing for your attention, being compartmentalized isn’t the worst thing. It just gives you a brand.

Chris Littler is the “blonde head of the Chamber Band hydra”, as well as a producer and writer. He lives in the neighborhood of Bushwick, in Brooklyn.

Both of Chamber Band’s albums are available to listen on Spotify. Chris encourages you to purchase through iTunes or Bandcamp, if possible.

iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/chamber-band/id695112562

Band camp link: https://chamberband.bandcamp.com/album/careers

Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/artist/75gJeKvbn3dVsBR1j2koZQ