Ones2Watch Home

Wowed from the first note, we’ve been checking a lot of wants & needs boxes with the Belfast-based Chalk, a band that blends many genres, but always delivers foreboding energy. On their debut album, Crystalpunk, the duo of film students-turned-band coalesces around a sound born of wanting to restore dark dance floor fun with some lyrical and tonal frenzy that has us moving with crazed smiles. The album is laden with impeccable visuals meshed with throwback post-industrial sounds, and feels to capture the state of the world currently. If you want some face-melting fun @ SXSW, or a bit of soundtrack fro your melancholy, this is for you:

OnesToWatch: Why do you do what you do? Why are you guys a group? What brought you 2 unique individuals together to become Chalk? 


Ross: Chalk came about because we were studying film at university. Ben was in a band and I was into music, but we didn't really know each other. Ben had reached out - I had this poster on my wall of this Irish girl band. He saw that on my Instagram and Ben was looking to start a band and from that, we just got to know each other and listened to music and just started it. We were studying film, so it was just a side thing. And then with the lockdown happening, we were living together and weren’t doing anything other than our jobs, so we decided to have a good shot at giving the band some attention. From that we wrote more songs and we were coming up with music video ideas and then this identity of Chalk was born. We set out to maybe do something that was not really done. In the city of Belfast, there’s plenty of bands who have done a kind of dance punk. There's a great band called Alloy Mental who did it 20 years ago, but this electronic punk thing was ringing to us. So we just followed our gut and since then we've been exploring this world of transforming from a guitar band, to an electronic lead as things have progressed. It's all very laptop and sample based now. 

I love the film school, prowling on Instagram to starting a band origin story.

Given you guys have formal studies in film, what’s the difference between creating something visually and musically? 

Ben: It’s an interesting one. We did make films together as well. We made our grad film together - Ross shot it and I wrote and directed it. It’s funny, because we were in the band at the time, so there have been eras where film and music were really working as one. Music videos has allowed that relationship to continue on. The difference though, one of them is purely sonic, and one has visuals and sound working fairly equally. Music videos are interesting though, because the sound is already taken care of. So it's like we can explore the song in a different kind of way and what images support the song and what that conjures up. It's funny. I haven't really thought about the differences because of the luck we have in our position, making music videos, we're able to still have that visual, filmy aspect to our music and there is that symbiotic relationship there. We get to kind of either have our cake and eat it too, I guess. 

I love that. It begs the follow-up question. Unsurprisingly your visuals are very strong. I want to ask about the music process, but I'm actually curious about music video process. Is that something you guys spend an enormous amount of time debating and arguing about or is the cohesion of the band extending into the videos?


Ben: We share creative direction on the album as a whole. So that's even in terms of the album artwork and all that stuff. Me and Ross will take different leads on different stuff. But early on, we do everything together. We were looking at mood boards together and figuring out what the album looks like? Like what will the cover look like, and our costume and styling? Then the music video becomes a vessel to achieve that vision. So I think it's always a discussion. We did nail a lot of the songs very early on before we got to the music videos, because we needed to kind of understand the album before we could understand it visually. We take the albums and make their own world. 


Beautiful. Let’s get into writing. Do you guys have a methodology, a process? Do you contribute individually and then work together on it, jam it out? Does it change song to song? 

Ross: Usually it’s laptop-based, we’ll get an idea or a sketch will come about, then that'll be worked on. Once it's got to a certain place, I’d would show it to Ben and our producer, and we'd work from that. From there, we think about where we want to go with it and offer sort of suggestions. There's no one “thing” for this album, so everyone's going to speak their mind and listen to everyone and not one person is dictating it. We wanted to leave ego at the door, be open, and let this be collaborative. Our producer, Chris, has been helpful in that regard. We all want to work towards making each song the best song. It can't be done by one person alone, Ben and I can only do so much. Sometimes we come in with demos and there's really not much else to do other than just make it all sound record ready. But, I’m thinking more about the sample-based stuff - which was something we started on our 2nd EP - and we’re just getting used to all the loops and things that have informed demos and vocal chops and melodies that are interpolations of samples and reworking things. One of our songs, “Can’t Feel It,”  we found this Afrobeat vocal sample that informed the lead guitar part. I just stuck it through a guitar amp for the demo, but then Ben took and figured it out on the guitar. Now, playing that live is such a cool part of the song where there's guitar for a track that wasn’t necessarily going to have it. That’s an example of us trusting our instincts and letting ourselves be carried by all of these ideas. 

Love it. Well, the album is fantastic, and I have a way of verifying that. When I'm playing music, if the number of people stopping and asking what that is exceeds two, I'm like, oh, this must be really good because that's very rare. Tell me about Crystalpunk. 
What was the genesis of the project? Is it representing a time and space? Is it a narrative? 

