Editor’s note: Edited to reflect that they have played here before.
Richmond has become a burgeoning hub of post punk. Bands like Orthotonics cut through the tall grass of the scene in the 1980s, and now we have the likes of Tentative Decisions, Shagg Carpet, Hard Copy, and Tightrope, to name a few. It’s a sound and a mindset that traces back to places like Manchester, UK, where bands like Joy Division, The Fall, and Buzzcocks were working through similar ideas decades earlier.
I sat down to talk with Vox, frontman, bassist, and singer of the seminal Manchester punk band The Chameleons, who will be at Richmond Music Hall on 4/20 playing alongside The Veldt.
Vox began playing as a teen, embracing the punk explosion that began in his youth. He was eager to carve out his own path in the midst of it all and thought, “what is the quickest way to get into a band? And I thought, well, I reckon I could master bass the fastest.”
Soon after, he began playing under the name The Clichés.
“We were lampooning punk, me and my mates… that’s why we called it The Clichés, and nobody got the joke,” he tells me, with laughs scattered in. In his eyes, punk quickly became a parody of itself. Bands were eager to copy whoever had gotten a record contract most recently.
After gigging with The Clichés for a time, he united with childhood friends Reginald Smithies and Dave Fielding to form the iconic and defining Chameleons.
Growing up in Manchester at that time could not have been a very bright affair. The northern industrial city had been run down and bandaged back together since the bombings of WW2. The group were all quite young. Each member had been gigging in one group or another, attending shows and catching the fire that seemed to spread in Manchester at that time. When they came together, they had a start like so many bands that play around RVA now: teenagers scrapping together what little gear, experience, and time they had, pairing it with a whole lot of ambition.
From the start, Vox was adamant that “punk was attitude. It wasn’t about a sound or how good you’d play or how long you’d been learning.”
While Joe Strummer may have said you only need 2 chords and an idea, you can’t take someone else’s 2 chords, and The Chameleons were dead set on being themselves.
In those early years of playing together, the group started to expand that philosophy and carve out their own identity. Late 70s Manchester was nothing short of legendary, and bands were quick to copy the sounds of the big-name bands like Joy Division and The Fall.
It seemed every band wanted to be on Factory Records, to be part of the selective musician collective, but Vox and the Chameleons wanted to find themselves. “We actually declined. We said no, we’ll go it alone, we’ll take our chances.”
On July 17, 1981, the band landed a coveted spot on the Peel show, the iconic program that defined alternative British music for years. That spot was quickly followed with a record contract and the band’s first releases.
“You couldn’t do it now,” Vox explains. “We didn’t realize how crucial [the Peel sessions] were at the time… Today I think it’s much harder for bands to get a spot, to get a break like that.”
What followed that point was six years, three albums, and thousands of dedicated fans. Their blend of dark purple mood and bright green optimism could connect with you no matter what mood you were in. Songs like “Up the Down Escalator” give you the sense that you can take on all the unfairness and injustice in the world. “Don’t Fall” meets you in grimy streets and cold paranoia.
The band captures that uncertain stage of early adult life, where potential and anxiety are both at their peaks. Those records are untouchable, and their influence can be seen in so many modern bands such as Shame, The Murder Capital, and Fontaines D.C.
After the release of their third record, Strange Times, the group disbanded, and each member found themselves in a variety of bands.
The 2000s saw a reformation, a new collaboration between Vox and drummer John Lever under the name ChameleonsVox, and a handful of releases. Following the death of Lever in 2017, the group stood at a bit of a crossroads. Vox and guitarist Reg Smithies got together to discuss the future.
“The general feeling was, look, we don’t call ourselves The Chameleons, we call each other chameleons. Dave is a chameleon, John was a chameleon, Reg and I, we are chameleons.”
The pandemic stopped the band in the middle of this larger discussion, but gave the group time to start working on new material. This resulted in the first studio release in 21 years, the Where Are You EP, followed by their fifth studio album, Arctic Moon. “It was very much us,” Vox tells me about the newest record. “I’m proud of everyone’s work on that record.”
Now The Chameleons are coming back to America. Forty-five years ago, a handful of Manchester teens set out to define themselves in their music, and the result is timeless and monumental records, records that defined stages of life, changed lives, and still pulse through the sounds we hear today. It all started with a bit of ambition and camaraderie.
Catch them at Richmond Music Hall on Monday April 20th, get your tickets HERE.
Photo by Helen Millington
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