The Chameleons Turn a New Shade of Cool
Catching up with the British post-punk group’s legendary frontman Mark Burgess
On a balmy August afternoon, fans are already lined up all the way down the block and around the corner as they wait to enter Webster Hall, one of New York City’s most prestigious music venues.
In about three hours, the iconic post-punk band the Chameleons will take the stage, playing their beloved 1986 album Strange Times in full.
But this evening isn’t all about nostalgia, as vocalist/bassist Mark Burgess is quick to point out. Relaxing on a couch in a dimly lit backstage lounge, he looks every inch the rock star (tousled hair, skinny black jeans, and tight black vest). And he’s eager to discuss Where Are You?, the three-song EP that the Chameleons released in May – the band’s first new music in 20 years.
“It’s doing really well,” Burgess says, noting that the EP landed on multiple music charts, including reaching the Top 5 in the U.K.’s prestigious Physical Singles chart. “I’m really surprised, because it’s never happened before,” he says of this impressive showing. “You think you’ve done a really good record, and it goes out, and it goes…” He makes a downward swooping motion with his hand. “And then this one, it’s got a little bit up the ladder. It’s good.”
Still, Burgess admits that not everyone is pleased with these new songs because they don’t exhibit the same exact sound that the Chameleons were doing 40 years ago. “We obviously touch people on a deeper level than a lot of bands do – and that cuts both ways,” he says. “We get a lot of the love and the emotion of what the music makes them feel, but we also get the other side of it where some people get almost religious about it. Especially when you’ve got a legacy like ours: they don’t want that legacy messed with. They don’t want you to evolve.
“I’ve seen some people commenting on it, like, ‘That doesn’t sound like the old Chameleons.’ No, it’s not going to, because we’re a different band,” he continues, adding that he believes that artists should be allowed to change. “They grow up,” he says. This time, he says he and his bandmates wanted to celebrate their influences from the 1960s and 1970s, including The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, David Bowie and T.Rex.
Some things have remained the same as they were in the 1980s, though: in addition to Burgess, the band’s lineup once again includes Reg Smithies, the guitarist who co-founded the Chameleons, and who appeared on all four of the studio albums that the band released between 1983 and 2001. Having Smithies back in the fold is “fantastic,” Burgess says. “It’s just great because he’s the best writing partner I’ve ever had.”
When Smithies expressed interest in playing with the Chameleons again in 2021, Burgess initially assumed it would be a one-off kind of deal. The band planned a show in their native Manchester, England, and it became immediately clear during rehearsals that this would be a more permanent situation. “He was just enjoying himself because there was no baggage or anything like the old days. We were just enjoying ourselves,” Burgess says. Two festival appearances followed, which convinced Smithies to rejoin the Chameleons on a full-time basis.
Although Burgess says it felt “very natural” to have Smithies back in the band, and he is happy with the current lineup overall – which also includes guitarist Stephen Rice, keyboardist Danny Ashberry, and drummer Todd Demma – he still had reservations when he began contemplating creating new music together. “I thought it would be hard work, having not written together for a long time,” he says.
That worry turned out to be unfounded. Burgess heard Smithies come up with the riff that would quickly evolve into the song “Where Are You?,” and things seemed to easily fall into place from there.
Encouraged by the EP’s success, Burgess says the band are currently halfway through recording an album, titled Arctic Moon, which he hopes will be released later this year. It will, he says, continue the band’s exploration of who they are now. “I’m totally fine with trying to carve out something new. We are Chameleons, but it’s different, and this record is not going to sound like anything we’ve done before. But it’s still identifiably us,” he says.
Coming up with a unique sound is actually something that the Chameleons have always consciously tried to achieve. When the band formed in 1981 in Manchester, Burgess says he and his bandmates made a deliberate decision to be different: “We didn’t want to sound like anybody else.”
He concedes that a big part of their distinctive sound resulted from their relative lack of musical experience. In particular, although Burgess had previously been in a punk band, The Clichés, he was coming to the Chameleons with very little musical proficiency. “I’d only been playing bass for about eight months when I joined the Chameleons, so I was still learning how to do it,” he says.
He was further thrown into the deep end when he was coaxed into taking on lead vocalist duties, as well. “I had to do that because we couldn’t find a singer,” he says. “That’s how I kind of fell into it.”
The band came up with a distinctive mixture of jagged but melodic post-punk mixed with ethereal atmospherics, which they deftly displayed on their debut album, The Script of the Bridge (1983). Their next two albums, What Does Anything Mean? Basically (1985) and Strange Times (1986) were equally evocative.
The Chameleons quickly became a cult favorite among post-punk fans, and consistently earned stellar reviews from critics – but widespread commercial success eluded them, leading to their split in 1987. They’ve reunited and disbanded a few times since, always with Burgess at the helm – with one reformation leading to a fourth studio album, Why Call It Anything, in 2001. (Through the years, Burgess has also led some notable spinoff efforts, including the Sun and the Moon and ChameleonsVox.)
Though the Chameleons went through many ups and downs during the past four decades, Burgess says he’s pleased to revisit the highlights now – including this current tour to celebrate Strange Times. Performing that album in full is, he says, “quite a complex thing to do because of the way the songs flow into each other, and the diversity of one song from another. It makes it an interesting thing, so we’re really enjoying it.”
That attitude is evident when, later in the evening, Burgess and his bandmates deliver a flawless performance that evokes palpable excitement throughout the Webster Hall audience. This enthusiasm for hearing Strange Times in its entirely is perhaps a predictable outcome, though, because as Burgess notes, American audiences have always seemed to particularly appreciate that album.
This support was an especially important motivating factor for the band as they toured the U.S. in 1987 to support that album’s release. “When we were just getting completely ignored and being made to feel not relevant in our own country, The New York Times was calling it the best album since [The Beatles’ album] Revolver,” he says, “so that was the difference between the two sides of the Atlantic.”
Since then, Strange Times (along with the rest of the band’s releases) have become universally recognized as some of the most beloved and influential post-punk albums of all time, which Burgess says has been very vindicating. “If you told me then that you’d still pay me to play this 40 years from now, I would have laughed at you,” he says. “I wouldn’t have taken that seriously.”
Having the Chameleons arrive at their current position, where they’re able to honor their past while continuing to evolve, is exactly where Burgess wants the band to be.
“I’m just glad that we’ve been able to keep it alive to the point now where we can start to take it forward,” he says with a smile. “That’s gratifying. That makes it worthwhile.”
VIDEO: The Chameleons “Where Are You?”
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