Chevelle season appears imminent. The band has announced a new tour and are teasing new music, so of course we had to lock them in for an Audacy Check In.
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00:00I think we were in Texas somewhere, and it was the weirdest thing.
00:03They had this little concrete stage, and then people walking by could come in
00:07and watch a free rock show that day.
00:10It was like a party central, like, you know, girls in bikinis and dudes on dudes' shoulders
00:16and whatever.
00:17I remember thinking, I did not drink enough for this.
00:22This is a rager.
00:24And it was during the daytime.
00:26It wasn't at night.
00:27It was like three o'clock.
00:28There was no lights.
00:32It's Abe Gannon.
00:33It's an Odyssey check-in.
00:34And I have Chevelle, who have a new song out.
00:38Pete and Sam are both here.
00:39A new song called Rabbit Hole, in parentheses, Cowards Part 1.
00:43Does that mean there'll be a Cowards, a Rabbit Hole Part 2?
00:47Yeah, basically.
00:48Yeah, there'll be a Cowards Part 2.
00:50But I have to name them.
00:53The first part has to change, just so it's like a little bit...
00:56It just fits in better with the other track.
00:59Because they're not like, you know, they talk about a certain topic, but they don't sound
01:04the same.
01:05So the new album, could you talk about that yet?
01:08Do we know when that's coming out?
01:09We're hoping, what, August, Sam?
01:12I think so.
01:14They're pretty particular about having every single part of everything finished before
01:18they give you a release date.
01:19All the artwork has to be finished and things like that.
01:22So, but the tour starts August 7th in San Antonio.
01:28With Askin' Alexandria and Dead Poets Society.
01:32So it would be nice if the record was out when the tour starts.
01:38Somehow this is the 30th year of Chevelle.
01:40I mean, I know the first album, the 25th anniversary was last year.
01:43But you guys have somehow been together for 30 years.
01:46Like, how is that possible?
01:48It's been 30 years of Chevelle.
01:50Because you guys are like, I mean, it's just when people think of Chevelle, they don't
01:54think of you guys as a 30 year band, but somehow it's been 30 years.
01:58Yeah.
01:59Yeah.
01:59I'm just, I don't know.
02:01Time flies.
02:01And especially when you start having a, you know, like if you have a kid or two, you're
02:05like, you're watching them grow.
02:07And then it makes time fly even more.
02:10But, you know, Sam and I started this band when we were in our teens.
02:14I mean, 15 years old.
02:17Yeah.
02:17Yeah.
02:18So 30 years is like.
02:20Yeah.
02:21It's just always been us.
02:23We're brothers.
02:24We talk every day.
02:25We, you know, our families hang out.
02:27We do a lot of stuff together.
02:29We go on tour together and it just works.
02:31It works until it doesn't.
02:33Right, Sam?
02:34Yeah.
02:35That's what our friend Mike says.
02:38One day you guys will hate each other and it'll all be over.
02:41No, hopefully not.
02:43I mean, the thing is.
02:44Yeah, I don't think that'll happen.
02:46I think that we've gone through so many chapters in life already that we will never get to that.
02:52We can't patch it up.
02:53We've fought.
02:55You know, there are people that you come across in this music landscape that you won't ever
03:00talk to again.
03:01But that's not, it's not us, hopefully.
03:04Knock on wood.
03:05So.
03:05It's been good.
03:07I mean, it's been good.
03:09We've had these different parts, but it's funny because you think like 30 years, like, I mean,
03:14in some ways you could say it's been 38 years, right?
03:18Because we, when you and I first started playing our instruments, we started playing immediately
03:25playing together.
03:26So, I mean, it's not really, I mean, we kind of, Pete and I look at it like our first album
03:31came out in 99, you know, 20.
03:3426 years.
03:3626 years ago, which is funny because we're both in our 30s.
03:40Yeah, exactly.
03:41Do you guys think, speaking of, you know, your age, like you guys look great, like being
03:46in a band 30 years, it's kept you guys young, right?
03:50Because if you had like a hard job, I'm sure you'd be a lot more weathered.
03:54I hope that the secret is lots of booze and lots of sleep at the same time.
04:02Because we all start a rock band to do what we want to do, whether it's, you know, tour
04:07the world or make music or meet girls or whatever you want to do.
04:12But if you can just make sure to sleep a lot, which, you know, that does seem to help, that
04:18could help.
04:19Yeah.
04:19Is it hard?
04:20It's hard to sleep on those buses though, right?
04:22Oh, yeah.
04:22Oh, it's a nightmare.
04:23Impossible.
04:23Oh, yeah.
04:24I mean, the good thing is that, you know, if you are smart and you say, look, do not
04:30schedule anything until afternoon, then you have that whole morning to sleep once you
04:37get to the venue, because you may not sleep at 3 a.m.
04:40When you're going down the road.
04:42Yeah.
04:43Which one of you guys gets to sleep in the bed in the back?
04:45Because every bus has the nice bed in the back and then there's like 20 bunks.
04:49We take the bed out and put couches in.
04:52Oh, yeah.
04:53Yeah.
04:53So it's a lounge, but I'll tell you really quickly what it's like sleeping on a bus.
04:58You play your show.
05:00Everybody tears everything down.
05:01You get onto the bus and usually your bus calls two o'clock.
05:04So you try to get into that bed before two o'clock, before the bus starts to roll.
05:09And then the bus rolls somewhere around, like, depending on how far you're going,
05:13it drives somewhere between five and ten hours a night.
05:16Right.
05:16So if you arrive at the venue at, say, nine o'clock in the morning, you've basically
05:21laid in your bed for seven hours and gotten about two hours of sleep, you know, bouncing
05:26around and been worried all night that you're about to die in the car accident, giant car
05:30accident flying off the off the turnpike or something like that.
05:34And then so at nine, the bus rolls in and then you really sleep hard until like one.
05:40So and that's every day.
05:44Sometimes even when you get on days off, when you get hotel rooms, sometimes you don't
05:48get an overnight in a hotel room.
05:49But if you do, you get into that hotel room and you lay there wide awake until five a.m.
05:56You can't sleep because you're not in the bus.
05:58It's such a weird time.
05:59And that's why you'll see like, you know, two, three, four or five weeks in eight weeks
06:05and you'll be like, oh, this is a little bit of a different tour than it was the first
06:09week, you know, where you're more settled in.
06:11But at the same time, you're you've really gone without on any major sleep for eight
06:17weeks.
06:17It's crazy.
06:19This would be weird to ask if you guys weren't brothers, but why not just get the big bed
06:23in the back and just both sleep in the bed?
06:25Have a nice, comfortable sleep back there.
06:27Huge bed.
06:28You guys can take one side.
06:29It would be great.
06:31I don't think it would help because the bunks are in front of the lounge.
06:36So the motor, the engines in the back underneath the bed.
06:41Yeah.
06:42So I don't know that it would be better.
06:47It's just whether or not the roads are in construction zones or not.
06:51It's really that that's a huge part of it.
06:53And yeah, it's not for everyone.
06:57There's a lot of people that walk on a tour bus and say, I don't know how you do it.
07:01And then there's other people that are like, you know, I love the bunk.
07:05So yeah.
07:06Yeah.
07:06That's why you end up drinking so early on drinking so much and pass out.
07:12Yeah.
07:13Do you guys still live by Great America?
07:15Six flags.
07:17Yeah, it's not far.
07:18I mean, I'm from Chicago, the south side.
07:21And when I was a kid, like, we would go to Great America once or twice a year.
07:25And it was like a big deal.
07:26And I always wondered, like, you guys, like, I'm 43.
07:30I'm a few years younger, but right around the same age.
07:32And like, to me, that was like the greatest place to go.
