Fuck ‘Em: An Interview With the Chisel + Chubby and the Gang

Who's gonna stop them, you?

The Chisel (Photo by Nick Suchak)

I admit, as much as I love meat-and-meat punk, it can be hard to sustain distinctive songs and even riffs in a steady stream for an entire LP. It can be even harder to distinguish oneselves in hardcore, even though the energy’s almost always ripping at a show. So I don’t keep up with the scene, but the standouts do stand out. Chubby and the Gang were a surprise to me in 2020, having more in common with classic English street punk (Anti-Nowhere League, Sham 69, et al.) than one of the most popular and visible waves of hardcore that’s ever occurred. I absolutely loved their debut album Speed Kills, its every line bellowed in gang vocals, and 2021’s follow-up The Mutt’s Nuts expanded the sound to include Johnny Cash-modeled cowpunk and even power-pop gems like “Coming Up Tough.” Their sweetest melody is called “I Hate the Radio.”

But I’ve maybe come to prefer Charlie “Chubby Charles” Manning-Walker’s other band, the Chisel, where the spitfire Callum “Cal” Graham takes over on vocals and Manning-Walker narrows his focus purely to anthemic riffs bolstering the shout-along choruses. Both the Chisel’s albums, 2021’s Retaliation and this year’s even catchier What a Fucking Nightmare are wall-to-wall greatness on par with early Rancid, elevating a classic oi! sound with a no-miss batting average and some notably melodic highlights (“What Do You Mean,” “Not the Only One”). Their show at Bensalem, PA’s Broken Goblet Brewing was an expected knockout in May, and plans to chat afterward were slightly postponed, though Cal and Charlie spoke to RIOTRIOT the next day, passing the phone around between them. Here’s the brief, fun conversation we had.

Of the many fucking nightmares that we're currently living in, which was the one that inspired the new album’s title?

Cal Graham: Well, it’s the worst nightmare currently that I'm living in.

Which one's that?

Cal: My house.