“My parents were punks, back in the 70s,” says Charlie Manning Walker, otherwise known as Chubby Charles, the leader of UK punk’s most exciting new band, Chubby and the Gang. “They went to all the Rock Against Racism shows. They saw some horrible stuff. But they’ve said to me: ‘Son, what’s happening now is far worse and far scarier than it ever was back then.’ I tend to believe them. Things are scary out there, aren’t they?”
Manning Walker is speaking via Zoom on his phone. He doesn’t own a computer. “I’m not bothered with that stuff,” says the 30-year-old. “I don’t want to get home from work and sit in front of a computer. I just want to be left alone to make music.” Much of the conversation takes place looking up the singer and sometime electrician’s nose; several framed Ramones posters come into view. “They’re yours if you want them,” he says. “Give us your address.” He sits with the hood of his top pulled up over his head and spins on his chair, his demeanour as agitated as his band’s music.
Despite his rejection of modern norms, Manning Walker is obviously doing something right. Before everything shut down earlier this year, London-based hardcore five-piece Chubby and the Gang were enjoying a moment that doesn’t often swing round for bands of their ilk. Their debut album, Speed Kills – produced by Fucked Up drummer Jonah Falco, with whom Manning Walker plays in another band called Boss – was released in January to a flurry of acclaim, only a few months after their first ever show. Their broken-hearted ballad Grenfell Forever had become a protest song for our times. The “gang”, made up of members of a number of bands who’ve been crucial to British hardcore’s recent revival – Violent Reaction, Abolition, Big Cheese and more – quickly headed to the US for their first headline tour. Rolling Stone sang their praises, as did Paste magazine; even Pitchfork were on board. Then … well, you know what happened then.
It is not difficult to understand why the music world got into such a flap about the band. Theirs is a voice – suburban, working-class, disillusioned – that feels increasingly important. It helps, too, that the songs are outstanding. Speed Kills takes the evolution of punk – a pinch of pub rock, its anarchic 1977 heyday, a dose of 100mph hardcore (“I had to one-up my parents”) – and fuses it all together to create something a bit like what the immortal Ramones might have sounded like if they’d hung out on west London’s Uxbridge Road and not CBGB in New York City. The record is re-released this week on the band’s new home Partisan Records (home of Idles, Fontaines DC and Laura Marling).
There is a new-old song bolted on at the end, the ferocious Union Dues (key lyric: “Don’t forget what Thatcher done / Or what they’ve printed in the Sun”). “The song is about being unapologetic in your beliefs,” says Manning Walker, who has spent his life bouncing around the country’s capital. “It’s about being in a union and recognising the strength we have together. I was tired of hearing songs that tread on eggshells, so I just laid things out plain and simple. I’m not a super-political person but I know how I feel and what I believe in and I’m not going to apologise or back down.” Although he describes himself as not political, the band’s output says otherwise: their anti-police diatribe Blue Ain’t My Colour namechecks the death of the anti-racism campaigner Blair Peach, and Mark Duggan, whose death ignited 2011’s London riots.
Musically, the Ramones are an obvious reference point, but the influence of the pub-cum-punk rock of Canvey Island greats Dr Feelgood should not be overlooked. Not that the band are entombed in a classic punk prison. “I love loads of 50s and 60s pop stuff,” says Manning Walker. “Jackie DeShannon is a current favourite. I want organs in there, and I want handclaps. Chubby aren’t a band scared to get musical, and I want the band to grow.”
This is most apparent on their slowest, most tender song, Trouble (You Were Always on My Mind), which owes more to the Hollies than the frantic pulse of hardcore punk. There is more to come on album two (“We’ve done some really cool stuff”), but don’t expect anything less filthy and furious than the band’s debut.
“The problem we have,” laughs the singer, “is whatever kind of song we write, it comes out fast. I spent so long in the hardcore scene, it shapes everything we do. There’s a song we just recorded for the new album and it sounded really slow to me. The rest of the band were looking at me in disbelief.” He makes the impossible-to-transcribe sound of a drummer playing very, very fast, his arms flailing around. “It’s a fast record cos that’s how I live my life.”
It is music befitting these down-and-dirty times. Much like grime and drill, this is music that speaks of the young, inner-city, working-class experience. “Trump and Brexit and all that,” says the singer. “It’s empowered people to do and say things that are completely unacceptable. The internet has allowed people to say the worst stuff without repercussions; stuff you’d say in the pub and get a pint glass around your head.”
God save the Queen, a fascist regime. But God save Chubby, too: the new king of British punk.
Speed Kills is rereleased on vinyl on Friday 20 November
