After 25 years in the music industry, as a solo artist and the front man of Boo, Chris Chameleon has once again managed to produce an album unlike any other. After meeting young aspiring poet, Daniella Deysel at a show one night, he fell in love with her poetry and decided to turn it into a brand new album. Released earlier this year, “Posduif” is the combination of immense writing talent on her side, and excellent composition on his. That, coupled with Chris’ years of expertise and experience, and Daniella’s fresh input and outlook, has culminated in something truly inspiring.
Jessica Kramer: You met Daniella completely per chance and now you have this brand new album to show for your fluke meeting. Was this type of project something you had planned or hoped to do?
Chris Chameleon: Well it’s something I have done before with the work of Ingrid Jonker, so it’s not completely unknown territory for me. But in the career of music, for me, very little is planned. Art, in an expressive form, is something that addresses you before you address it. I think the best projects are the ones that come to you, and demand you to do something about it.
JK: So do you think this was “meant to be”, or just a case of right time and right place?
CC: Well, you are touching on some serious philosophy here. In terms of “meant to be”, yes, I very much live by that. From both a scientific and a theological point of view. In terms of theology, no matter what god you believe in, if it is an omnipotent god he knew 2 billion years ago that we would be having this conversation. So that predestination is inescapable, and by no prayer, vice or virtue could you alter its course. From a scientific point of view, in science everything has a reason and many times that reason eludes us but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. On Boo’s album “Pineapple Flava” there’s a line in the song ‘Mud’ that goes “computer, computer route to the future, feed the past all through computer, see the future that’s not new to your computer” and it’s basically in that line already in 1994 when I wrote the song, that pre-destiny is tied up in the essence of both science and theology.
JK: You mentioned that you have done this before with Ingrid Jonker’s work. Did you find that transcribing this body of work was difficult?
CC: Well Ingrid Jonker’s poetry is much more suited to composition that Daniella Deysel’s poetry. When you look at Ingrid Jonker’s poetry it immediately looks like a lyric sheet. The rhythm and the rhyme follows what one would come to expect of lyrics. That said, I did at times move phrases around or highlight certain parts of the poetry in a chorus etc. With Daniella I did that a lot less. One of the reasons is that Daniella’s work is less obviously lyrical. If you look at the structure it’s a lot freer and it’s quite challenging to fit that into the demands of rhythm and rhyme that exist within the common song. As a composer, you consider the value of every word chosen, you trust the poet, you read the poem out loud and it awakens a certain feeling, whether you understand it or not. And then you take an instrument, in my case a guitar, and find the note that resonates with that.
JK: Apparently Daniella had never sang in front of a mic before this project came about, but listening to the album it sounds like she has been doing this for years. How did the recording process go?
CC: Well, the years you hear in her voice are probably the years I have put in. She’s 24 years old and I have been making music for 25 years. What happened was, I played her the songs and she started humming along, and I realised that she has a really nice tone to her voice. I asked her if she would sing and she was very reluctant at first but i just loved the idea. I mean Ingrid Jonker could never sing with me on my compositions of her poetry. So I almost immediately started training her, and we found that we can sing together, our voices go well together. So I guided her along like that and then I made her sing every time I did a sound check so she could get used to singing live. Then gradually with shows I would bring her on, just for one song, and then on my previous album “Herleef” she sang the backing vocals. So it has been a deliberate concerted effort from my side to prep her for this function and it also helps that she is a quick learner and has real talent.
JK: Aside from the fact that you used someone else’s writing on this album, how is this one different to all the previous albums you have released.
CC: It’s different because it was much more hands off for me. I tend to be very involved in my albums. I have made most of my albums with Theo Crous who is a wonderful artist and a wise musical spirit. We have a very good understanding and come from a similar background. But with this album I really took a backseat. I gave Fred and incredible amount of freedom to do what he feels he should be doing, and the same with Daniella. I managed it in such a way that everyone’s contribution could really come to the fore and that no one would ever be afraid to make a contribution and to say something. So it was different in that sense. I have also never worked with that many inputs on a solo album. It’s usually just me and the producer. And also, Daniella is 24, Fred is 28 and I am 43 so the average age is lower than anything I have done in the last 10 years. So that also makes a difference.
JK: You have been doing this for 25 years, with a massive body of work where every album is different and unique. How do you manage to in some senses reinvent yourself and continually produce fresh, original music?
CC: Well there are two aspects to that. The first is “how do you manage to be an original artist?” and that is the easiest thing to accomplish. It is simply by not projecting. It is a fact that every human being is a unique individual. It is a biological, scientific, spiritual and emotional fact. So all you have to do is just be true to yourself and you will be unique, and a complete original. The second part of it is that in order to continually come up with something new you have to take your mind and your ego out of it. An artist is someone who reflects the environment. That is art, and if you do that you will always have something new because the universe passes through you and you rearrange it. I hate the term “creative artist”, it is so arrogant. We are not creative artists, we are rearranging artists. Everything has been created, everything is there, we cannot create anything new. But, what is given we can rearrange into new patterns. So if we just take our ego, and prejudice out of the equation then we’re going to create things that are new. The world is new every day. So it takes no effort, it actually takes a lack of effort. All you have to do, is nothing.
JK: Do you have any plans to tour with the album?
CC: We are doing the “Posduif” tour, with an extended instrumental backing at all the arts festival and some venues. And at all my solo Chris Chameleon shows we do some “Posduif” songs as well, but because I have such a big body of work I can’t only play the new stuff at those shows. But yeah, everything is up on my website.
