The Chakras have released Drifting, the second single from their debut album ‘Build Me A Swan’ due for release in September. Limerick Post caught up guitarist Richie McArdle
THE Dublin born five piece Chakras are led by brothers Rocky and Gordo Whittaker.
Influenced by 90s indie legends such as The Verve, Smashing Pumpkins and Jesus and Mary Chain the band had a “hazy blueprint of how they wanted to sound”
but it was only when they made the move to London that Chakras finally made a record that took those noisy, hissing 8-track bedroom demos and transformed the very same songs into swirling, guitar-heavy anthems.
For a group to move to London is now unusual In this era of social media and global internet communications as the process of sharing and working on projects from anywhere in the world is so much easier these days.
“It made sense to us”, explains guitarist Richie McArdle, “I’d have to say from our point of view it has been the right decision but I wouldn’t suggest it to any Irish group to go to London. But it is very tough to make it in Ireland, labels that are here do not have a lot of money to invest in groups”
Chakras had been playing on the Irish circuit for a few years and were starting to feel like they were on some kind of threadmill, “Basically we had been in Dublin for a while, we were playing to the same punters and in the same venues. It just kinda got frustrating, we didn’t really feel like it was happening for us in Ireland so instead of just moaning about it we decided to up sticks and head over to London and see and go and knock on some doors cos nothing is going to happen if you just sit on your ass.”
Another important factor was that the band’s manager is David Boyd who is based in London, Boyd at one time owned Hut Records. He signed The Verve, Gomez and Smashing Pumpkins among other legendary 90s indie bands. Ritchie says, “his whole background is the music scene is in England, so he knew straight away who the were the best people to go to, the producers, the photographers and the journalists we should approach.” Doyd’s contact with Chris Potter who produced the Verve’s Urban Hymns album and Richard Ashcroft’s solo stuff meant that The Chakras secured Potter’s services when it came to mixing the album. The producer/mixer has given the band a freedom and a license to reference those early shoegaze influences while not masking the melodies with too much unnecessary noise.
Ironically for The Chakras the most important contact so far since the London move was when Belgium’s R&S Records founder Renaat Vandepapeliere discovered the band online and was immeadiatly interested in signing The Chakras to his new indie label, Planet Function. While R&S (Apex Twin, Dave Angel) is an independent record label for electronic music the new imprint will focus on rock and indie acts. Planet Function’s first signing was The Plea from Donegal and now The Chakras are part of the label which is coincidentally also managed by David Boyd.
Because of Planet Function’s support for the band thay now have iconic photographer Jill Furmanovsky (Led Zepplin, Oasis) and legendary sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson (Pink Flyod, The Cranberries) on board to complete the design for The Chakras new album but for now the band’s focus is to, “get out and play to as many new people as we can”, according to Richie McArdle
‘Drifting’ by The Chakras is out now and the album, ‘Build Me a Swan’ is due out in September through Planet Function Records.
