CHAPERONE: ‘We’re finding places where the Latin rhythms mix with the disco rhythms and the rock rhythms’

Sydney-based, funk-rock band CHAPERONE have released their infectious new single ‘Only In Emergencies’, mashing up funk, Latin beats and pops of jazz, all served up with their characteristic energy, passion and sense of fun, ahead of releasing their debut album this autumn.

The band comprises Isaac Mandela May (lead vocals and guitar), Henry McGlinchey (drums), Monique Davies (bass guitar), Andrei Agnew (tenor/baritone saxophone, Ishaan Vellani (percussion /alto saxophone backing vocals) and Kye Milne (trombone).

May and McGlinchey met as kids: ‘We went to an after school music class on a Wednesday, seven years ago, where they’d randomly assign you bands,’ May said. ‘At some point, I was fed up with whichever drummer they’ve given me and I said: “Please get rid of him” (laughs) and they gave me Henry.’ McGlinchey nods enthusiastically: ‘They told me Isaac was really good and that I’d love him.’ May looks at him: ‘Really? I’m actually very surprised they said that because the woman who ran it wasn’t loving my music but that’s okay (laughs).’ Agnew teases him: ‘ I don’t know if his music was really good in 2018. I went to school with Isaac but I never really spoke to him for six years (laughs). I went to a gig after school finished and went to the after party. I a little bit drunkenly came up to Isaac and said: “Do you ever need a saxophone? Let me know!” I forgot all about it but the next day he called me and said if I was serious, they’d love to have me.’ Davies is a recent addition to the band and is currently studying music at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney and heard of the others through friends who had seen them play live and mentioned they were looking for a bassist.

Their band name comes from their track of the same name, which they released in June 2024. ‘We went through nearly 100 names,’ Agnew lamented. ‘We have a Google doc with a bunch of different names – most of them are terrible! The worst one, I think, was ‘clone’ spelled ‘Kloan’ (laughs).’ I tell them that I interviewed another band recently who told me that one of the worst names they nearly called themselves was ‘Charisma’ with a ‘K’ and they all laugh. “Oh, that is better than most of the things we had on that list!’ Agnew said. ‘It was ridiculous, some of them really didn’t make any sense at all!’

‘This is definitely a track that has spent a few years evolving and getting better’

‘Only In Emergencies’ reels you in from the intro, with its beautiful musical layers featuring feathery drumming, a Spanish-like guitar line and majestic brass fills: ‘I think that I presented a very early version of the track without all of the interesting instrumental bits,’ May said. ‘Just a chord progression, I don’t think I even had any of the ideas for brass or anything like that. That all came from them. I’ve been listening to a lot of Latin music for the first time. This is definitely a track that has spent a few years evolving and getting better in the last three or four years. It’s the first track that Monique wrote a bass line for and one of the first tracks that we had Ishaan playing percussion on.’

May describes the wonderfully rich intro as ‘an acoustic guitar, a bit of a breathy flute, which Ishaan played and then Henry did this pattern using the rims.’ (A drum beat in which the shaft of the drumstick strikes the rim of the drum at the same time that the tip of the stick strikes the head.) McGlinchey jumps in: ‘It comes from Mexican pop music, which I like. The new guys like Peso Pluma and Xavi. It’s where the bass players, the corridos, are playing super, super fast, so I was kind of going for that bit on the rim of the drum.’ I say that it sounds like galloping and really pulls the whole song along and he agrees: ‘Yeah, that’s the whole corridos thing that I’m attempting.’

The drums build to a crescendo around two minutes thirty into it, as Agnew’s glorious sax solo takes off. ‘I think the signature brass part was something you came up with, Andrei,’ May said. Agnew nods. ‘Yeah, I think so. I remember it was very early into my writing days and I wanted to come up with a fast sort of line. I think I tried it against four or five other songs. I remember pitching it to you. I said: “I really want to play this somewhere, I don’t care where it happens!” The brass is really fun on this one, it’s not really a forefront thing for a while, but I think it adds a lot, it’s such a fun track to play. This is one of the first songs where I really spent a good amount of time beforehand actually mapping out the trajectory of the solo and what I wanted to play and I think it paid off a lot and definitely informed how I go into songs and coming up with solos in the future and thinking compositionally.’

