The Chameleons last performed in the DC-area in August, and Parklife DC Editor Mickey McCarter then chatted with the band’s frontman Mark Burgess, now also known as Vox. In the past several months, The Chameleons have released a new EP, shared more details about their forthcoming LP, and embarked on another tour. For The Darker Skies Tour, The Chameleons, a classic English post-punk band formed in the ’80s, share a bill with American dark wave duo Twin Tribes, founded in Texas in 2017. The tour visits The Fillmore Silver Spring on Sunday, May 4.
Mickey recently chatted with Vox once again to get the latest on the new tour and upcoming music.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mickey McCarter: Hello, Vox! Since we last met in person, you’re going by Vox now instead of Mark. And I suspect people want to know about that. What’s behind the change?
Vox: Well, I’ve changed. I went through a very profound transition between December and the Second of January. I was on a retreat. And I was profoundly changed and in a good way. I got rid of a lot of trauma and a lot of stuff that I’ve been carrying. And I wanted to make that distinction between who I was and who I believe I am now.
That was mainly the reason! But I also think it’s a healthy thing. We’re given names for legacy purposes, and once we’re grown up, those names are there, but they don’t really say anything about us. There’s a reason for a particular name, you know. In some cultures, they’d watch their children and see who they are in terms of the personality, and they would give them a name accordingly. And I wanted a name that defined me and who I was. I think it’s been good thing. It would be a good thing if we said to our kids, “When you’re old enough, if you want, you can keep your name or you can choose a name that you feel defined you better than that.” It’s not so unusual in English culture. Just as an example, we have a crewman in England who works with us a lot. He goes by Dingo; nobody calls him Simon. We get nicknames or whatever. And we tend to relate to them more than we relate to our legal names.
But again I was inspired by this experience that I had in Spain at this retreat around December 28th to January 2nd. I was in this bubble and making connections and all kinds of work. I saw stuff tat I’d been carrying around, and I wanted to make a distinction between who I was and who I am. I’ve taken a major step closer to being a more acceptable version of myself really.
MM: When I talked to you last, you seemed like you were in a very great space creatively. You seemed personallyhapy and centered and productive. I thought that explained a lot about you and about the band.
Vox: In terms of the group and music and related stuff, you’re absolutely right. It’s been great. But in my own personal life, I’ve been struggling with a lot of things. The two were conflicting. When I was out on the road with the band, it was great because I could leave it all behind somewhat. But musically, creatively, we’ve been in a really good place. We feel really good about what we’re doing.
Stream “The Fan & the Bellows” by The Chameleons on YouTube:
MM: You’re now on a big tour with Twin Tribes. What can we expect from the tour when we see you?
Vox: Because we’re playing alongside another big group, we don’t have as much time as we would if we just had a solo show. So, we’re playing what we feel is relevant. Our new album, Arctic Moon, doesn’t come out until the 12th of September. And we don’t want it all over YouTube before the album is released. And so, we won’t be playing much of the new material until perhaps we get to the California leg of this tour. We plan to come back in October and by that time, the album will be out, and we will play more of that. In the meantime, we are revisiting our legacy.
MM: You released an EP in October 2024. You put out the Tomorrow Remember Yesterday EP, and you revisited some early songs. Was that part of the plan?
Vox: Well, that was originally supposed to be an underground thing with a friend of mine, but it didn’t add up for some reason or another. We decided to put it out ourselves, but it ended up giving us some momentum because the album took a little bit longer to finish than we thought.
We’ve been playing in the States. We were all pretty tired and and we went straight into the studio. It just seemed like, “Oh, wait a minute. You know, we need a rest.” So, we took an extra few months to finish the record. In the meantime, we released that EP as a means of getting some fresh air and feeling present. We really liked the results of those recordings. We thought they sounded very fresh. And we have been playing a couple of those songs as well for the first time in a long time.
Watch The Chameleons perform live for KEXP in 2024 via YouTube:
MM: One last question. I gotta ask you about David Bowie. He came up in conversation when we met in August, but I didn’t get to explicitly ask you about how you may have been inspired by him.
Specifically, I think about how things go viral today, and Bowie’s live performance of “Starman” with Mark Ronson on Top of the Pops in 1972 when viral before that was a thing. I think about professional English musicians your age — your musical peers like Gary Kemp and Peter Murphy — and how this generation of young musicians were emboldened by “Starman” on Top of the Pops.
Vox: I was 12 years old watching it! You didn’t miss Top of the Pops back then. You watched it for those one or two things that promised to be exciting. There would be rumors that such and such a person was going to perform on it. I saw so many bands for the first time on that show. I saw the Alice Cooper Band on that show. I saw Sparks for the first time on there. And I vividly remember David Bowie performing on Top of the Pops because he sent shockwaves to everybody.
It was one of those things where people imagined what happened because back then there was no video record of anything. So that was it. Once it went out, it was out, and you only had the memory of it. And it’s funny because people remembered it differently. They embellished it in their minds. Bowie goes over the microphone and puts his arm around Mick Ronson as they are singing the outro. But that turned into: “David Bowie kissed Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops! He kissed him!” That was a big deal; it sent shockwaves through my school. No one had ever seen anything quite like that. Nobody had ever seen anything quite like Bowie.
I was a big T-Rex fan. I was really into Marc Bolan and stuff. But even by glam standards, Bowie looked like he came from another planet. It was fabulous.
MM: Do you feel like those guys — Bowie, Ronson, Bolan — do you think they gave you permission to be who you are today?
Vox: I think they gave a lot of people permission to express themselves in terms of gender fluidity, for sure. It gave people license to be a little bit more flamboyant when they went out and walked around. I remember suddenly people started dressing very flamboyantly and all the shops started selling all these weirdly colored platform shoes and orange pants and all that kind of gear. Bowie did a lot of fashion and for music. Bowie was untouchable in terms of the pop music around him. I love T. Rex. But T. Rex is very firm in a kind of way for 12-bar blues. That’s what T-Rex did, whereas Bowie seems to come from another planet in his construction; his songs were just so unusually great. Take “Drive-In Saturday,” what an amazing single that is, and it’s unlike anything. The only other ’70s pop act that had that kind of impact on me was Sparks, who also were completely different from everything else that was happening around them.
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The Chameleons perform live with Twin Tribes at The Fillmore Silver Spring on Sunday, May 4.
The Chameleons
Twin Tribes
The Fillmore Silver Spring
Sunday, May 4
Doors @ 7pm
$41.75
All ages
