Interview: New Chums — Rock In:flux

New Chums is an indie rock band formed in Phoenix in April of 2017. I saw them perform a few months ago at The Rebel Lounge and thought their live set was was well put together, so I spoke with their lead singer, Seth, about setting up an interview to talk about their music. Check out the interview below.

To listen to our conversation, click here.

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how New Chums was formed.

I wish there was this really awesome story behind how New Chums was formed. Like, one day Ben, our drummer, was delivering a pizza at Seth’s house and he heard him playing a rendition of Friday by Rebecca Black so he quickly invited himself inside, broke out some breadsticks and started banging on some random pots and pans in the kitchen and the rest is history. I mean, how amazing would that story be?

Sadly our actual story isn’t THAT cool. I moved to Phoenix a few years ago and wanted to keep playing music so I put an ad on Craigslist and found Ben. That formed the foundation and then we found Matt and Cassandra via Craigslist as well. I guess if posting an ad on a ‘musicians wanted’ page is good enough for Metallica it’s sufficient for New Chums.

2. Your debut album See It For Myself was released in October of last year, can you tell me about the recording process for that?

The recording process was a great experience. We recorded with the mastermind, Bob Hoag, at Flying Blanket in Mesa, AZ. We spent 10 days in the studio in June of 2017 and fell in love with the record. The process was pretty simple. We went into the studio with a pretty clear understanding of what we wanted this record to be and Bob, with his magic touch, helped us polish and fine tune the songs to what they are today.

3. Is there a song on the EP you’re most proud of?

Proud of? I’d say they all hold a special place in our hearts and each song holds that spot for a different reason. One song the band thought turned out amazing was, “The Right Thing.” We went into the studio not knowing if that song was even going to make the record and then it turned out being one of the favorites on the EP. I mean, how can you not love the drums, guitar and bass work on that song? Don’t answer that question…

4. You’ve been compared to bands like Gin Blossoms and Jimmy Eat World do you think that’s a good thing or is it frustrating?

We love it. We’re fans of both of those bands and anytime you’re mentioned in the same company as any great band it’s humbling. Those are internationally recognized bands so if someone is trying to explain our sound to someone and they can reference a few bigger bands that might get someone a little more interested in checking us out, I think having the comparison is a good thing.

5. You did some unorthodox marketing for it, can you tell me about that? You have 10k followers on instragram which is pretty good for a local band. How do you typically get the word out?

We had a dash of unorthodox marketing sprinkled with some more traditional means of marketing when we released our record. Two of the more unorthodox things that stand out to me are: we sold our record in a vending machine in North Phoenix (and they actually sold) and we gave away a Fender guitar for Christmas in 2017; both of which we’re super fun to do. We also did the more traditional route of marketing as well. We did the interview circuit and we shot two music videos for our songs Come On, Come On and Blossom; check ‘em out here:

Come On, Come On: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXGcctkRcC8

Blossom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp2sxpjtEsU

When it comes to Instagram, our guitarist, Matt is the social media wizard. There’s really no magic trick to building a following. He works really hard at engaging all of our followers and tries to connect anyway possible. He’s a total rock star.

6. You’ve been quoted as saying your live performance is really important to you. How do you guys try to prepare for those? How often do you practice together as a band?

Being great live is everything. Anyone can hide behind a good recording, but there’s something special when people see you live and say you sound better live than you do on your record. We practice weekly but those practices are pretty specific on what we’re looking to accomplish that day; whether is coming up with a great intro to a song, finding the right way to end a show or finding just the right parts to make the song pop. We’re all about trying to make these songs as good as they possibly can be and we’re hyper focused on making that happen. Once you have highly polished songs you just need to make sure you can pull off the sound live and bring a great energy to the set.

7. What do you think sets your live performance apart from other bands?

This is actually a really hard question to answer because I’ve never seen us play a live set. With that said, I know our band has such an amazing chemistry between all the members of the band which makes playing a show with these clowns (no offense to any clowns out there) a complete thrill. I think our chemistry comes across on stage and people really enjoy taking in a New Chums show because of it.

8. What’s next for you guys?

What’s next? There’s always a what’s next, huh? For now we continue to work on our live shows, book as many good gigs as we can (locally and nationally) and we have a handful of shows scheduled around Phoenix for the fall of 2018. We’ll be working on another music video shortly and hopefully heading back into the studio soon to record all the hits we haven’t recorded yet. We’ve had some great things happen on this record; Journey’s shoes featured our video for Come On, Come On in all of their stores in the U.S. and Canada for the month of May, SiriusXM’s AltNation featured our song Blossom on their Advanced Placement show in July and currently we have four of the five songs off our EP being played in numerous restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and stores nationally. If anything, we just want to continue to build on that momentum and see what happens. Oh, and lastly, *spoiler alert* we’re going to be opening for The Killers the whole month of November…kidding #wishfulthinking