Jukebox Chatter: The Chapman Family

You've used Pledgemusic really creatively on the run up to Cruel Britannia, including the chance to go on an all day pub crawl with the band for £200. Has that thrown up any surprising results? (aside from a new EP, obviously)

In a way I find the whole Pledge thing and other sites of their ilk pretty amazing. I see them as a reaction against the old school philosophy and business model of "The Record Industry" and how they used to operate - in theory it has a DIY ethic at heart and it's pretty punk rock. You don't need a record company executive sugar daddy ripping you off and treating you like a piece of easily marketable shit anymore although that route is obviously still there if people want to try and take it.

The sooner major labels stop living off their successes in the boom years of the 90s where they ripped off everyone without a second thought the better. These sites offer a chance to be more in control of your own destiny and to be creative.

Even in saying that though, I spent a lot of time looking at how other bands were using Pledge and what they were selling on it before we took the plunge - I didn't want to feel like we were ripping people off or forcing people who actually like the band to pay for the privilege of something that I knew was a total con. As much as I like the idea of Pledge in theory as with pretty much everything in life there's always going to be some bad eggs trying to capitalise on people's good nature and austerity hit wallets - so if the premise is to offer your actual fans unique one off products and gifts then that's what they're going to get : we'll paint your portrait on a canvas if you like; we'll annotate a book for you with profanity, drawings and notes; we'll each make you a personal mixtape to get you through the day; and we'll design and paint you a truly unique t-shirt if you want...you may not like it but it'll definitely be a one off...

It's important to not go overboard with it though and to have a bit of fun as your number one job is still be to be in a rock band - there's nothing worse than a band becoming a business, you might as well get a job in an ad agency and sell asbestos flavoured lollies to orphans. One of the reasons I'm in a band is probably because I'm so utterly shit with finances. If I wanted to count the beans on an abacus I'd have got a job in a bank, I'd much prefer to smash guitars about and shout rude words at strangers in towns I've never previously visited.

During the year that we're told we're supposed to be celebrating the UK (the Olympics! The jubilee!) out comes Cruel Brittania. Coincidence?

I find it incredibly rude that Lizzie and Lord Coe have decided to coincide their shitty flag waving pop concert and crap sports day with the release of our EP. Each to their own I suppose. I honestly wish the Olympics would just fuck off though - it only seems to be boring British ex-athletes, Beckham, Sue Ryder and Seb Coe who are excited by it - the rest of the country honestly couldn't give less of a fuck.

The French must be loving watching us fuck it up at every turn - missile launchers on peoples homes for fucks sake? Well done all concerned, I'm sure we all feel much safer now... 'Oh but what if a terrorist plane is flying towards the Olympic stadium?...it's better to shoot it down before it reaches its target isn't it and not allow it to massacre 70,000 people?' Well yeah but surely if terrorism was such a high priority (which I assume it must have been when the whole shitfest was planned as the London bid was made in a post 9/11 world) and not a last minute afterthought then why put the Olympic Stadium (and therefore a big fuck off target) in the centre of one of the most populous cities on the planet? Instead why not have it slap bang in the middle of the countryside surrounded by acres and acres of fields so our government can shoot down as many terrorists as they like safe in the knowledge that the only thing that'll be killed will be a few stray cows and maybe an otter.



The only legacy Middlesbrough is going to have of the Olympics is that they're taking away the council funded big telly from the centre of town after the Games as they can't afford to keep it. The Jubilee is just as bad. Who in their right mind wants to go to a party organised by Gary Barlow? Have people gone utterly insane? Have they heard his solo work? Also, the streets of our country are going to look like a Nick Griffin wet dream with all those fucking Union Jacks flapping about, I just find it repulsive.

I'll never understand why usually normal level headed people persist on waving flags as a bunch of disinterested inbred aristocrats in gold coaches drive by whilst standing on the very same pavements where hours earlier a homeless person would have been sleeping or begging. I also find it an unforgivably huge pisstake that we get the Queen lecturing Parliament and her populace about tightening our collective belts in this age of austerity while wearing a great big fucking diamond encrusted hat on her head worth fucking millions of pounds.

How did the Great Escape go this year and what gig are you most looking forwards to next?

The Great Escape was fantastic. I don't think any of us were expecting it to be so good as we were very much a last minute addition onto a festival already jam packed full of amazing acts so to play to a packed room of sweaty revelers late in the middle of the night was a bit of a surprise.

What was equally refreshing was that we've played the festival a couple of times before and its usually with pretty disastrous results so to have an incident free gig was really cool. Previously I've stood there wanting the stage to open up as my one and only amp has blown up in the first bars of the first song or one of us has had to play despite being bedridden for the previous 24 hours - something shitty always tends to happen in Brighton.

As far as to what I'm looking forward to next is concerned I honestly can't wait for our first date of our June tour - conveniently in London as Gary Barlow is belting out another insipid ballad to his adoring deaf masses.

Some people are arguing that the Levison enquiry is dragging on and nobody but journalists are interested in it anyway, while others are enjoying the prolonged squeeze it's having on Cameron et al. What's your take on it?

The whole sorry mess will only come to a satisfactory conclusion for all concerned when Rebekah Brooks finally admits to giving David Cameron a blow job whilst Rupert Murdoch took her up the arse in the offices of the News of the World surrounded by thousands of phone tap tapes as Jeremy Hunt filmed it with his trousers round his ankles and Blair waited his turn next door texting Cameron and misinforming him about his ridiculous use of "LOL".

The revelation that people who run newspapers are manipulative shits who would sell their own grandmothers for a sordid exclusive is as much of a shock as finding out that some politicians are more crooked than an Eastenders plotline.

Finally, you have one jukebox credit - what's it going to be?

The 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.