INTERVIEW WITH CHAPTER 11
West Coast Cali Kings (LBC Reggae Special)
Blasting out of sound systems from all over the world, Chapter 11’s blazing three MC attack (Daddy Scotty, Kepwon & Stoney), has been capturing audiences with its reggae and hip hop crossover style for years. Now with two albums under its belt, Chapter 11 is looking to the future, but Javier Contender (bassist, producer and turntablist) still has time to reflect with The Pier on where this crew from Long Beach began.
The Pier: As part of this Long Beach Reggae Special (check out the Bredrin Daddys interview too), tell us why Chapter 11 and Long Beach itself is so heavily influenced by reggae? Javier: I would say it’s a combination of a lot of things, one just being the diversity of Long Beach. As whole, Long Beach is open to a lot more different cultures. We have a big Asian population, a big Black population, a big Mexican population and everyone seems to be inter-mingling. When you have an environment like that I think it’s open to a lot more different styles of music.
Also Long Beach is a beach city, but the typical idea of Long Beach is not surfing. We don’t have a lot of surf beaches around here. So it’s kind of like an urban beach city so I think the popularity of reggae here stems like in Jamaica. Now Jamaica is a beautiful country and has lots of beaches around there, but there is also a lot of poverty involved. So a lot of the stuff people are singing about hits home here too, where yeah it’s near the beach, but at the same time there is a lot of struggle within our boundaries as well. So I think there is a definite connection between the two locations.
The Pier: You switched to just 2 turntables for your live shows there for a while, but now I hear you are sporting a full band again? Why the switch back? Javier: We lost our original keyboardist 2 or 3 years ago. Within the past couple of years we have gone through 5 different keyboard players. So mainly we did it as it was a schedule in conflict where we had a new album coming out. We would be in between keyboard players so it’s kind of a bold move for us to play with turntables because we hadn’t done something like that. However, our drummer Josh and I are also DJs, so we could make the switch pretty easily. Since we have had this DJ experience in the past our choices were either to take a few months off and not do anything or we could keep playing shows with the turntable set.
The Pier: Did you miss playing your bass during that time? Javier: Oh yeah, I am a much better bass player than a turntablist. It was still fun but a whole different thing where I think the vocalists didn’t have to change much because they are up there doing the same thing they always do, but as far as Josh and I would go it was a definite 180 to what we were used to doing.
The Pier: Your new album, Going for Broke, only came out a few months ago. Are you happy with the way the album turned out? Javier: I think we accomplished what we set out to do. I don’t think the album is too much different from what we have done in the past. We kind of made this album going through keyboard difficulties and so this one was more of a collaboration between Josh and myself.
I think even going back to our first demos and our last full-length most of the songs are kind of this hybrid, us taking produced drum loops and beats putting other instrumentation on top of it. People a lot of the times when listening to it can’t tell if it’s a produced song or if it was played live.
The Pier: How does the writing come about for a Chapter 11 album? Do you write just before entering the studio or is writing a constant process for you guys? Javier: We are always kind of working on something. It always seems our lives are so busy that if we didn’t do that we wouldn’t be able to just sit there and take out three months of everybody’s life’s to do nothing but record. It’s an ongoing process to where Josh and myself work on music and the vocalists are kind of writing.
We already have a couple of songs halfway started for the next album. I think we are planning on releasing an EP of some of the new stuff in a couple of months to tide people over until we show up with the rest of the album.
The Pier: That’s great news. I can’t wait to hear some new stuff. Tim Wu from the Long Beach Dub All-Stars has played on both Chapter 11’s full-length releases, as well appearing with the band live on occasions. How did you originally meet up with him? Javier: I went to high school with Tim. He was a year older and he used to be in a band called Pocket Lent and it was kind of the big high school band. So I met him through hanging out and going to their shows back in the day. Eventually I ended up moving in with Tim for a couple of years, so I don’t think he had a choice. I would drag him down into the studio and he would have nothing better to do than hang out with us.
It takes a certain type of person to understand what we are trying to do and Tim comes from a similar background from being raised in Long Beach. He has that understanding and appreciation of how to play reggae and jazz. You know a lot of hip hop stuff is sampled from jazz albums, so in order to play hip hop you have got to understand jazz. Tim was a perfect fit.
The Pier: Both Chapter 11 albums got released in Japan. Must be exciting that a whole other country seems to be really into your band? Javier: We are pretty excited about that and are pursuing other countries right now too. We are trying to get over to Europe as well. I was talking about this with some people from Europe and it seems some of these other countries could be our biggest markets because here in the US everybody wants to listen to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and stuff like that. Where in different countries it seems the general population is more open to just good music in general. Where here you have to have a certain look, dress a certain way and fit into a mold where people can make a pop star out you.
The Pier: Your newest release is the split EP (Long Beach Soundclash) you put out in conjunction with the Bredrin Daddys. 1DaBred said you did it because both the bands decided to join forces in order to try and reach more people. Javier: Exactly, it came about from us running around in similar circles for years and years. We share a member (Jungle Josh) and we are always playing the same shows and every time we do something big they are always a part of it and vice versa. We were getting ready to do a single just to use for promo purposes and we were talking to them about it one day and I mentioned the idea about strengthening it by joining forces and getting it out to more people with both bands on there. Then that way when we are out doing a show somewhere in a different city, then their name is on the product too and vice versa.
The Pier: As you mentioned Jungle Josh, is in both bands. He must not have much spare times on his hands then? Javier: Yeah, he stretches himself pretty thin, but we don’t really let him complain because it’s obviously by his choice. Haha. Josh is good at juggling stuff around and he loves the opportunity to play in two bands, where he gets to exercise both his enjoyment out of playing drums and guitar.
The Pier: I have noticed that the artwork is always killer for the band’s CDs and flyers. That’s done by you personally and your design company Hamachi Studios right? Javier: It’s what I do as far as a day job goes. We all have our day jobs still and a little over a year ago I started putting together a company for design and packaging. So far it seems I have been pretty well received in the whole music community. To a point where I’ve done album art for some people in Japan and different labels out there that are doing compilation CDs. I have done the Sense Boardwear compilation CD covers and I just finished a project today for a group called High Tide out of San Diego.
The more I do, the more it gets out there and bands are always trying to network with each other so I get hit up though MySpace and my web-site. It’s cool that I am carving out a niche for myself in the whole music scene. The downside is that bands don’t really have a lot of money to work with, but I really like to do it so it is kind of a trade-off.
The Pier: What is Chapter 11’s immediate plans for the future? Anything exciting you can share with us? Javier: I am actually putting together a Hawaii tour right now. So we are planning on getting out there sometime in October and then the possibility of going to Japan is always there as well. We have released two albums there and it seems like the label really likes us and pushes us stuff pretty hard. So I think it just a matter of timing with that.
The Pier: In 'The Pier' tradition my last question revolves around what is your favorite beach or summer hang out? Javier: My favorite beach would have to be, well there’s different beaches for different things. There are beaches just to hang out and ones to go to for good waves. I always like going down to the Wedge in Newport or hitting Thousand Steps down in Laguna. Every summer, the local Long Beach knuckleheads will make a trek to Thousand Steps and have a little day at the beach. I think there is one coming up on Sept 1 but I’m going to miss it, cause I will be in Arizona which is a bit of a bummer.
Thanks JC for participating in this Long Beach Special. Much respect from The Pier. Make sure you take a look at the The Bredrin Daddys interview, the other half of this Pier LBC special.
To find out more about Chapter 11 and Hamachi Studio check out: