Nicholas Chapel (Demians): The Problem Starts When Some People Want a Slice of a Pie That Doesn’t Exist (2009)
Location: Hotel Ilirija / Ljubljana (Šiška) / Slovenia
Interview date: 11.11.2009
Nicholas Chapel is the boss of Demians. I had the chance to talk to him on the day of the band’s show, when they were on tour as guests of Porcupine Tree and stopped at the hall of Kino Šiška in Ljubljana on 03.11.2009. Nicholas is Demians. He writes all the music himself, records all the music himself. He plays every instrument in the studio, produces himself and handles the final mix. But to bring that music to life on stage, he needs helpers. Demians are an interesting band. Hard to compare to anyone. They run their own “lane”. They offer a layered musical blend of progressive rock flow, prominent alternative-flavored guitar riffing, and a rich sonic backdrop that puts the building of a lofty atmosphere above all else. Nicholas, who is the singer and guitarist when on stage, turned out to be an incredibly open, natural conversation partner who walked me through all the essential details that define what Demians are about.
RockLine: How are you feeling about the tour so far? Is everything okay?
Nicholas: Today in Ljubljana is only our third show on the tour. The Porcupine Tree tour is very long and split into several legs. On the current one, we’re the ones traveling with them. We’ve known them for a very long time, anyway. They’re great guys, and we learn a lot from them every day. Since we’re a relatively young band, hanging out with Porcupine Tree gives us an extra push and a lot of stimulation. It’s our first time in Slovenia. And right now everything’s going fine, according to plan.
RockLine: So Porcupine Tree are treating you the way they should.
Nicholas: Yes. They really like our music, and the same goes the other way around. It couldn’t be better for us, and we’re very happy with our status on this tour. With all due respect to Porcupine Tree.
RockLine: How did you get in touch with Steven Wilson?
Nicholas: That happened a few years ago. I make everything on my own in the studio. I write the music, play it and produce it. At that time I didn’t have any kind of deal. My manager was also the manager of a band that was already touring the UK with Porcupine Tree. That’s where he met Steven Wilson. One evening Porcupine Tree were playing a show near his home. Before the gig he met Steven Wilson and handed him a few of my recordings. Wilson liked the music, and that’s how we got in touch. He became a supporter of my music, especially after we released the album. We’ve kept that connection to this day.
RockLine: I listened to your debut “Building An Empire”. It’s a really beautiful album. What inspires you when you create such a rich sonic atmosphere as the one on the band’s debut?
Nicholas: I take my inspiration from everyday life. It can be a completely innocent conversation, it can be dreams… The details of my private life play a big role. I don’t have any special knowledge from music schools, I’m not haunted by audiophilia, and I don’t surround myself with special, expensive technical gadgets or effects, or draw attention to myself by shaking fast, correctly formed scales out of my sleeve in solos. I focus on creating an atmosphere that every listener can identify with. I let the music take its own course, flow freely through me and speak for itself.
RockLine: Since you mention that you don’t focus on fast solos: a few days ago Dream Theater played not far from here, in Ljubljana, and put on a whole circus of soloing. What do you make of their approach?
Nicholas: Dream Theater have been on the scene for a very long time. They’ve followed their idea from the very beginning and stayed true to it. That deserves all respect. But personally, I’m not overly fond of that kind of approach. I like making music that all listeners can find themselves in. Find themselves in their current state of mind and feelings.
RockLine: What drew you in the most, caught your attention, or woke the desire in you to become a musician?
Nicholas: I never wanted to become a professional musician. By nature I’m an introverted, shy person. When I was at school, everyone thought I had no opinions, because I kept everything inside. But when I was younger, I listened to the music my brother played in his room, on the upper floor of the house. My brother listened to Marillion, Peter Gabriel and all that eighties stuff. That music fascinated me. Back then I didn’t understand it, but I really enjoyed that “not understanding”. I don’t like analyzing how music is made, the technical side doesn’t interest me. What counts for me is the personal touch I put into the message of my music. I started playing guitar when I was 8. From then until today, the guitar has grown onto me. I simply wanted to try things out. But otherwise I lived an ordinary everyday life. No big upheavals, nothing anyone in particular would be interested in. Then one day I woke up and it hit me: “I don’t like what I’m doing, I don’t like the place where I live, I don’t like my job… I want to go somewhere else, get to know other places, meet other people. I’d like to do something more. Something more concrete. You know, I’d been playing music practically my whole life, and then one day songs just started coming into my head on their own. I used every tool I could to capture those ideas. Even the ones that seemed less important at first glance, which I recorded on a little cassette recorder with an acoustic guitar. Everything. Then I tried out vocals, I started playing drums. That started happening somewhere around 2001. It was only in 2005 or 2006 that I was seized by the desire to present this music to people, to a crowd. I never wanted to become a band leader, a professional, a rock star. That never interested me. So I recorded the first album completely on my own, and only then looked for musicians to form Demians. Now I have a band. And a few days ago I finished recording the new album, which is supposed to come out next April. Again I did everything on the album myself. I lock myself in the studio and work. Then I take the band out on tour. On the new album I play piano and use a lot of traditional instruments from India. I tried some new things and created new musical spaces. I can’t explain exactly in words how it works, it’s much easier for me to do it than to say it.
RockLine: As far as I’m concerned, going by what I heard on “Building An Empire”, the music you make is friendly and accessible to the ears the whole way through, whether a song runs a few minutes or more than ten. You build on a rich vibe and many moods, but you don’t overcomplicate things. How much truth is there in that?
Nicholas: There are a lot of bands that put complexity first and try to win the crowd over that way. I try to create music that touches people and draws them in. Even when my music is playing and you’re working or doing anything else alongside it, it isn’t distracting, because it isn’t complex, it’s listenable and it flows. But when you focus on it, you’ll find a lot of small details you can explore for a long time, even years… I’d like my music to grab people by the throat and have them relive their own feelings about past experiences as they listen, or for The Demians’ music to bring them closer to their dreams and help them “dream them out”, etc… Many musicians plan in advance what and how they’ll play, but I just pick up an instrument and let myself go, and then I figure out what’s going on, or what happened.
RockLine: While listening, I also noticed that in your keyboard textures you use a lot of retro, nostalgic seventies sounds.
Nicholas: Yes. The first album was made with no money. I had cheap microphones, I leaned on digital programming… For the new album I used only “organic” sounds. A lot of piano, an acoustic piano with microphones attached to it, acoustic and electric guitars, mellotrons, organs, acoustic instruments from India. But what I like best are the string arrangements. In the room where I record, I set up four chairs and miked each one separately. On one chair I played violin, on another cello… and of course I moved the microphones around the studio along with my own position as I played each instrument. Then I combined the recordings of each of the instruments I’d played. I think I achieved a very rich, more authentic and as organic a sound picture as possible. That approach excites and attracts me much more than playing with digital sound.
RockLine: You make an album completely on your own in the studio, and then the band members have to learn your songs for the tour.
Nicholas: Yes. I prepare everything myself. I play all the instruments, produce the album, take care of the mix. Then I present the result to the band members, who have to learn it, absorb it until it gets into their blood. Then we’re ready for the tour. I spent the whole summer in the studio completely alone, recording, composing, and so on… Only a few weeks before the tour did we all get together in the studio. The guys learned the material and brought completely new energy to it. We’re all really looking forward to playing the new material. We’re waiting for that moment with excitement and enthusiasm.
RockLine: What does the new album bring compared to the Demians debut?
Nicholas: Like I said, the first album was recorded with no money, so the difference is huge! This time I devoted myself to recording in real detail. I spent entire days in the studio, moving each instrument around, placing microphones on it in different positions, looking for the right sound to match what I had in my head, what I was after. Once I found that position, I recorded the performance in one piece. Just once, in the first take. As for recording vocals, for the debut I had really bad microphones available. So I recorded my vocals several times, in different spots in the studio. But then a problem came up. I started drifting away from the essence of the core message each song was supposed to carry. I wanted to avoid that with the new album. So I arranged all the instruments in the studio in advance, exactly where I wanted them. That way I could jump onto any instrument at any moment. When I got a flash of inspiration for a piano part, I sat down at the piano, and so on… The difference now is that when I recorded the piano for a song, I didn’t carefully plan it in advance or write out notation or anything like that. It went to tape the next moment, right when the idea popped into my head. And it was played in one piece too, with no extra polishing. That’s why the new album has a very natural sound. Another difference from the debut is that my confidence has grown and I trust myself a lot more than before. I think of the first album as a friend who comforts you anytime. If I’m in a bad mood, I put it on and it always somehow manages to lift my spirits. Like a friend. The new album works like a best friend. And those aren’t always nice, they can be moody. It can comfort me, but at the same time give me a proper “kick in the ass” if I’m overdoing it somewhere. It tells you straight to your face, say, that something isn’t going to work out, and you have to face that. The new album is richer, it has more textures, more experimenting…
RockLine: How does it affect you personally to face the fact that with The Demians, despite all the room you demand for yourself as an artist to express yourself, you still have to approach things as a professional musician?
Nicholas: There’s only one problem with all this. See, everything’s fine as long as you’re getting messages from people saying how much they like your music, how it inspires them and gives them energy, how it inspires them to pick up the guitar themselves, I got that last message from someone in Japan. Up to that point everything’s fine. Those messages boost my confidence and strengthen my belief that I’m on the right path. But it gets complicated when you need people. For instance, when you play live, you always have to wait on somebody, you enter battles with people who push their own ego. I’m actually completely devoted to the music alone, but when I go to gigs I need a drummer to play drums, I need a bassist to play bass guitar. So I’ve noticed that you can record an album in a few weeks, but you spend years finding the right people to perform the songs on stage. Gäel, our current drummer, joined the lineup right before the summer tour we did with Anathema. The previous drummer always operated on the principle that he wanted to prove to me that I was wrong about everything. Since people praise the album and talk about it as a success story, a guy like that wants to carve out a position for himself, some kind of “rock star” status, if I can put it that way. I’m not used to that. I accept other people’s opinions, criticism, praise. I’m very enthusiastic when people ask me questions and are interested in our music. You’re interested in our music too, that’s why you’re here today and why we’re doing this interview. That’s why I approached the new album differently. At first I didn’t even want to record it. See, last year was really exhausting for me because you’re in a position with people who constantly want to measure strength against you, compete. At the start of this year I took a break to clear my head. At first my music turned dark and negative because of those pressures. I’m not a negative person, quite the opposite. When I got to the point where my new label InsideOut Records let me freely create whatever I want, the pressure disappeared and things started flowing. The music grew and turned positive. Thank God, because before that I’d completely lost touch with reality for a while. All these people, from Steven Wilson to Wes (John Wesley, Porcupine Tree guitarist, editor’s note) and the others in Porcupine Tree and Anathema, believed and still believe in me and in the music, and I’m very grateful to them for standing by me all along and encouraging me, even during a time that wasn’t exactly rosy for me.
RockLine: As I understand you, through yourself and the philosophy you stick to, you try to offer the masses as “authentic a musical imprint” of yourself as possible.
Nicholas: That’s my life motto. In everything.
RockLine: Do you think other musicians today are that authentic too?
Nicholas: Today the problem is that you’re on stage, you see all the opportunities being offered to you, and then you face the sad fact that there’s a shortage of quality musicians. See, in the studio you can create all sorts of things. There you can be fast, loud, aggressive, you can be anything. Then you get on stage and you can’t reproduce it. That’s sad. Right now we Demians are in a bit of a pickle, because I haven’t managed to find the right person for the keyboard spot before this tour. So at the moment there are only three of us in the lineup. But I didn’t back out of the tour because of that, we’re playing the material with the help of recorded keyboards. It’s simply too important for us that people get to know us, since we’re still a relatively unknown band. Sooner or later someone will show up and say they want to become our keyboardist and fit into the band. This very year I was faced with a lot of sad facts, disappointments really. So many opportunities came up, but I couldn’t put together a lineup with the right people. And that’s because of people who complicated things over money, over the fact that because of the tour they’d miss their girlfriend for more than a month, and so on. But now, like I said, I’m much more confident and relaxed. Simply because of the new record, which is exactly what I wanted it to be, and at this point nobody can argue with me.
RockLine: You know, Nicholas, I rarely meet an interviewee who comes across as so natural and without distance. That deserves all respect.
Nicholas: That’s just who I am. Even when I was “safe” and provided for. When I had a good job, with good pay, a spacious and comfortable apartment, one day I looked out the window of my office and told myself I didn’t want to be in that place. So I changed my way of life. I simply want to be honest and straight with what I feel. I’m not the kind of person who wants to make an impression or attract attention. I really like it when people come up to me after gigs and talk to me like an old good friend. I like ease and honesty, and that’s how I try to be with people too.
RockLine: How about your native France, and how do people there react to your music?
Nicholas: That’s very hard to answer. We get plenty of support and praise from the French media, no doubt about it. The problem is when, alongside all the praise, people turn up who want a slice of a pie that doesn’t exist. In France most bands only made it, or became known, once they went abroad and first reaped success there. Only then did they start to be appreciated in France too. So you have two options. Either you don’t play music in France, or you play it, but not in France. You have to leave France. Then you come back and everyone’s all sweet: “Oh, there you are! You know, I’ve supported you from the very start!” That doesn’t affect me. I’m not naive because of it, and I’m not bitter. I simply distance myself from it, and every show I play is the same. I don’t treat audiences differently. Whether we’re playing in France, Italy, Slovenia and so on. But the fact of how your own country treats your music, as in my case France, can simply break your heart.
RockLine: You know, it’s a similar story in Slovenia.
Nicholas: Look at Porcupine Tree too. They were successful everywhere except the UK, where they come from. Ten years ago, when they hadn’t made it in the UK yet, they played many, many shows in Italy, but with one date in the UK. When we as Demians did a three-week tour with Anathema, playing shows in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, our halls were packed, except for the last few dates when we reached the UK. The venues we played were smaller, and few people came to our shows there. And Anathema are from the UK. So that’s funny. Like, you play a string of shows in a row in Italy in halls with several thousand people, and then at home in France you open for big bands and nobody even notices you.
RockLine: And finally, one last question: what can the Slovenian audience expect from tonight’s Demians show here in Ljubljana?
Nicholas: Steven and the others from Porcupine Tree invited us to join the tour, but right in this period, just before the tour started, a lot happened for us. Two days before we set off on tour, I finished recording the new album. So it bugs me, in a negative way, that we don’t have a keyboardist with us and can’t play any songs from the new album yet. What does excite me tonight is that we’re playing in the company of our good friends, and that we’re in a position where I can truly enjoy it and we can present and play our music to people. We simply look forward to the collaboration between the band and the audience at tonight’s show, to meeting people after the gig, and I hope we’ll create something tonight that lets us come back to Slovenia sometime.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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