07:35And like, I was always jealous of kids like you guys when I was a kid who lived near Great
07:40America because all the people I knew that lived like in Gurney, Gray's Lake, they had
07:44like the season passes.
07:45And they were there like, yeah, 10 times a month.
07:48Were you guys those kids that were at six flags like all the time?
07:52We didn't grow up like that, unfortunately.
07:55We didn't.
07:56We were not in that kind of a, we were not in season pass household.
08:04Huge family.
08:05So seven kids, you know, so everything was hand-me-downs.
08:09We were just, you know.
08:11Yeah.
08:12I think we were food insecure for most of our upbringing.
08:15Like, yeah, everybody needed shoes constantly.
08:18So yeah.
08:19There's a lot of people.
08:20I remember in my teens, I went, I started going to six flags, but it was it was rare.
08:26But now our kids have season passes.
08:28So we're just trying to get.
08:30Yeah, we're trying to get our kids, friends, parents to take them.
08:33Hey, are you taking your kids?
08:34Can you take us?
08:36I remember a ticket was like $30 and a season pass was like $32.
08:41So I'm like, and then if you buy, if you collect it, like 10, if you had like 10 cans of Coke,
08:47you saved like $10.
08:48So I'm like, yeah, I remember that.
08:51Yeah, it's like you can rot your teeth out of your head.
08:54Then we'll give you $2 off.
08:56Have you guys ever played at Six Flags?
08:58Because they used to have bands there all the time.
09:00Oh, no way.
09:01Really?
09:01Yeah, I think that we have.
09:04I think that would be a glorious Chevelle concert to do it at Six Flags.
09:08It would be fun that you're right.
09:10That's a good idea.
09:11You should do that.
09:13I didn't know about that, but we played a water park once.
09:17Remember that, Sam?
09:18We did.
09:19I think we were in Texas somewhere and it was the weirdest thing.
09:22Everybody's in like, you know, they had this little concrete stage
09:26and then people walking by could come in and watch a free rock show that day.
09:32And it was like, so it actually went off without a hook.
09:35It was like a party central, like, you know,
09:38girls in bikinis and dudes on dudes shoulders and whatever.
09:42It was like.
09:43This was like 2001.
09:44Yeah, it's a long time ago.
09:47And I remember thinking.
09:51I did not drink enough for this.
09:53This is a rager.
09:55And it was during the daytime.
09:57It wasn't at night.
09:58It was like three o'clock.
10:00There was no lights.
10:01There was no lighting.
10:02It was just a concrete stage.
10:03I was about four feet high.
10:05There was nothing else.
10:06And Pete, I remember about a week before the end of that tour,
10:09our agent called us and he goes, hey, I've got a show on the way home.
10:13If you guys want to stop, it's literally on your way home.
10:16It's like seven local metal bands.
10:19And then you guys close at three o'clock in the afternoon.
10:22It was it was a set.
10:24It sounds great.
10:25It was weird.
10:26It was great, but it was fun.
10:28It's weird, like growing up in Chicago.
10:30It's like, you know, everyone in Chicago is the best city.
10:32But like all you had was Indiana Beach, Noah's Ark in Great America.
10:36Those were the three places that we would go to.
10:39Santa's Village.
10:40Don't forget Santa's Village.
10:41Oh, yeah, that's yeah.
10:42That was great, too.
10:43This year, you guys are doing Coachella, Aftershock, Sonic Temple.
10:46Welcome to Rockville.
10:47Like when you guys go to these big festivals.
10:49That sounds so fucking cool, doesn't it?
10:51Yeah, it does.
10:53Yeah, that's that's a great line.
10:55So when you guys go to these shows, is it are you excited to like?
10:58I know you're good friends with Korn, right?
11:00And you're playing the same night at Aftershock is Korn.
11:03So will you be hanging out with like, how does that work?
11:05Do you just are you just laying in the bunk or are you out hanging out with people?
