Chester French: The Interview

Chester French: The Interview - newbornrodeo

Posted by newbornrodeo

A good interview is more than an entertaining read. A good interview holds the power to pique a reader’s interest to a subject they would normally write off. Pop-Rock meets Hip-Hop MTV darlings Chester French are not a group I would seek out on my own. Our very own newbornrodeo recently interviewed the duo for his own blog and opened my mind and my ears along the way. Check out his interview below.

— Ed.

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You know that band that gets praised as “the next big thing” every so often? It’s safe to say that Chester French is in that position right now with plans to follow through on the premonitions. Their debut album, Love The Future, has all the cool kids talking, and for good reason. The duo has taken classic rock influences and interjected hip-hop sensibilities, creating a unique formula that works surprisingly well in the process.

Earlier this week, I got the opportunity to speak with D.A. Wallach and Max Drummey while they killed some time in their Boston hotel room in between tour dates. If you’ve thought about it, we talked about it. Record sales? Fashion? Women? Drugs? We covered all of the above and much, much more in their exclusive interview with Newborn Rodeo. Continue reading to check it out.

NBR: Where are you right now?

Max: We’re in Boston. In a hotel.

NBR: What are you doing there?

Max: Just making money. Playing shows, you know? Nothing new.

D.A.: Popping bottles. Fucking models. Pushing throttles.

NBR: How much Ciroc have you had today so far?

D.A.: Bottle and a half.

Max: Three cases.

D.A.: Wow dude, you’re an addict.

Max: Are we only counting drinking or is it drinking and bathing? Because I bathed in two cases this morning.

NBR: Who’s cutting the check for all of the Ciroc promo?

D.A.: We’re cutting the check to buy the Ciroc, which is getting really unsustainable because it’s a pretty expensive product. We need to bathe in Ciroc for our skin to look as bright and youthful as it does.

NBR: Congratulations on being able to regularly afford Ciroc in this economic climate.

D.A.: Congratulations on having the ingenuity for us to get credit cards. We’re in huge debt, but it’s worth it.

NBR: I think it’s worth it dude. I’ve wasted a decent amount of money on Ciroc before.

D.A.: We need to start a support group.

NBR: Congratulations on releasing an album as well. I know it’s a big dream and everything. How do you feel about your first week sales? (6,300 units)

Max: It was really exciting to sell 263,000 copies the first week. I was expecting somewhere in the 150 to 175 [thousand] ballpark, but it totally exceeded my expectations.

NBR: A lot of people drop out of school or skip school to get to the point that you’re at now. Do you feel like those four years at Harvard have helped prepare you for life now?

Max: We used it to do all the actual work we had to do, so now all that we have to do is fuck around.

NBR: I know you were just there for a show. How was it going back to Harvard?

Max: I thought it was gonna suck because I hate Harvard. I didn’t have a very good time there. But it was a really good show. I’m from Boston too so a lot of my family was there and a lot of my friends came through. Then a ton of people I didn’t know were there who were fans of ours, which was dope. Played a free show in the middle of the day. Wale came through. That works for us. So yeah, it was a good show.

NBR: It’s interesting that you mention hating Harvard. Were you ever into the college lifestyle or was that your main thought while there?

Max: I felt like I should finish. That was my main thought.

NBR: Well, you’ve made a name for yourselves pretty quickly and that’s the Chester French story that everyone knows, but there had to be rough spots along the way.

D.A.: Yeah, there was over a year where we had finished this album basically and no one was feeling it. We kept giving it to people and no one was feeling it. So that was pretty demoralizing. We’re not famous at this point, I don’t think. We don’t get recognized. Not anymore than maybe 30, 40 thousand people have heard our album, and that’s in a country of 350 million people. It’s just an ongoing thing. We’re still a small operation. We’re still just trying to collect supporters. We’re in a great place right now, but we’re still just working everyday to grow it bigger and bigger.

NBR: A lot of your music, especially on the mixtape, deals with making the transition from regular guys to full-time musicians. At what point did you get used to meeting celebrities and everything else that comes with your current lifestyle?

Max: There’s a point when you’re meeting celebrities when you realize that a lot of them aren’t any better looking, more talented, or more intelligent than you or most of your friends are and you stop being impressed just because they’re celebrities. It’s been a privilege to be around some people who are extremely beautiful and extremely talented and extremely intelligent. That’s been great and that always will be great, but the world is the world and people are people. There’s gonna be people and things that impress you and people and things that don’t. You just gotta live your life. In general, you try to remember what matters and actually devote your attention to people who are great at what they do and people who make amazing music or live amazing lives and are generous and good. When you live out in L.A. it’s easy to start thinking that…the value system out there is not the most evolved. People are sort of preoccupied with various superficial things.

