DragonNinjaDotCom

Author: Scott Papenfus
Date: 13th May 2004
Link: Lab Productions

Recently, Lab Productions staff writer Scott Papenfus had a chance to speak with Mike Chiplin, drummer for the red hot Welsh rockers Lostprophets. 

LP: I certainly enjoyed the new album. Let’s start by getting your take on what the differences are between thefakesoundofprogress and the new disc, Start Something?

Chiplin: The first album is a representation of where we were at that point in time. Although it’s an album – it was not written as an album. That’s the biggest difference to me. Start Something we wrote over the space of one year and we wrote it as an album whereas thefakesoundofprogress was written almost rushed in many respects. Some songs were already a year and a half or two years old and others were written literally a week before we went in and recorded. None of the songs connected with others. There wasn’t the same vibe between songs. The first album took only two weeks to record and master, and the new album took six months to write and six months to record, so the comparison are huge.

LP: What would you like the listener to take away from the new album?

Chiplin: I want them to go away hopefully thinking that they have listened to something unique and feel that someone actually took some time and really worked to produce this album. I want them to love the songs because we wrote them and we took a lot of pride and time in writing these songs – so hopefully they’ll go away thinking that they’ve listened to something unique- something big, and hopefully they’ll come check us out then.

LP: I know you produced this record with Eric Valentine. What do you think he brought to the project? What influence do you think he had?

Chiplin: We’d exhausted ourselves by the time we went to LA and we’d already written for about six months or five months, and we had about another three weeks left in us of writing, and he pushed us to do that – he said it would be a good thing to write in different surroundings, so he pushed us to write some more songs. Then we went through every single song and he made us exhaust every avenue. He asked us to defend every part of every song that we’d written, and ask whether it needed to be there or whether we could do other things with it or whether there was something else that could be there – even defend entire songs. He wanted us to go away knowing that we could not have done anything any better. He inspired us. He’s such a cool, relaxed guy. We were working 6 days a week, 15 hours a day and he was just always focused on doing a great job and always pushing us to get the best out of our music.

LP: Certainly you have to be pleased with all the air play that Last Train is getting and it must be driving some good crowds to the venues.

Chiplin: Yes Definitely. We’re getting a really good response. We’re number one this week on alternative radio. The album is doing it’s job and people obviously like it, which is awesome for us because that’s all I wanted people to do is to like the songs we’ve written, and I think they do.

LP: How did the band originally get together?

Chiplin: We all grew up in the same town and I think initially it was for something to do. A couple of the boys had been in bands previously and were at the times in bands – but we didn’t want to go drinking with the rugby boys, we didn’t want to go out fighting – we liked skating together, and it was just an extension of that. We could rent out this little studio, we had a Playstation in there, we could drink coffee and watch videos and occasionally sit down and find a lot of truth. Even back then it was for us and that’s really how Lostprophets really formed. It was literally for something to do because we did not want to go out fighting and drinking like everyone else. We found that we could write together, so we continued.

LP: So are you big skaters?

Chiplin: Yeah we used to skate back in the day, or attempt to skate. It was always a reason to hang out together. One person would go buy a board and another person would go buy a board – I wasn’t a great skater but it meant that I got to hang out with my mates and have a laugh, and that was always a good thing. So yeah we did skating. We used to go out to the coast together just to hang out together on a summer night, while the rest of our mates sat in a pub – the same pub they always sat in. So we always tried going out and we turned into this 30 or 40 strong group that just did everything together. We’d go to the beach and have a barbecue together or go to a show together. It was always healthy for us to be that way and then we started playing shows for our friends which is how we got our first show.

LP: Who were your major musical influences then?

Chiplin: Faith No More. The reason I started playing drums were Mike Borden from Faith No More and David Silveria from Korn. Yeah I would say Faith No More, Korn, Deftones, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeath.

LP: Didn’t you tour with Deftones?

Chiplin: We’ve played a couple shows with them but we didn’t do a tour – but I’d love to. We played a London show with them when Fred Durst had to pull out of a London show and they went ahead and organized their own show and we were the support band – that was an awesome night – a great night.

LP: You’ve also done Ozzfest haven’t you?

Chiplin: Yeah we did Ozzfest a couple years ago and some shows with the Used – we’ve played with a lot of great bands – definitely.

LP: What are you listening to now?

Chiplin: I’m reverting back to a lot of the old stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of Faith No More, the Postal Service, stuff like that.

LP: What’s your upcoming tour schedule?

Chiplin: We’ll be on the road for the next year and a bit I suppose – we’ve already done four months. We’re going to finish off the MTV stint with Hoobastank then we do our own three week West coast tour starting in Vancouver and working our way down towards California. Then we go to Europe with Metallica and Slipknot and do a month with them, which is gonna be awesome. Then in July we come back to the states and do five weeks of our own headline shows then we’re going to Japan for a week. We’re going to hit all the European festivals in the summer and then we’ll be back in the states hopefully for August. We’ll keep going and adding things to our schedule but we hope to be on the road for the next 12 or 15 months.

LP: Back to the new disc, do you have a personal favorite on it?

Chiplin: To Hell We Ride, Hello Again and Last Summer

LP: Define success for me. What does it mean to you.

Chiplin: Success for me is gonna be being around doing the same thing I’m doing now in five or ten years time. That will be success for me. I don’t care about short term success. We want longevity. We want to write music to share with people – that’s the greatest thing for us – being able to go on a stage and play to people that love our music and find something in it that they love – and so success for me is longevity. Hopefully we won’t be one of those bands that disappear after this album – I personally don’t think we will.

LP: No, I certainly think the disc has a lot of top quality writing in it and I think that’s where you get the connection with the listeners. The reviews have been great.

Chiplin: Yeah we’ve had some great reviews, yeah.

LP: Are you working on any new projects right now?

Chiplin: No, but we have recently started writing again though – start accumulating some songs. I’m not working on anything else at the moment – just Lostprophets.

LP: I appreciate your time and wish you luck with the tour.

Chiplin: Next time we pass through, we’d love to have you at a show.

LP: I’ll be there.