11:09Oh, totally.
11:10With those those festivals.
11:11Oh, yeah.
11:12Like, you know, Monkey used to ride his mini bike across our stage while we were playing.
11:17I mean, he like those those cats are they rule.
11:21Honestly, we love them.
11:22And oh, whenever you play a festival, you're going to run into friends.
11:28I mean, you don't go back to us and chill.
11:31You hope to sit side stage.
11:33So those are really big, great shows.
11:36And we're really happy to be part of them.
11:37And yes, we wander around the whole time.
11:39We watch our friends bands.
11:41We watch the bands that we like, hopefully meet some new people.
11:44I mean, it's a literal party.
11:47Yeah, it's everything you hope it would be as an adult.
11:51There's so many lists of like the greatest sandwiches and stuff like that.
11:54But like, are there music venues that you think that you guys have played that you think people
11:58should just go to that venue?
11:59Like, for instance, I always bring up the Metro in Chicago.
12:02That's an iconic place.
12:03I think everyone should check out.
12:04Do you guys have a list of venues that are just the greatest venues that are worth
12:09taking a trip to a city just to go to that venue?
12:12Well, I mean, what do you think, Sam?
12:14I mean, well, there's there are iconic venues like Red Rocks and things like that.
12:19You know, there's that.
12:20What's that name of that venue in New Jersey that fills up with water between
12:24the crowd and the stage?
12:25You know, those kinds of things were very specific.
12:30Right.
12:30Yeah, the gorge.
12:33Yeah.
12:34But yeah, I mean, as far as, you know, rock venues, good rock venues.
12:39I mean, you know, you cannot beat the Cabaret Metro in Chicagoland.
12:43Like you said.
12:44Yeah.
12:44I mean, it's I mean, it's like we know it is very Metro.
12:47I mean, we shot a we shot a terrible DVD there once we did two nights.
12:53And I got I got I walked out on stage and I was like, I turned around and I go.
12:59Two sold out, two sold out night shows.
13:02Where the hell are our lights?
13:05The lighting, our guy didn't bring them in and we're shooting a DVD.
13:10So it turned out so weird.
13:11Looks like garbage.
13:13But the show was fun.
13:14You talk about rock venues, right?
13:16We talk about like the Aragon Ballroom where.
13:18Yeah, we went for years and years.
13:22And like in in Milwaukee.
13:26The Eagles nasty.
13:28Yeah, the rave, the Eagles ballroom.
13:32I'm trying to think of like more places like remember, we used to go to shows
13:36like we saw Alice in Chains at like the Vic, right?
13:40Whoa, wasn't that?
13:41That was a long time ago.
13:43Wasn't it?
13:44The Riviera, I want to say.
13:46Oh, it was a Riviera.
13:47OK, so my God, probably the Riviera Theater.
13:49Yeah, it's a band I never got to see.
13:51I was never got to see them before.
13:53I mean, I saw them after, you know, the new version.
13:56Never got to see them live.
13:57I'm jealous.
13:58Do you guys ever see like Nirvana live or anything like that?
14:01I've never seen Nirvana.
14:03No, but we went to the first three Lollapaloozas that came through town in Chicagoland.
14:10So that's back when it was a that's back when it was a touring festival.
14:14Yeah, exactly.
14:16And it was very first.
14:17Yeah, it was the best.
14:18I mean, it was the best.
14:19So I remember, you know, Pearl Jam told everyone to come down from the lawn,
14:25flood the front seats and all that.
14:28And so we all did, you know, great memories.
14:30You know, Nine Inch Nails.
14:32Oh, man.
14:33You know, we saw Trent Reznor throw Richard Patrick off the stage.
14:37Literally pick him up, throw him off.
14:40I think I was on the lawn, Sam, and you were in the pit
14:43because you bought your ticket before me.
14:44For that show, yeah.
14:45That's right.
14:46When you if you went and bought like like tickets were available at like 601 a.m.,
14:51we would camp out overnight in the.
