I Love This Freakin’ Band: The Chameleons UK

The Chameleons' "In Shreds" single cover art

By Cindy Sites

In the late ’90s, my friend Jeff with the brilliant musical taste used to speak in glowing terms about a great old post-punk group called the Chameleons (with an extra UK added to the name in the US). He knew my musical taste well, and a lot of it has to do with ’80s bands from Manchester, England – home to the Chameleons.

In 1981, singer/bassist Mark Burgess, guitarist Reg Smithies, guitarist Dave Fielding, and drummer Brian Schofield (soon replaced by John Lever) formed the Chameleons from the remnants of several other area bands. Like all the best British bands of the time, they attracted the notice of influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who had them in to record Peel Sessions on three occasions over the years. Their classic debut single “In Shreds” was released on CBS Records, its searing desperation married to an irresistible post-punk sound that sold respectably well. Despite this, the label wanted to change the band’s sound, but the Chameleons disagreed and were dropped. They found a new home at a label called Statik and released their first album, Script of the Bridge, in 1983. Start to finish, it was one flawless, atmospheric dark pop-rock tune after another. Because Virgin Records distributed Statik, they couldn’t qualify for the independent charts that would get them more music press coverage. Angry about an edited version of their debut released on MCA in the US, the band tried to get out of their Statik contract but were obligated to one more release with them. Two years later came What Does Anything Mean? Basically, which distinguished the band as far more than a one-album wonder. After signing with Geffen, the Chameleons released Strange Times in 1986, another haunting set of tunes that, sadly, would prove to be their last for a long time. Following the death of manager Tony Fletcher, the grieving band split up in 1987.

Still, the guys eventually realized they had left their story unfinished. Putting aside hard feelings, they decided to do a brief reunion tour in 2000 and released a limited edition acoustic EP titled Strip. The next year saw the Chameleons’ first studio album since 1987, Why Call It Anything? Yet another solid album, its tone was warmer and even reggae-tinged thanks to new percussionist and guest vocalist Kwasi Asante. After its release, the band again fell apart acrimoniously. Today they’re revered as a band that never put out a bad album.

Though they are sometimes included on gothic rock compilations, the Chameleons always fit more comfortably into the post-punk scene. Like the Velvet Underground before them, their influence on musicians that came after them far exceeded their fan base in their heyday. Bands including the Stone Roses, And Also the Trees, Catherine Wheel, Interpol, Editors, and Bell Hollow have either proclaimed their affection for the Chameleons themselves or had it done for them by music journalists. You can hear elements of Joy Division, David Bowie, the Beatles, the Soft Boys, and other great British bands in the Chameleons’ sound, but they always distinguished themselves with shimmering textures and lyrics that often spoke of nostalgia for childhood or of finding a human connection in a cold world.

Even though my middle name might as well be “’80s post-punk,” for reasons probably related to my chronic procrastination even in pleasures, I didn’t actually get around to buying a Chameleons CD, Strange Times, until sometime in 2000. I would go on to buy their other albums all out of order.

If only there had been YouTube and iTunes in those days, I would have heard more than enough to know for sure I wanted to travel to DC for the closest stop on their reunion tour back then. I might not have missed out on seeing the band that has since carved its name in my heart next to U2 and Marc Almond. Instead, I hemmed and hawed because after all, how could I take a road trip like that when I only had one CD? My excuses for not going sound ridiculous to me now. The material I knew at the time, as blisteringly gorgeous as it is, was not enough to make me make that trip. What a shame, too, but I choose to believe that the music that really matters finds us when we need it.

Eleven years ago, I thought I was intimately familiar with the kind of wracking despair that a song like “Soul in Isolation” is all about. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it would take me a couple more years and a series of personal disasters to get in there and dig into that level of emotional pain. Not that the Chameleons are all about unceasing doom, but angst is certainly a theme in Burgess’ lyrics. After years of casual courtship, I didn’t fall in love with the Chameleons until sometime around 2006, when I’d grown to know the underbelly of life a little too well. Over the next couple of years, as I endured worsening emotional problems amid the disintegration of a marriage that had been doomed before it even began, I had the comfort of bands including the Chameleons to keep me going. By the time I was truly a fan, the band’s short lived reunion had long since fallen apart in acrimony, meaning that it was unlikely I’d ever get my chance to see them.

Last month, to my joy, I discovered that I’d have another chance to see some of these songs performed live. Burgess and Lever formed Chameleons Vox after the original lineup disbanded for presumably the last time, and they’re doing a brief tour of the US in November. It’ll mean a trip somewhere up or down the east coast, but I don’t want to be kicking myself years from now for missing another opportunity to see at least half of this band whose music has become part of me.

I don’t remember what song finally did it. Maybe it was the little reminders here and there, like an acquaintance playing “In Shreds” at a club, or the now-defunct “Majority Report” talk radio show using “Swamp Thing” as its opening music. The one thing I’m certain of is that “Swamp Thing” and “Intrigue in Tangiers” are the tracks that touched those precious nerves that I always want music to reach. Whenever I listen to a new song by a favourite band, I’m always hoping to be affected the way those songs move me. You know the songs that make you cry into your chosen beverage as you sing along during those late nights when you’ve been thinking too hard about where life has gone awry, making you feel that someone else out there gets you? That’s what many Chameleons songs do for me.

As a teenager, I was the biggest music nerd I knew. That girl still lives in me and when she listens to the Chameleons, she knows the feelings as well as if she wrote the songs herself.