The Chats have announced their debut album High Risk Behaviour, out March 27 on Bargain Bin Records/Cooking Vinyl Australia.
To mark this momentous occasion the band have released an eye-watering new video for their new single The Clap, take it in below on an empty stomach.
This is the closest you’ll ever hear The Chats get to write a love song (that is unless you are talking about their love of beer). A cautionary tale about a root gone wrong and an STI that just wouldn’t leave. The Clap features guitarist Pricey on vocal duties and is taken from the forthcoming album.
The Chats have the cops to thank for the title of their debut album, High Risk Behaviour.
If they didn’t keep hassling drummer Matt Boggis about skating in places he shouldn’t – and giving him tickets listing that as the offence – who knows what idiotic title the self-proclaimed “dropkick drongos from the Sunshine Coast of Australia” would have come up with.
Since forming in their mate’s bong shed in 2016 while still at high school, that attitude has taken The Chats – completed by guitarist Josh Price, who once wrote a song called How Many Do You Do? in which he boasted of doing 52 “dingers” in a night. From the sleepy coastal village of Coolum to venues around the world. Their fanbase includes Dave Grohl, who loved the video for Smoko so much he showed it to Josh Homme, who then asked the trio to support Queens of the Stone Age on their 2018 Australian tour. Iggy Pop is also a card-carrying member of The Chats’ fan club, requesting that they support him in Australia in early 2019 and peppering them with questions like, “What’s a smoko?” and “What’s a dart?”
The rest of 2019 was spent taking the world by storm armed with nothing more than guitars, drums, shorts, shirts and thongs (or, if it was a formal occasion, sandals and socks). Shows across Australia and the UK were sold out, and they performed their first gigs in America. The LA show was attended by Homme, Grohl and Arctic Monkeys’ frontman Alex Turner. The band capped off the year with a return visit to Britain, selling out venues such as London’s 2,300-capacity 02 Forum.
Sandwith and his mates have been too busy touring, writing songs and, when their gigs took them to Victoria, dropping into engineer Billy Gardner’s studio in the coastal city of Geelong for a day of recording. That they chose this piecemeal approach explains why the album took 18 months to finish – a luxury considering 2017 EP Get This In Ya took four hours to record one hungover afternoon.
The sessions were fast. “Some of the songs were first-take and we were like, ‘That’s good, whatever’,” says Sandwith. “We’re really not perfectionists.”
Remarkably, they still found time to experiment with exotic instruments such as… a tambourine.
The end product is an album that buzzes like an out-of-control chainsaw, propelled by Sandwith’s spoken-spit-sung vocals, their three-chords-is-one-too-many approach, and an exacting combination of youth, vigour and drunkenness. But don’t mistake simple for stupid – if it was easy to make songs this short, this catchy and this downright brilliant, everyone would be doing it.
“I think they’re good songs and at the end of the day, if I like it then fuck it, who cares if other people do?” – says Sandwith
Despite being the subject of a record label bidding war, The Chats are releasing High Risk Behaviour on their own label, Bargain Bin Records. It’s indicative of a band that have embraced DIY culture since day one, to the point where Sandwith used to spend his days at the post office sending out merch orders.
“We thought, if we just do it ourselves we don’t have to worry about getting swindled. We’ve always done it our way.” – says Sandwith
HIGH RISK BEHAVIOUR TRACKLISTING:
- Stinker
- Drunk N Disorderly
- The Clap
- Identity Theft
- Guns
- Dine N Dash
- Keep The Grubs Out
- Pub Feed
- Ross River
- Heatstroke
- Billy Backwash’s Day
- 4573
- Do What I Want
- Better Than You
“I just want people to have a good time, I want them to dance around and have a beer and enjoy it. We don’t make songs for people to look at in a fucking emotional or intellectual way. We just make songs for people to jump around and have fun to.” – says Sandwith
Catch The Chats at the following dates in October…
October 2020
Fri 16 – Southampton, 1865
Sat 17 – Nottingham, Rock City
Sun 18 – Bristol, 02 Academy
Mon 19 – Ireland, Dublin, Olympia
Tue 20 – Belfast, Limelight
Thu 22 – Glasgow, Galvanizers
Fri 23 – Leeds, Stylus
Sat 24 – Newcastle, Boiler Shop
Sun 25 – Manchester, 02 Academy
Mon 26 – Brighton, Dome
Wed 28 – London, Electric Brixton
Thu 29 – London, Electric Brixton
Tickets go on sale January 24th at 10am!
FEATURE IMAGE BY LUKE HENRY
