The music industry is a funny old business; Zico Chain have reached number one in the MTV video charts, played the hallowed Download festival and made friends with Slash and Duff McKagan, but after an extended break they’ve had to take a few steps back, and are tonight playing the less-than-grandiose Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms. Frontman/bassist Chris Glithero and recent six-string addition Tom Gentry take some time out to discuss the ups and downs of past few years, and the release of their new album The Devil In Your Heart.
Okay, so you’re currently on tour with Halestorm, it’s a worldwide tour, is that right?
C: European.
And how’s that going?
C: Amazing. Amazingly well so far – we’re about six or seven dates in, and it’s been pretty mind-blowing.
Great. And how to you feel the new album is being received?
C: Again, I’d say amazingly. It’s been tough getting it out there, because we didn’t get much press first off when we released it. We’d disappeared for a couple of years, so it was a bit harder to build it up again, but it’s really just lifting nicely.
You had the album Food, and then you went on to do an EP, These Birds Will Kill Us All.
C: Yep, yep. We did These Birds Will Kill Us All in 2010, I think, we did a little mini-tour there, and then we got in the studio and basically made the album. It’s nice to finally have it out and about.
Well, it’s getting rave reviews. It’s a slight departure from your previous work, and rock fans tend to be fairly consistent in what they expect to hear – take the backlash from Guns n’ Roses Chinese Democracy for example – were you worried about how it would be received?
C: Not really, even like you say: Chinese Democracy – I don’t blame him for doing what he did. I think you make your record as you want to make it; if you think about anything else other than what you want to make, and what you want to put on that record, then you’re going to do it all wrong. You’ve got to play these songs for years and years afterwards, y’know? And you’ve got to feel good about them. To do anything but what you believe in is a bit of a waste of time. It wasn’t a conscious decision to change our sound – it’s just how it went for us. That’s just how it came out, and we just let it go really. We went with it.
So, that’s what was coming out, and you just went along with it?
C: Yeah, definitely.
Now, you avoided conventional recording studios when making the new album. In Portsmouth we have quite a big DIY scene – was it anything to do with that ethos , or was it a decision more borne out of necessity?
C:  It was necessity, if I’m honest – but it turned out that we ended up believing in that ethos, definitely. We looked for a good two years, around the time of the EP. We finished with one label, and we basically went down the old route of finding another label to make a record. It took us a long time – people weren’t really sniffing. The whole industry was in a right state at the time, and they definitely weren’t looking for young grunge bands to make records with. It took us a while to realise that wasn’t the route to go down, and we ended up obviously spending all our money that we’d made off Food. Everything disappeared gradually, so we ended up with absolutely nothing and no options of how to make the record other than to find a place to do it in and record it ourselves. That was when we went down the route of basically finding a squat house in Milton Keynes, and we rented it for nothing, basically, for six months under a Camelot Guardian scheme. You’re basically keeping the heroin addicts out of these derelict buildings, so it wasn’t a particularly nice place to be, but it was a space where we could make noise. Yeah, we did that for six months.
So you lived there, and recorded there?
C: Yeah, lived there, recorded there, ate there and ran away from ants and insects there. *laughs*
How do you think it compared to the recording of Food or These Birds Will Kill Us All?
C: Do you mean in terms of sound, or just the process?
All over, really – did you feel it was any different? Did it sound any different?
C: It was terrifying in that when we did Food, we had Joe Barresi [Producer / Kyuss, Melvins, QOTSA etc.] telling everything that was great and everything that was shit, and with this one you don’t have that. We’re in our own space without a producer, without anyone to make those decisions, y’know? So you really start questioning yourself, and that’s what becomes fucking exhausting over a period of six months. We didn’t know how to record really, I mean Paul [Frost / guitarist]’s done a great job on it, but the whole thing was a learning process for him as an engineer – he had basic skills that he’d learned in the studio, but we made so many mistakes and we had to re-record so many things that by the end of it we were broken – and I’m not joking, we were broken people. I think I remember Ollie [Middleton / drummer]  breaking down in Starbucks one night when were trying to mix things, and it was just ugh… it was an absolute nightmare – I wouldn’t advise it to anyone – but the results, y’know, I would advise it to people because when you’re finished, we were so proud of it when it came out – we couldn’t have been happier with how it all ended up, basically.
Things are a bit different now with the labels etc. If you had to do it again, do you think you’d do it any differently?
C: It looks like we’re edging towards doing it again. *laughs* We’ve not made any decisions yet, but we’re going to rehearse through November-December – there are labels involved now; we’re also looking for labels still in terms or worldwide release, but  we don’t know if we’re going to do this one through our own label again and licence it out, or if we’re going to try and get a label first. I think we’ll have some decisions to make after Christmas when we’ve written it. Who knows, I mean, if we were to go into a studio in LA with a producer of our choice again, I think we’d jump at the chance still, but the good position that Zico Chain are in now is that I believe we could set up in this room and start recording and make a decent record.
So because you’ve had that past experience, you know what you’re doing this time around?
C: Yeah, definitely.
Since the band’s conception you’ve been a three-piece, but I’ve notice on the new album you’ve started to introduce a few more samples, string sections, things like that. Have you ever considered an extra member, even in just a session capacity, to get that across live?
C: Well. Tom is new. He’s the new guitarist.
T: Hey *laughs*
C: Paul had some different things to do over the last few months so we got Tom in and we talked about doing some four-piece stuff. Obviously we worked with an orchestra on Food as well – we’d love to do some of that live. Basically Zico Chain is just a group of musicians who love making music, and we just want to write as much stuff as we can. There’s no limit on how many people we’ll play with, but at the moment we are four members who are touring as three. I guess that’s as far as we know really. Tom is a permanent member of the band , though.
I’ve got that recorded now.
C: *laughs*
Now, you’ve been name dropped by Slash and Duff McKagan, you’ve toured with Velvet Revolver, and now you’re doing this European tour with Halestorm. What’s next?
C: Were off in Europe, like you say, for a few weeks, then we’re going on holiday for two weeks.
Together?
C: Yeah, the band are all going away together after the tour, we’re going to chill out. We’ve got a Villa booked in Portugal. So, we’re going to do barbeques for a couple of weeks, then we’re going to come back, and get straight in the studio to write the next record right up until Christmas. Hopefully we’re going to record it in January/February next year, and get it out in time for Summer in time for the festivals and stuff.
This’ll be as a four-piece?
C: Who knows, man. Maybe – we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see what happens.
Was there anything you wanted to add?
C: Yeah, come check us out at a live show. We’re finding that we’re winning most of our fans over playing live, and they’re getting the album afterwards. We’re selling our CDs daily on this tour – we’ve re-ordered three times already. T-shirts are going fast as well, so it’s really picking up now. Come and check us out at a gig, and make some decisions.
Okay. Well, thanks – and best of luck for tonight.
C: Cheers.
T: Cheers.