Chapel

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Chapel Celebrates the Pop Power of Two

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

FLOWERY BRANCH ISN’T EXACTLY KNOWN AS being one of Georgia’s main hubs of creativity. But crafty pop duo Chapel lived and recorded there for several years and managed to tour both nationally and internationally on the strength of their material and support of some of altpops major players. The band has a new EP out this month called Room Service and the indie-minded folks at Rise Records are supporting it with a video for each of the four songs of the set. Produced and engineered by the band - Carter Hardin (vocals / guitars /keyboard) and Kortney Grinwis (drums and vocals), the collection features the group’s familiar ingenious lyrics backed with hook-laden pop melodies, propelled by raw rhythms and ‘80s-tinged synth splashes. Chapel debuted “First Love” in February, highlighting a song-a-month promotion plan that utilizes videos shot and directed by the band themselves. As 2021 began, their track “Pillow Talk” garnered multiple spins on SiriusXM’s Alt Nation. Since issuing their debut EP Sunday Brunch in 2017, Chapel has amassed more than eight million streams across various platforms. Not bad for a band that was once based fifty miles from the nearest music scene. INsite recently spoke with Hardin from the band’s secluded suburban studio.

Categories and labels are usually vulgar words for artists - but how would you label your music if you were forced to put a name on it? I think it would be alt-pop if we absolutely had to define it. We do have some stuff that’s kind of out of left field but generally that seems to sort of sum it up. That’s usually the way I describe it to people if they ask about it. The newer for sure actually feels a lot more alternative pop than ever. I think that’s the way we’re leaning, with their newer stuff that we’re working on now.

You may be the first - and probably only - alt-pop band from Flowery Branch. (Laughs) I’d say that’s entirely possible. When we first started, we got a house in Flowery Branch and we lived and worked there for a good while. Everything that’s been out, except for like the new stuff, all came from our time at that house.

This has been a good year for Chapel so far. A video each month is a pretty good track record. Well long story short, we put out two singles in like 2019 and then last year we had a full album done. But because of the quarantine, everything changed was changed so the EP is brand new stuff. We write a lot, so we wanted to get this out.

How did Chapel get together? Kourtney is from Michigan and I’m almost born and raised in Georgia. We’d been in some projects together before and they didn’t really work out, like seven or eight years ago. Then I had some songs I was working on down here. So one day I just asked if she would be down to come to Georgia and do some drum tracks for this one song. It turned out that we got along great and we pretty much knew right then that, yes this is going to be a band.

Did she move down here then? Well it’s kind of like any sort of long distance relationship. She was back and forth from here to Michigan. It made sense to be in the same place if we wanted to work together as a real band. So finally she did move down here and that’s when we looked around and found the place in Flowery Branch. I know a lot of people go to L.A. or New York or whatever but in our case it worked to go where we did. We could be as loud as we wanted and it was secluded with no real outside influences to distract us from working on stuff.

Chapel toured extensively, which is very rare for a new band. Yeah it was really quick and kind of an insane thing to do. We were such babies. But we got lucky. We only had like two songs out and we went out on tour with the band called Waterpark and then immediately after that we went out on tour with Sum 41. That tour was huge and so intimidating. We made a pact that, OK let’s just don’t talk to anybody ‘cause we’re young and stupid. Let’s just play our set and leave so we don’t say or do anything stupid. It was pretty intense and everything was moving so fast but it all actually worked out. We had networked with a lot of people who seemed to really like our stuff. But yeah, we definitely skipped a lot of steps for sure, right out of the gate.

What was it like for a band from a small town in Georgia to play on big, imposing UK and European tours? It was as surreal as you can imagine! But if you ever wanna watch a live show for the first time, I always recommend that if you can, by all means, please go to Europe because it’s so different over there. I know that’s not possible for most people, but I mean it as a concept. The people over there are all so hype and I think it’s because shows don’t happen quite as much over there. We’re a little jaded about seeing big here. But over there, the markets are not quite so saturated and people really get into it.

You were playing not only to foreign audiences but many in the crowd probably had no idea who you were. Right. It was actually kind of terrifying at times, because you never knew exactly what was going to work or what wasn’t - but we tried hard. Also I think that’s the most fun part of it in a way. Sometimes we’d get on tours that didn’t really match exactly the kind of music that we play. But that just made us try really hard to get people on our side. It pushed us to play even harder and to work harder for that moment and in the process, we learned a lot.

Has the Chapel technique of songwriting changed over the years? Drastically. A lot of times, top to bottom it’s me with the melodies and production but then when it comes to lyrics, we’re pretty much split on it. I don’t wanna have a message that she is not behind and vice versa. So we both give each other the green light on stuff like that and then she comes in does her drum thing. It’s pretty evenly split and mostly it’s all done in-house. We’ve learned everything as we went along because we had to. Now it’s pretty much us doing everything.

Are your songs written with the idea that you’re going to eventually play them live? No. But I should! We can use tracks if we need to, but the main thing that we keep in mind is the fact are people gonna nod off. Is this going to be boring or will they enjoy it? Seriously if I see someone checking their phone while we’re playing a song, we usually scrap it.

I’ve seen photographs of the band playing live and there were a couple of extra people onstage. But now you’re strictly a duo, correct? Yeah, early on we had extra people with us because a lot of it was guitar and bass heavy. But now there’s a lot more synths and pianos and stuff. At the beginning, we thought it would be a good idea to have an extra live member. We did a couple of tours with like that but it just felt sort of weird to us. Now you’d think with just two people it’s going to be weirder but actually it’s not. It’s way more fun to do it this way, with just me and Kourtney. It’s so much easier for us because that’s how we work in the studio, so it transfers to the stage. I mean, it’s almost like the lines get blurred sometimes between live and studio because of how well we work together. But some of the newer stuff we’re working on past the EP is kinda nuts! If we have to play it live and if we get the option to pursue more live members, we might do it just to fill out the sound. But for now, it’s just us.

For info, music, videos and all things Chapel, visit the band at chapelusa.com.