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Chatterton: Never looking back
words : Gracelyn Moore and Leah Wedman
photo: Leah Wedman
photo: Leah Wedman
On the rise and eager to share, they filled us in on all the details from their release shows and new album. Singer Brock Pierce recounted the beginnings of Chatterton, his solo efforts running 7th Heaven Records, and what’s next for the band.
Their debut album is available on 7th Heaven Records and all streaming platforms. Read below to learn more about Chatterton.
I'm Logan, I play drums.
Gracelyn: How did Chatterton come to be?
Brock: I made the project in 2018 It used to be called, Cyanide Kool-Aid.
Gracelyn: Really?
Brock: Stupid, high school name. I was playing solo shows for a while and then with a rotating revolving door of friends filling in. Then 2020/2021 we started collaborating a little more and recording…that kind of long-winded response. So I guess when I was in high school.
Gracelyn: Fields Of This. This came out like two, or three days ago now? How's that? It's kind of like your first big release for you.
Brock: Yeah. I refer to it as a debut. I mean, it's cool. That's cool to have it out.
Gracelyn: How has that been and the responses to it? More within friends and your community?
Logan: It seems like it's been pretty good.
Brock: It's been really good.
Logan: Way more than I anticipated.
Brock: Yeah, there are some songs I hated that I wanted to cut that people ended up liking. I guess it’s their favorite songs. It's been really good. Everyone's been really nice about it.
Gracelyn: Do you want to talk about making Fields Of This? I think it was like “songs from 2019 to 2023”?
Brock: We started recording it in 2022 together.
Logan: But the songs though. The songs were written as far back as 2018, 2019.
Brock: Some of them were going to go on Hey, Sorry. Some are really old. Some songs like Lakewood, we collaborated and wrote together. That's a newer one. Mostly it's this weird amalgamation of old and new.
Logan: It's almost like a compilation album. We tried to make it as cohesive as we could.
Leah: You keep talking about 2018. What happened in 2018?
Brock: I've been writing songs since 2015 on tape recorders, but they all sound like shit because I was 14. I put stuff out in 2018, that’s when I was not horrifyingly embarrassed by it [music making]. It's still really embarrassing. But I didn't think it was the worst back then. I just started writing and feeling more confident.
Gracelyn: How did you guys meet?
Logan: Mutual friends who played with us the last three nights?
Brock: Yes he [their friend] used to play drums in Chatterton.
Logan: I came in as a bass player.
Brock: He introduced me to Logan. He played bass for a while and then rotated.
Gracelyn: I was going to ask because seeing your Instagram story, it's not just the two of you up there. There are like six people or something.
Logan: We were rocking the power trio for a long time - one guitar, drums, and bass. We recently came upon a fantastic extra guitar player. So now we're rocking the four-piece for the main stuff. But on Friday, we had 10 people in the band.
Gracelyn: How did you get 10 people?
Brock: We called in a lot of favors.
Logan: All at once. It was an experiment.
Brock: Everyone did good, but there was a lot of wrangling. There are so many mics and so many things at play. There was so much going on.
Logan: Last night we had seven people in a tiny space. We had space the first night. Last night it was just this little corner [points to the corner of the coffee patio] with seven people in it with a drum kit.
Brock: I accidentally hit someone, our friend Devon.
Logan: Oh my god did you hit her?
Brock: Yeah. She was in backing vocals and it was so tight that, I kept accidentally swiping her at the guitar, and I felt so awful. I was like, “This is so fucked up”
Gracelyn: Also, what's with the suits?
Brock: I just really like suits. I think they're cool.
Logan: It's the right level of campiness. Just once in a while, you know? Bust out when it's the right time, I used the fight this guy cause he wanted to do it every show.
Brock: So we stopped doing that. But for the record release, we committed to the bit.
Logan: We should bring it back.
Gracelyn: What's like the story behind a name like Chatterton.
Brock: I was in art class in high school and we had to do this analysis on - don't even know who the painter was - a Renaissance painting, The Death of Chatterton. It was him on a bed because he's a poet, like Thomas Chatterton. I think his poems are pretty bad. I wish I could say I was inspired by his poetry or something cool.
Logan: Honesty is better.
Brock: I thought the painting was cool. I kind of feel like it's a mouthful now, but I think it works.
Gracelyn: Well some bands now have like a whole sentence.
Logan: That’s true
Brock: I'm mortified by that stuff. I wanted to pull it all down and just delete it all. But, I don't know…some people like it.
Logan: They see the art!
Brock: I can't stand it. I want to remove it.
Logan: But you're biased.
Gracelyn: Do you play any of it?
Brock: Live? No.
Logan: We tried it a few times over the last couple of years to pepper stuff in that was older and it was hard to translate.
Brock: We tried a few that sounded kind of cool. It's weird, but I'm not opposed to it.
Logan: Yeah, if anyone had any requests that would be welcomed.
Brock: Like Saturday! Someone at the acoustic shows requested a really old song.
Logan: That’s true.
Brock: Yeah! So I did do that. I'm not opting to put it on unless someone wants to.
Gracelyn: So have you been playing these newer songs for the last couple of years now?
Logan: Yeah. We're trying to catch up on our second album it’s almost already done. It’s pretty much already within reach. We have all the songs we just need to do the legwork.
Gracelyn: That's what I heard with Rocket. They had those songs for the past three to four years before releasing the EP.
Logan: It's hard. Yeah, because you have to go through a lot of stuff now.
Logan: You have to do it yourself now.
Gracelyn: You guys are completely independent?
