Chocolate Hot Pockets talk their new album The Feast
Interview with Alex Moxon of Chocolate Hot Pockets
What exactly is a chocolate hot pocket?
A Chocolate Hot Pocket is whatever you want it to be. It could be… Music…. Food…. Pants? Since we’re an instrumental band, the audience has to come to its own conclusions about what our music means to them, so I feel that it’s fitting that the band’s name reflects that. For me I think it sums up what the music sounds like pretty accurately though: it’s sweet, it’s hot, and it’s got a tight pocket.
CHP is a supergroup of sorts. Can you talk about how the band came to be?
I guess it’s the supergroup that precedes all our other groups. We all play music for a living (i.e., no side gigs) so we have to keep ourselves as busy as possible. Ed has a record label called LGR Records, he’s with Atlantis Jazz Ensemble and BlakDenim (pretty in-demand dude, he also recently played with Sloan
at Arboretum), Jamie plays with Thrust and was with JW Jones for years, JP plays with the Billy Love Band, I’m with HILOTRONS and Treasure Dub, and we all are guesting with friends’ bands and creating our own side projects that live and die at a constant rate.
If you play original music in a local scene, I guess the issue you run into is that people get tired of hearing the same group all the time, so in order to stay booked and keep the lights on you naturally have to diversify. The one constant for all of us though is The Chocolate Hot Pockets, which was our first band making all original music and has been going strong for over 5 years now.
We met when Jamie, JP, and I were all attending the Carleton University music program. We were playing a regular gig at the Avant Garde Bar at that time. Ed is actually originally from London England.
He was working in the show band on a cruise ship where he met his girlfriend (now his wife). She’s from Ottawa, so he stopped by to visit with her. In scoping out the scene he sat in at our gig one day and we all felt like we had a pretty sweet match, so when he did eventually move to Ottawa we started writing,
rehearsing, recording, etc.
For those who may not be familiar with your music but are music fans, how would you describe CHP’s live performance?
We’re an instrumental funk band. We all have jazz degrees though, so the music tends to have cool modern chords and throws fun curve balls at the listener. We all take solos too and stretch out over
slamming funk beats. Face melting for sure.
Going into studio recordings, was The Feast fully composed? Or were there improvisational elements that were incorporated during those sessions?
It depends on the tune really, but on average it’s about 60% written out and 40% improvised. From playing the music live a ton we had the arrangements down really solidly and knew what direction we wanted them to take, but many intros, outros, solos, and the accompaniment for them were spontaneous and happened in the studio.
The Feast is CHP’s third album, but you’ve chosen to release it in a series of videos on YouTube. What was the reasoning for this unconventional approach?
We want to break into other markets and find new fans. We’re a live band and that’s how we reach our audience the best, and so we’ve toured a lot. We always have a good time in certain towns and venues (The Rex in Toronto and the Upstairs in Montreal come to mind, also the Guelph Jazz Festival), but in2016 the cost of touring extensively in unfamiliar towns to convert new fans as an indie band is prohibitive. None of us have trust funds!
In many ways YouTube is like the radio now, at least in terms of reach and mass appeal, and that’s how most people find new music these days anyway. In light of those facts we’re just putting it out Beyonce-style and hoping to generate as much hype as possible. Bottom line is we want you to hear our shit and come party with us when we visit your town.
Will there be any physical copies? Vinyl? Please?
I know! Vinyl! Please! One day. For this record we’re doing download cards. Sorry (I’m saying that more to myself). All art, artifacts, and music will be on the cards, which people will be able to pick up at shows. It’ll also be available on iTunes after the release at Mercury Lounge on the 15th.
It seems like CHP has no plans on slowing down anytime soon. Are you guys continuing to write new music and make your plans for 2017 come true?
Well we have enough music written for another album right now, and I have a few secret tunes on my computer that I’m looking forward to showing the guys once the rehearsal process for the release is done. So yeah definitely we’ll keep recording. We’ll be touring big style in the summer next year, Canada
and the States.