Chavez Cartel Interview on Dead Weekend Single

Liven up your day with a sonic cocktail of hazy guitars, moody melodics, and sultry swagger courtesy of the brand new single Dead Weekend out now from Gold Coast rockers Chavez Cartel.

A track that would equally be at home soundtracking a slick HBO series as much as it appears to unfurl like a shot of single-malt whisky, Dead Weekend finds Chavez Cartel teaming up with ARIA Award-winning producer Govinda Doyle on recording and engineering duties to bring this dark and blazing tune to vivid life. Drawing inspiration from two key hypnotic, slow-burning tracks, Colossus by British rockers IDLES and In Every Dream Home A Heartache by Roxy Music, Dead Weekend also pulsates with nods to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club alongside deep and mature self-exploration, as the band elaborates, "Dead Weekend is all about deep self-reflection. It's about everything we have been through to get us to where we are now - the current version of ourselves. No matter how low we allow ourselves to go in life, it's always ultimately up to us to pick ourselves back up, and it's also up to us on how high we are able to climb. Dead Weekend is all about that. And if you're to look at that notion fully, it's also up to us how to decide how low we allow ourselves to fall in the first place. Dead Weekend is brutal in its take on self-accountability, but it admits that it's all part of the act. The title of the song is sort of like a grim way of looking at growing the fuck up and sorting out your life from the pit of the stomach. When we are younger, we tend to live for the weekend, but Dead Weekend is about the stage of life a little later on when we're looking to live for a lot, lot more."

Perfectly complementing the sonic flavours on display, the accompanying music video for Dead Weekend is deliciously dark and equally hypnotic. With Nathan Frost helming the clip as director of photography and producer, whose work also extends to music videos for Tory Forsyth and Bad Pony, and film work on Aquaman, Alien Covenant, Pirates of the Caribbean and Thor Ragnarok, the end result is a finely-tuned work of art – but don't be fooled into thinking it's a lyric video, as the band explains, "The concept of the video is very much inspired by the concept of the song. We wanted it to be dark, minimalistic, and hypnotic and for it to all be in one place. The idea of keeping the camera up close to Ben's face throughout means the viewers have nowhere really to look except where we want them to: directly into the eyes and soul of the storyteller, which is essentially what the song is about - looking into the mind and soul through different eyes and moods. There's a lot of words in the song that suggest really delicate, perhaps desperate, inner dialogue; words like "pray" and "praying", "fear", "believing", "toxic", "control", we really wanted the viewer to be right up close to these intensities. There's lyrics running through the video that could be mistaken for subtitles. This is deliberate. We wanted the viewer to feel like they were being spoken to directly. Almost like a therapy session and the viewer is the therapist interpreting the words in their own way. It's important they hear the right words which is why we added lyrics into the video - but it's equally as important they make their own minds up on what we're actually saying. It's a mysterious-sounding song to be fair, and this was our attempt at adding that to the visual." 

Spending the past 12+ months honing their sound and crafting a new batch of music, Dead Weekend is the perfect addition to both 2023 and Chavez Cartel's ever-growing catalogue. A group equally enamoured by music as they are with art and food, Chavez Cartel, comprised of four self-described "working class dreamers", firmly embrace the loose acronym for the word "Chavez" with every creative move they make – aka "Can Have it All Very EaZily". Constantly spurring themselves to surge forward, their relentless hard work has also led to the group working with a UK record label and ultimately, as of this year, ticking off an exciting career first: their first ever overseas tour, with festivals and side shows lined up in the UK this May. And before they trek across the pond, Chavez Cartel will also appear as the main support for UK rockers, and current UK and Ireland #1 Album Chart toppers, The Reytons, with a show in Sydney next month. And as to what fans at home and abroad can expect from a 2023 Chavez Cartel live show. "We try to make sure all our shows have big energy and big sound," the band conclude, "but we're really excited by all this it's our first time being booked overseas so the enthusiasm is through the roof. We don't really know what to expect…us on steroids, I guess! 