‘My favourite is: “Play this one gorilla-style” – I say lots of odd things in the studio!’

May looks at him: ‘I remember when we were recording, Andrei, that there were four or five takes of you playing note value-wise the exact same solo but exploring different expressions of it.’ Agnew nods: ‘I landed on a pretty clear image of what I wanted to play. It was the same with our trombone player, Kye, who isn’t here tonight because he’s got the flu, sadly. Isaac is our producer mastermind in the studio, he’ll be behind the glass yelling at us to do different things. He’ll say: “Lean towards this bit, you know, maybe put a little growl on this bit (laughs).” May is laughing: ‘My favourite is: “Play this one gorilla-style” – I say lots of odd things in the studio!’

Interestingly, ‘Only In Emergencies’ is one of the hardest songs to play live, technically, ‘because it has so many different sections in it that are demanding in their own ways’: ‘It’s always a fun one because everybody has a moment where they can really be heard,’ May said. Agnew interjects: ‘And if you mess up, all the spotlight’s on you (laughs), so it’s a tough one!’

I say that with that many different instruments onstage, isn’t it hard to hide a mistake behind what somebody else is playing? ‘Oh yeah, we spend a lot of time hiding stuff,’ May said laughing. ‘I have a delay pedal I’ve started using and at a recent show, I accidentally pressed that rather than the button to turn up my guitar for the intro, so there was just this messy nonsense that was the start of the guitar part. If you keep repeating it, then people will be convinced it’s part of the song – this was not one of those cases (laughs).’ I say that what’s really great when you hear a song live, is that you often expect it to sound different and that I bet the crowd just thought it was deliberate. ‘That depends on how much they’re drinking and on what we’ve done!,’ he quipped.

‘Part of me wishes I’d written it two years later so I could have actually snuck in some relevant comments!’

However, despite how joyous the song sounds, it turns out to have a much darker backstory: ‘Three or four years ago, there were a lot of talks in the news of countries implementing emergency powers (to address security threats, natural disasters, or significant political unrest),’ said May. ‘I think it was Turkey at the time trying to exert control over protests. That was something that was very much on my mind at the time because it seemed like a very dangerous and frantic moment in geopolitical history.’ I say that it seems even more appropriate today considering the scale of the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and he agrees: ‘Part of me wishes I’d written it two years later so I could have actually snuck in some relevant comments!’

Their ability to fuse so many genres so seamlessly whilst keeping their inherent sense of fun reminds me of one of my favourite bands, Melbourne’s The Cat Empire and when I tell them this, Agnew is delighted: ‘We LOVE them, they’re a very big influence on us. Ishaan, and I and Isaac, too, we love our Latin stuff, so we try to find a way to sneak that in as much as we can!’ May interjects: ‘We’ve been doing a lot of Afrobeaty stuff recently because we are big fans of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen, that kind of 70’s Afrobeat. I think in some upcoming releases that will reveal itself a bit more.’ Agnew agrees: ‘The music we write is very much a reflection of the music we’re listening to at any given time. It’s really fun because we get a chance to explore what we’ve been listening to and create our own interpretation of it.’

I ask them if they ever cover The Cat Empire: ‘One of the big things in our band is we’ve never played any covers,’ May said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve been to Australia much but there’s a huge cover music culture. I know it’s not like most aggressive protest ever (laughs), but I think a big part of our musical identity is that we really love playing as much music we write as we can.’ Agnew agrees and makes a very valid point: ‘We noticed a lot of the time if a band plays a cover, we’ll go away thinking that the band is fantastic but what we remember is the cover. We don’t want to give them a choice of what to remember (laughs).’