Ben: Well, it is an interesting one, but we started the process without the name. We had themes we want to get across. We wanted it to be a portrait of Belfast and speak to our experience meeting and going to university there and coming of age there in a way. Early on in the process, Ross coined Crystalpunk, and as soon as that was said, that informed a lot for us as well. Belfast as a place, has such an incredible history of punk music and dance music. When we started out, it was more of that kind of post punk kind of thing. Then as we moved on, it got more electronic. We still wanted to make music on both sides of that and feel influenced without going completely one way or the other. So I think the title, Crystalpunk, allowed us to not be restricted in terms of genre. Instead of Crystalpunk being a restrictive label, it became incredibly freeing and a way to contextualize our sound. Even just saying that - because of the strength and power of like a name - that title opened up the entire album, and I do think maybe the album would have sounded different if we didn't have the name. We used to go into the studio with such abstract, hard to nail ideas, but the title really grounded us. 


Oh, wow. So, Ross, you coined Crystalpunk. What was the origin of it? 


Ross: I always liked cyberpunk as a word, like Billy Idol. I remember listening to a podcast and how he loved Blade Runner, and that’s what inspired the title. But what cyberpunk means as well, I’ve felt attached to the sound but also the ethos of it. I enjoyed the idea of finding a word to pair with punk to describe the balance of our sound. Crystalpunk felt like it could be ours. And as Ben said, we went on its journey of self-discovery on what this actually meant and we started to have this literal meaning behind it. That's the narrative of the album - the history of the punk and dancing and this country. It revealed itself as the process went on. 

Do you guys have ambitions for the record? Do you have something you hope listeners take from it. 


If people can connect with it in a way that would be great. We put a lot of ourselves into it, but we're kind of open. We don't really want people or feel the need them to feel a particular way. Um, you know, we kind of touch on a little of, maybe different instances of genre and stuff like that. When we were creating the album, we wanted it to feel a bit like our live set in that we do treat our live sets as a journey. There’s different arcs and wavelengths and catharsis. So we did want to create a project that was able to take people on a journey. We're just offering some kind of a narrative, not being the most  explicit about it, but we feel that there's enough moves and wavelengths in there that people can reflect on the music a bit more and have it mean something to them. 

Love it. Last couple of questions. Between the 2 of you, if everyone in the studio is hungry. Can you whip up a meal, and if so, what would it be? 

Ross: We both do enjoy cooking. I feel like one time we should do a competition where you cook something, and I cook something, and then the judge is our producer. 


Ben: Yes, exactly. Don't tell Chris who you've made what and the prize is how we split up the royalties. No, no, I’d do… this is a firm favorite for students. The classic is a fajita or something Mexican. There’s something simple about steaks, too. Pasta or something like that, you need time. 

Ross: Yeah, a Ragout or bolognese, you need like three days. 

If you guys need to relax, slow it down, do you have any favorite pastimes, activities, hobbies, ways of just relaxing? Other than drinking...

Ben: That's got us through some fucking times, I'll tell you that. A good spicy margarita and a decompress and a chat. That's come in clutch a few times. A good old-fashioned walk can sort you right out. And it feels weird to not bring headphones on a walk, especially as a musician, but I’ll tell you what, if you can take the headphones out and not listen to music, that's unreal. I do believe physical space is a very good instant grounding tool. It is a very good psychological thing in that way, you know? 

Ross: Reading. 


I would love a recommendation from both of you. One that is non-music, and a music recommendation from you both as well. 

Ross: I watched The Substance last night. I hadn't seen it. Really cool film, obviously if you like cinematography and the way stuff looks, it’s all very Kubrick style. The director has her own sort of spin on it, and the storyline is nuts.

Ben: I watched Almost Famous again last night, which is great before going on tour. The director’s cut is 2 hours 40. I just read Cameron Crow's autobiography a couple months ago, and it is metal how that film is so biographical. He was writing for Rolling Stone when he was 15. The film still holds up. 

I’d love a music rec as well.

Ross: The artist supporting us on tour is called Autumns, he’s from Derry. He does dub techno and he's a solo act, he's got drum machines and such on stage. It’s really heavy kind of industrial music. We're lucky to have him open for us, he's really good. 


Awesome. 

Ben: Makeshift Art Bar, a Belfast band, they're very cool. They're within the whole BBC radio 6, post punk genre, just great live sound. They can get really noisy, but they actually have a lot of groove in them as well. 

Love it. I always want to end on your words. So it can be advice. It can be shout outs. It can be hellos, whatever you want to say. 

Ben: Go, go, go listen to live music and support local cinemas. Go experience art in a room with other people, it’s nice. 


Thank you so much.