 Dead Weekend is out now

CHAVEZ CARTEL – UPCOMING TOUR DATES:

SAT 29 APR | JIMNA ROCKS, JIMNA QLD|

Tickets available from www.eventbrite.com.au | All Eventbrite Outlets

TUE 9 MAY | THE GOOD MIXER, CAMDEN LONDON UK

10-13 MAY | THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL, BRIGHTON UK

SAT 3 JUN | MOONDOLL FESTIVAL, BRISBANE QLD

Chavez Cartel Interview

How would you describe your music?

I'd say dark and edgy with energetic build ups & stripped back breakdowns. We've been experimenting a lot lately with new sounds and ways to create an edgy atmospheric feel in our songs too.

Can you tell us about your new song Dead Weekend?  

Dead weekend actually came about with a guitar riff idea and a half finished song being combined. We had these ideas for a while however, we could never get them sounding right…until we decided to join em together. It's edgy, it's druggy and it builds up to a huge explosion of sound that makes a great last song on a set.

What inspired your video?

The video was actually last minute and low budget so we brainstormed how we could quickly get some kind of consistency with the song. The idea to keep a close up ended up working well as it kept it dark and intense, but it was decided because the band was too busy to do a video so just one of us went and sat down in a garage for 3 hours with a videographer and did the best they could. The lyrics were added to read more like subtitles so the viewer hopefully felt as though they were being spoken to directly. Our goal was to give off like a therapy session vibe where the singer is the patient and the viewer is the shrink. That was the idea anyway.

Do you prefer performing live or recording?

Definitely live. I find being in the moment of the music much more captivating and inspiring. Although I love to hear the finals edits of recordings, it's a big process in itself and can be tiring at times. Don't get me wrong, I love it too. It's what makes you hear the song from different perspectives and is the best way to write a song in my opinion but I definitely prefer performing live.

Which is your favourite song to perform live and why?

As a drummer, I love playing one of our latest singles (and a feature on our new EP yet to release) called 'Coming Around'. I feel like this song brings out my favourite style of playing the drums and it's always a fun one to play.

What is the story behind the band name?

Chavez Cartel's name came about before the band was even formed. "Cartel" just sounds cool as hell when added to anything and I think Chavez is secretly an acronym for Can Have it All Very Eazily.

How did the band come together?  

 It's not a very interesting story haha, Ben originally had some songs demo'd and he sent them to me (Tom) via Facebook and asked me if I was keen to jam. We met up about a week later and we got along pretty well. I loved the songs and we pretty much became a band that day. We met Jack and Josh a bit later after our previous guitarist and bassist left. We've been down the road of line up changes but it all led to all of us meeting and this is now who Chavez Cartel is.

What motivates you most when writing music?

Being in the studio and jamming out is one of my main motivations. Most of our songs have come from just playing around with riffs and fills and when it comes together into a song it just feels like you've accomplished something great.

Which music/artists are you currently listening to?

All them Witches, My Sleeping Karma, Velvet underground, Black Rebel Motorcycle club. They're all such a big inspiration.

If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?

Growing up I always loved Santana's collaboration with other artist and he is an amazing musician so he'd be in my top 3 people I'd want to collaborate with given the chance.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced along the way to your musical success?

I guess just moving forward in the music industry itself. It's not easy. There are always setbacks (band members leaving, pandemic, injuries etc) and you just have to push through them and not let any of them discourage you.

What's a typical day like?

A day for most of us that includes us all goes something like this. Go to work so you have some sort of income to support the expensive life of a musician, come home, eat, work on band's social media or meet at the studio and have a jam, sleep, repeat.

What advice do you have for aspiring songwriters or artists?

Go for it. Don't let anyone tell you that this industry is not good enough or not a career in itself. If it's what you want, do it.

What's next, for you?

Lots of music festivals, studio recordings, new merch…you name it. This is our year and it's gonna be a busy one.

Can you share your socials? (links please)

Here's our linktree because we're all professional and savvy with technology now haha. It has all the links to our socials and new music. https://linktr.ee/chavezcartelband