The Chisel: No Gimmicks
The story of THE CHISEL is almost as classic as their sound. Formed in London in 2020 by members of VIOLENT REACTION, ARMS RACE and CHUBBY & THE GANG with no aspirations beyond releasing a seven inch, no-one is more bemused than frontman Cal Graham that he and the band now find themselves with two fantastic full-lengths to their name. “I wasn’t expecting to get any kind of recognition whatsoever,” he admits. “But then as we did more records it just kind of snowballed a little bit.”
He’s underselling it; a few EPs and singles soon gave way to the band’s already classic debut album Retaliation, released in November 2021 when they’d played less than a handful of shows, and in the two-and-a-bit years since then they’ve put their foot to the floor not just here in the UK but also all over Europe and notably across the pond. They’ve supported legends like GBH and the CIRCLE JERKS, they’re now signed to the massive Pure Noise Records, and the last track on their new album What A Fucking Nightmare – the focus of our conversation today – features an appearance from none other than Paul Bearer of New York Hardcore legends SHEER TERROR who really is just one of the many heroes they’ve won over in their still relatively brief existence.
You’d think all this would’ve raised the pressure for album number two, but that wasn’t the case. “We started writing the second album once we finished recording the first,” explains Graham. “We knew when Retaliation was done that it sounded quite good – without blowing our own trumpet – we thought we could actually maybe do something with this a little bit, but we just carried on writing.”
And thus the direction of What A Fucking Nightmare remains largely the same – politically-charged street-punk perfection that draws on all the best bits of Oi! and hardcore and UK82 only this time with the infectious hooks and melodies of its predecessor dialled up just a notch or two further. Graham explains that this is something the band got a bit of a taste for last time around, and you can certainly hear it as tracks like Cry Your Eyes Out and Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet and Cuts Like A Knife boast some of their biggest shouty singalongs to date.
Of course, none of this comes at the expense of aggression. “We’re not going to start writing pop songs anytime soon,” laughs Graham, his claim backed up convincingly by ragers like No Gimmicks or Fuck ‘Em which tear by in all of 90 seconds or so, and even more so by his blunt and uncompromising lyrics. As before, most of the flak hits the politicians and so-called upper classes who have absolutely broken this country, though Graham does have some equally choice words saved for your “gobshites” and “knobheads” and people who just won’t leave you alone in the pub.
“I try to write about the experiences in my own life, or just my own thought patterns,” he elaborates. “Before I moved to London I wasn’t really up to scratch in terms of class struggle and things like that. It was only when I moved down here that I really started to see it because in Blackpool everyone’s the same, there isn’t really an upper class side of it. But when I came to London, I saw the differences… so a lot of that influences my lyrics, but then anything that feels like a personal thing towards me is something that I’ve experienced within my life.”
“We are a certain way and when I sing about violence and things like that it’s something that’s very much been a part of my life growing up in Blackpool,” he adds. “But at the end of the day none of us are dickheads. We’re actually nice people and I firmly believe in treating people with respect until you’ve got a reason not to. There’s a lot of people out there who will be like ‘yeah I’m a dickhead’ and this and that but I don’t believe in that, I don’t think like that at all. I do believe in things like violence in its place if I’m sorting things out, but I hate bullies.”
This is perhaps the greatest appeal of THE CHISEL; it’s angry, lairy fight music but there’s also a powerful sense of camaraderie, the feeling that if you’re with them you’re really with them. “We’re definitely trying for people not to misunderstand us because it’s very easy especially in the Oi! and skinhead scenes and stuff like that to be pigeonholed or tarred with a certain brush. I think if people just read the lyrics they’ll see what we’re about.”
He’s right; there’s no bullshit here – No Gimmicks even – what you see is what you get and that’s not going to change anytime soon. “We all work full time,” concludes Graham as we turn to the future. “Three of us work in construction. It’s not easy. We do tour a lot, but it’s all of our vacation days, so I’m not going to be quitting my job anytime soon, especially not at my age. Unless something mental happens it will probably just be exactly the same for the next album but we’ll get paid a bit more for playing a show or something hopefully.”
And as for what his job makes of it? “I don’t think they’ve read the lyrics, so they love it at the moment.”
What A Fucking Nightmare is out now via Pure Noise Records.
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