Brock: Yeah.
Logan: Oh yeah.
Gracelyn: I was going to ask because the aesthetic of Fields Of This is so good. There’s no way you didn’t have a little team behind that.
Logan: There's always like the friend's input and whatnot.
Gracelyn: What's the story behind the album cover?
Brock: My friend Mia, just posted that picture on her Instagram. I really liked it, and I thought it would fit really well. I asked her and then she let us use the picture and she sent us all the outtakes. She's making a music video with footage from behind the scenes. I'm pretty excited to see that.
Gracelyn: You run 7th Heaven Records, so you are technically signed to yourself [laughs].
Brock: It's kinda like a cheat code
Gracelyn: Do you wanna talk about starting something like that?
Brock: I ran a label for some friends based in multiple states. I got a bunch of internet friends and everyone had a little input. Then we had a falling out, and no one wanted to continue it. I was kinda bummed. I wanted to keep making tapes because it's fun. I just want to own them. I just wanted to make tapes. It's just me I guess.
Gracelyn: Is it a lot?
Brock: Oh, it's so fucked. I'm in school full time, I'm in the band, I work full time and then I have the label. It’s so rough.
Leah: Do you have any opinions on Spotify radios?
Brock: He’s [logan] on Apple Music.
Logan: I appreciate the extra 50% per stream.
Brock: I don't use Spotify Radio. I use, like the bottom of the playlists where it says, recommended or songs like this. Or the Discover Weekly, but I've never used it [the radios]. Probably a way better way to find music, honestly.
Leah: It's how Pavement got popular again. Harness Your Hopes is a Bside. Then it was on every single Spotify radio after every single album. So now it's their biggest hit.
Logan: Interesting. Second wind for pavement
Brock: Yeah. So weird. That's kind of how it is now.
Gracelyn: Oh, totally. Brock, you have a website where you have kind of a digital footprint of yourself?
Brock: Brock’s Room? Yes.
Gracelyn: It's so interesting to have something like that. I mean, especially from something of like your teen years.
Brock: I haven't updated it in a long time there’s a bunch of stuff I want to add to it. I think it's cool. It’s like a time capsule. I was going for a GeoCities, 90’s type website on Google Sites because I can't code.
Gracelyn: Future endeavors? Are you guys going to go on tour?
Logan: Yeah, we're trying to piece together a country-wide tour.
Gracelyn: So this summer?
Logan: That's ideal. We're hoping realistically for late summer.
Brock: We're hoping that the album can get us some funds to at least cushion the cost of a van. If not like we'll probably just ship all of our shit to the East Coast and then rent a car and then do a really small kind of like Philly/New York kind of tour.
Gracelyn: Have you ever wanted to play in Philly?
Brock: Yeah, [laughs] yeah... that's the coolest spot. All of my favorite bands are coming out of Philly right now.
Gracelyn: That's how I feel, Philly and Brooklyn.
Brock: If they're not from there they're somehow still related to that scene.
Gracelyn: Are going to slow down or speed up? It seems like you get some speed up if you're already working on new music.
Brock: We want to record. It's like the process for this album was so long. We drew it out. We would record two songs a month and then it would just go on and on. So which is why it took like two fucking years.
Logan: When we would just do infinite passes on things. Another pass on this and this…What else does it need, let’s adjust this.
Brock: We want to record maybe in May or June - that might be too early - but we want to get in and then finish the album in like a month.
Gracelyn: Do you guys have a home studio or are you recording somewhere?
Brock: His house.
Logan: We did all the recording in my garage!
Gracelyn: You have a producing credit for the album, what's that experience? Do you produce and master for other people?
Logan: That's the one thing I don't do [master], I do everything else. We outsourced that one. I'm kind of working on getting into that. It's mostly just been band experience. Self-taught. So I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just getting experience and getting better at it.
Gracelyn: For people who already like your band, what would you want them to listen to?
Logan: Kan Kan of course.
Brock: Kan Kan. I think Kan Kan is the best fucking band, I can rave about Kan Kan. I mean Sparkle Horse I geek over.
Logan: Our homies from Ventura, Scientists and Saboteurs, of course.
Gracelyn: Are there a lot of bands in Ventura?
Logan: There's a decent amount of bands. There's a little bit of stagnation right now. A couple of years ago everybody was bursting back onto the scene since covid.
Gracelyn: It's an interesting rotation thing sometimes.
Logan: It's a cycle.
Gracelyn: Anyone you want to shout out anyone? Any words you'd like to have?
Brock: I don't know. I'm trying to think, I'll shout out Kan Kan again!
Gracelyn: Where are they from?
Brock: San Diego.
Logan: We're trying to go down there.
Brock: It's pretty cool, I think. The Umbrellas, Blossom, Kan Kan - there's probably more I'm forgetting - it's really cool right now. A lot of the scenes are kind of blossoming. Blossoming? No pun intended.
Logan: Someone else is on the up.
Gracelyn: I know. Finally.
Logan: It's been a recession for a while. It's five years at least. It's been on the bounce back.
Brock: There are actually good bands coming.
Logan: The recession is ending.
Brock: I thought California had the shitty bands and the East Coast had the good bands. Now, it feels like there's a good ratio.
Logan: It flips back and forth.
Gracelyn: I think it's like a mix of both right now.
Logan: That's where we want to be, right?
Gracelyn: There is almost a competition it feels like.
Brock: The entire city of Philly could wipe out the whole state of California, probably the whole West Coast in terms of good bands.
It's ridiculous.