‘It’s a stellar performance from every single person in the band and a real highlight of all of their musicianship coming together perfectly, but with a more contemporary sound than some of their earlier work’

However, if they were to just jam a Cat Empire song, Vellani says he’d pick ‘Brighter Than Gold’ (2013): ‘I actually really like the sampling work done on that one, it’s more at the forefront than a lot of the others at that point. I appreciate The Cat Empire most of all for their horn work.’ May tells me that Agnew ‘knows every song’ of theirs. I say that as beautiful and polished their new sound is since they they changed most of the line-up in 2022 and said goodbye to their trumpet player Harry Angus, I miss Angus’ cheekiness and the whirlwind energy he brought to the band: ‘I miss Harry sooooo much!,’ Agnew said, looking crestfallen. ‘I’d cover ‘Daggers Drawn’ from their album before Stolen Diamonds (He’s referring to their Live From Melbourne album, 2021). It’s got exceptional horn line writing. It’s a stellar performance from every single person in the band and a real highlight of all of their musicianship coming together perfectly, but with a more contemporary sound than some of their earlier work.’ I tell them that I was listening to their song ‘Fishies’ just before our chat and Agnew looks delighted: ”Fishies’ is an exceptional song! That whole So Many Nights album is so underrated in my opinion. Every song on that one is absolutely fantastic – I’ll talk about The Cat Empire all day!’

‘Newlyweds’ offers the listener something else. It has all the musical layers you’d expect but this time with a very distinctive 80’s poppy vibe: ‘I think for me a big inspiration for a lot of that is some of Prince’s earlier work, especially the self-titled album (1979),’ said May. ‘It’s the later half of disco with all the beautiful strings writing, I think that was a huge moment for us because it’s one of the first times that we felt like we got the production of a track right.’ Agnew agrees: ‘I think we don’t love necessarily sticking to a genre (laughs). I think as long as we’re writing stuff and we’re happy, it will usually naturally flow. As long as it’s vaguely dancey, we’re pretty content!’ I say that I don’t think they’ve written a song that doesn’t immediately make you want to get on your feet. ‘Oh, that means a lot, ‘ he said. ‘We’ve written some absolute stinkers (laughs), we won’t share them with you!’

Unusually for them, ‘Newlyweds’ actually is a straightforward love story: ‘I’ve written so many mysterious, weird, cryptic lyrics so I wanted to write a fairly straight ahead love ballad-y type song just to see if I could actually do it,’ May quipped. ‘Maybe I succeeded, I’m not sure, but it was fun to try and write something that was more direct. I feel like going into that track I had learnt a lot more about the way that you can write for guitar. I’m a big Nile Rodgers fan and of his production work with people like David Bowie and Madonna. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about guitar shapes and voicing stuff. I was making these little exercises for myself to practice them and one of them became the chorus chord progression.’

‘We’re finding places where the Latin rhythms mix with the disco rhythms and the rock rhythms’

Agnew says that it is always May who comes to them with the genesis of a song: ‘You always do the words and you have an idea for some chords, maybe a loose note on structure. We’ll either jam on that or you’ll have maybe a little more of an idea of what you want it to sound like but everyone’s always incredibly involved with writing their own parts.’

Collectively, they bring so many different influences to the band: ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers for me and The Police,’ said McGlinchey, who had ducked out but has returned to our chat. ‘I think especially for Isaac, but we all have an admiration for The Police.’ Vellani cites ‘some of the jazz groups coming out of the U.K. that have a focus on dancing stuff, like the Ezra Collective’: ‘They’re so fun, most of us went and saw them about a year ago in the recital hall in the Opera House here,’ May said. ‘They were fantastic! I’m going to throw one more out there. I don’t think this is necessarily everyone but Prince is a huge one for me, as well as Parliament-Funkadelic. And often Monique loves a lot of Prince’s stuff as well. Are there any influences that we have mentioned that are big for you, Monique? I can think of at least one. Probably Chaka Khan as Monique and I both really love everything Chaka Khan does. She also loves The Doors and Casiopea (a Japanese jazz fusion band from the 70’s).’

Next up will be their debut album which they are hoping to release around November: ‘I think it combines a bunch of influences that we’ve explored individually,’ May said. ‘It starts gluing together stuff that we all enjoy. I can think of a few tracks that do that. A lot of our current live favourites are going into it. We’re finding places where the Latin rhythms mix with the disco rhythms and the rock rhythms a bit more. The other big new change is a lot of singing in falsetto for a few tracks! It’ll be 9 or 10 tracks, we’re deciding how many to include.’