14:53Yeah, you would go.
14:53You'd wait.
14:54You'd wait out a jewel or Carson Perry Scott or the tickets.
14:57And it was it was I was talking about this the other day.
15:00It's like that was like part of the experience was I really was like
15:05if my grandma couldn't drop me off somewhere to get tickets, I would walk
15:09miles and then we'd wait in line for tickets.
15:12They would do those lotteries.
15:13Like it was a party outside a jewel or Dominic's or whatever it was to get your tickets.
15:18It was it was like building the concert, right?
15:21Building the concert event as a as a fan of music.
15:26I think it's a little bit lost for sure.
15:29Yeah, that's one thing I would say.
15:30I feel bad the kids don't get everything like we were talking.
15:32You're talking about you made a DVD.
15:34Like I remember trying to get like the Danzig three video or those Pantera videos
15:38they were putting out like you couldn't even find them.
15:40Like I would have to like take like the red line, go to like Tower Records,
15:44go to all these different record.
15:45Like you would scour the city to find things.
15:48Now it's just like click.
15:49You just buy everything.
15:50Yeah, so it's not better.
15:53The experience with I mean, there's better things now than then.
15:56But back to Lollapalooza, do you guys remember when Metallica headline Lollapalooza?
16:02And it was when Lode came out, they cut their hair.
16:05It was like their sellouts, their sellouts.
16:07They cut their hair.
16:08It was like such a big deal back then to cut your hair.
16:11Yeah, yeah.
16:13It's like, yeah.
16:14Like Axl Rose cut his hair a few years ago.
16:15No one even cared, you know?
16:19Well, that's true.
16:20Yeah, everybody freaked out when Jerry Cantrell cut his hair too.
16:24I feel like do you remember that?
16:25They yeah, a lot of fans were pissed about that.
16:27Yeah, so he's a sellout.
16:30Yeah, but how can you do, man?
16:32You try shit.
16:34Some of it works.
16:34Some of it doesn't.
16:36Well, I love this new song.
16:38Rabbit Hole Cowards Part One.
16:40I can't wait to hear the whole album.
16:42I can't wait to see you guys and I'll see you guys at Aftershock for sure.
16:45Nice.
16:45Yeah, last thing, you know, you guys have really diehard fans.
16:49I like to end the interviews just letting you talk directly to your fans.
16:52What do you want to say to your fans?
16:53Well, I would say about this new music is just like.
16:58We've worked really hard on it, and I think it's.
17:01I think some of the best stuff we've ever done, honestly.
17:04Well, it's so much fun to play.
17:05That's for sure.
17:06Yeah, I mean, we're just we're just happy maintaining.
17:09We're trying to maintain anyway and put out shit that's fun to play live.
17:15And a lot of these tracks are.
17:17I'm running through four of them right now that I can rip out at any time.
17:21So we, you know, that goes both ways, too.
17:24Like a lot of fans want to hear the old stuff.
17:26Some want to hear the new, but we just try and mix it up.
17:30But I think I think this new album is going to be a blast to come to see it live.
17:35For sure.
17:36So come out to a show, please.
17:38And, you know, I don't know.
17:42Give us give us tips after the show.
17:43We'll walk out and high five you.
17:46You know, this is your 10th album.
17:47Like if you consider just playing at least one song from all 10 albums on one of your set lists.
17:52I mean, we definitely can.
17:53We do probably.
17:55For the most part, we don't we don't play anything off of right now, I think.
17:59But we could.
18:01Yeah, we could.
18:02Yeah, it's a good idea.
18:03Well, check it out.
18:04I'm very excited.
18:05The new song, Rabbit Hole, Cowards Part One, the new album, the new tour.
18:09Chevelle, you guys are awesome.
18:10Thank you so much.
18:11Hey, thanks for having us.
18:13Yeah, I appreciate it.
18:14Thank you, guys.