The Chap are Keith Duncan, Panos Ghikas, Claire Hope, Berit Immig and Johannes von Weizsäcker. In their late twenties, after having each played in a variety of bands (sometimes with other Chap members-to-be) as well as having worked in music therapy, cocktail bars, big bank IT, telephone marketing and corporate jingle composition, they formed in London around the turn of the millennium. They set out to create music that “sounds wrong”. In pursuing this goal, they’ve since written a lot of great pop songs such as “Proper Rock”, “We Work In Bars” and “Ethnic Instrument”.

Some of their songs involve funny noises and scratchy string sounds. Some of them are produced in a really weird way that sounds brilliant. Some people have noted that the lyrics are usually delivered in a deadpan Radio 4 style. All their songs are about how everything is terrible and pointless and we should really all kill ourselves immediately. Renowned for their commitment, they have constructed five home-produced pop albums: The Horse (2003), Ham (2005), Mega Breakfast (2008), Well Done Europe (2010) and We Are Nobody (2012). Their forthcoming album is called The Show Must Go and is due out on Lo Recordings in October. It’s a political rock album about how everything is terrible etc.: about the Eurozone, drone metal vs drone warfare, post-democracy, about how the internet is shit and really fun and about how guitars are really stupid but really fun.

The Chap’s influences include the entire canon of all music ever as well as a lot of other stuff. They have musical backgrounds in pop, rock, post-atonal piano music, free improv and classical music. They’re all in their 40s now. They don’t look cool. They look good, though. Their live show is really dense and intense so you don’t know what the hell is going on but you’re loving every second of it. They’ve toured the UK and continental Europe countless times, and the US once. Along the way, The Chap have been asked by Beck, Bloc Party, Tom Vek, Gotye and others to provide remixes. They have toured with Gotye. Panos runs experimental music label Migro. Johannes and Keith, who relocated to Berlin some time ago, are part of Erfolg (German for “Success”), a German-language pop music project.