‘It’s very reassuring when we’re able to experiment and play with our sound a bit and we receive positive feedback’

While the album doesn’t have a working title yet, Agnew says that he always particularly loves the new songs that they’re working on: ‘It’s been really nice having people that we roped into coming to every gig saying: “Oh, those new songs are sounding really good”. Obviously all artists crave audience validation (laughs).’ May looks at him: ‘And attention in general!’ Agnew grins: ‘It’s very reassuring when we’re able to experiment and play with our sound a bit and we receive positive feedback that this is a direction that people are enjoying listening to. We’re really excited to put it out!’

One track that will definitely make the cut on the album is ‘Cannibal’, which May describes as an ‘Afro beat rock thing’: ‘We very frequently start or end a set with it. We’ve recorded and tracked everything. We’re getting mixes back at the moment.’

Other tracks like ‘Fervour’, which they released last year and which will also be on the album, has a soul-ska-reggae vibe: ‘I’ve got a bit of a backstory to that one,’ May said. ‘I’ve always really wanted to do a reggae track because I love Bob Marley, Grace Jones, and a lot of the 70’s Jamaican music. I think Henry’s interpretation of it was rather than a reggae thing, was to do it more reggaeton-style.’ McGlinchey laughs: ‘I LOVE reggaeton artists like Bad Bunny and their interpretation of dancehall drums, so that’s what I tried to do on that one.’

McGlinchey is a trooper under pressure, as May recounts: ‘Perhaps a bit of black comedy, but on a residency in the snowy mountains we did a couple years back, we had 5 or 6 shows over the course of a few days. After finishing our first night things seemed to be going well, but within about 15 minutes of the set ending, Henry slipped on some ice and hit his shoulder, leaving him face down in the snow. To add insult to this, the regional nurse at a local town misdiagnosed his wound as a small bruise, so we all thought he was over-reacting as he laboured on playing the rest of the week one-handed. In reality, as he’d find out a few days later, the shoulder had completely slipped out of the socket where it had stayed for the rest of the residency. Huge props to him for somehow surviving the shows!’

‘I think if I just let him talk, he’d have an interesting story about almost every musician I’ve ever loved’

If they could go out drinking with any musician for the night, McGlinchey is quick to say Bad Bunny: ‘He’s the king of pop! I’d ask him to talk to my friend Isaac May’s dad because Isaac’s dad loves Bad Bunny more than anybody in the world! I think Bad Bunny would be a great time!’ Davies picks Jim Morrison and wonders whether it’s a ‘weird choice’: ‘I don’t know what I would ask him because he is actually quite scary (laughs).’ Agnew plumps for American saxophonist Michael Brecker: ‘He’s a fantastic saxophonist. If there is a tenor saxophone playing in any pop recording between the early 80’s and the early 2000’s, it’s most likely him. He was the go-to guy and he had a jazz group with his brother called The Brecker Brothers. He passed away in the mid-2000’s but he is a sax player who was always innovating at every phase of his life. He never ceased to come up with ways to change things, to play differently. I think I’d ask him how he was able to continue doing that because a lot of people struggle to innovate past a certain point and he always found a way to make it different.’ McGlinchey interjects: ‘Do you think he’d be a fun guy to have a drink with?’ Agnew laughs: ‘I reckon he’d be a bit of a silly guy.’ May looks at him: ‘All tenor saxophonists are very silly guys, it’s true!’ May, for his part, has other plans: ‘It’s going to be either Miles Davis or Prince,’ he said happily. ‘I’d ask them the same question. I’d ask them anything they can tell me about running bands because I feel like they’re two artists that throughout their entire discographies always had refreshing and different but amazing bands. They’re two of my biggest influences as a musician in general. It’s pretty disgusting how good Prince was, if God makes you 5’3 as a man – you gotta get something in return!’

It turns out that Vellani has actually been asked this question before: ‘I actually cannot remember what I said but I would go with Quincy Jones. I actually am not sure what I’d ask him but I think if I just let him talk, he’d have an interesting story about almost every musician I’ve ever loved. I wouldn’t want to leave the bar, he’d be talking all night about stuff I’d love to hear about!’

(Photos: Madeline Atack)