NBR: Living in L.A. for a while, I’m sure you guys saw a lot. What’s the Chester French standpoint on drugs and experimenting? That type of stuff.

Max: Is there a more specific question that you’re trying to ask? You’re beating around the bush dog, let’s hear it.

NBR: Do you guys do drugs? Are you snorting lines backstage all the time or what? What’s the deal?

Max: I smoked weed once and that’s the only time I’ve ever done any drugs.

NBR: Really?

Max: Yeah, promise.

NBR: D.A., where do you stand on drugs?

Max: He stands on a pile of them.

NBR: [Laughs]

D.A.: I don’t think they really help people do anything, aside from performance enhancing drugs probably. Most people I know who do a lot of drugs are held back by them.

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NBR: Chester French has a very distinct interview style. I feel like it’s an extension of your personalities, but you both definitely put on a show sometimes. With that said, who’s going to break into acting first?

D.A.: We’re already there. We don’t make our own music so performances and everything are basically acting.

NBR: Are you guys as fashion conscious as you seem? Are Air Chester’s or any type of clothing collaboration on the way?

Max: I have a lot more music I wanna make before I start making fucking shoes. Are you serious? But if I do start making shoes it’ll be really, transparently, exclusively a money making operation. Not a labor of love.

NBR: “She Loves Everybody” is about a girl who gets around. There’s a line in “Bebe Buell” about sluts. It seems like there’s an animosity towards promiscuous women. Care to elaborate on that?

D.A.: I’ve fucked some whores. I’ve also fucked some good girls.

NBR: Do you have a preference?

D.A.: I do have a preference and I’m gonna leave it up to you to figure out which it is.

NBR: Max, I’m not gonna ask any specifics about your marriage, but what was it like being married while in the music industry and trying to get your career started?

Max: It was cool because my wife would come and chill with me while I was on tour, so it was cool.

NBR: Aside from girls, are you aware of the amount of homoerotic humor on the mixtape?

D.A.: No. We thought that was just erotic humor and we were told after the fact that it’s in fact, homoerotic.

NBR: Well, at least you can potentially build your gay fan base.

D.A.: We’re just trying to get our hard-ons going dude. It was just us and Clinton [Sparks] in a hotel room vibing and that’s what happened. If you want to call it gay, that’s fine, but I like to call it having fun.

NBR: You knew the Twitter question was coming. I’ll try not to ask the same boring one that everyone asks, but I’ve seen D.A. making some moves on there, talking to Mark Hoppus. How much of a reality is the Blink 182 tour?

D.A.: We’re really hoping that it happens. We haven’t heard for sure that it’s going to, but it’d be a fucking cool opportunity for us.

NBR: Good luck with it man. I’m already super excited about that tour, so I hope you guys land it. Speaking of Twitter-last Twitter question. D.A., why did you unfollow me dude? Do you dislike my tweeting style?

D.A.: No, no, no. I had ended up following thousands of people and I didn’t know most of the people. It just got to the point where it was useless to look at my homepage. I’ll happily follow you again if you don’t update every three seconds.

NBR: It’s totally cool. I just had to ask that.

D.A.: Yeah, it’s nothing personal.

NBR: For such a new band, Chester French has worked with so many people. Who else would you like to work with and are there any collaborations brewing that nobody knows about right now?

D.A.: We might go in the studio with Masta Ace this week, which would be really cool because he’s a legend and a great artist. We’re very open. We’d love to try doing some stuff outside of hip-hop too. Producing in other areas. It’d be very cool now to work with a country artist, more in the mold of something you would have heard in the 40’s or 50’s, because country music is such an awesome American tradition that sucks now. As far as I can tell.

NBR: Chester French is known for its hip-hop affiliations. With your type of music, do you feel like you would be better off marketed elsewhere?

D.A.: Well, the way we get marketed, honestly, is through word of mouth and through our existing supporters telling their friends and family and the word getting around. We’re happy to have any sort of person listen to our music. We don’t care what else they listen to. We don’t care if they’re fans of Lil’ Wayne or if they’re fans of Miley Cyrus. Anyone is welcome. If we do the Blink 182 tour it will be a great way to reach people who we wouldn’t encounter on a Common/N.E.R.D. tour, for the most part. We just want to reach everyone.

NBR: I think “C’Mon” is a great choice for a second single if you wind up going with that. Is there any news about a second album or is that not even in the picture right now?

Max: No, that will happen. There’s tons of music in the works. Second album will come. Jock Jams Vol. 2: Stamina coming in the Fall. End of story.

NBR: Sounds great. Thanks for your time. Good luck with everything.

D.A.: Alright, love.

Max: Holler.

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