Dylan Haviland – General Assignment Reporter
Indie rock band ‘Longer Chic’ has worked over the past year to deliver a fresh and original sound to New Haven.
The trio consists of Chris Cappello the vocalist and guitarist, sophomore at Yale University, the drummer Brian Grochowski, from Berlin, Conn. and bassist Peter Stroczjowski from New Britain, Conn.
The band rose originally rose from prior collaborative work between Cappello and Grochowski, the two musicians and friends have worked with each other for the past two years.
“He played on my solo album that I put out last year but we started this band once we got a new bass player and we wanted to do a real band as opposed to a solo,” said Cappello.
‘Loner Chic’ has worked steadily with the labels ‘Driftwood Records’ and ‘Too Far Gone Records’ to distribute their music to a wider audience. Their newest EP ‘Pretty Void’ released this summer features the track “All Natural” giving a genuine sound to the Connecticut based local band. The EP features the additional tracks, “Be a Burnout,” “Imaginary #2” and “Christie.”
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“I was intentionally trying to go in different directions for this but I sort of had the idea that even if it wasn’t explicit, that I wanted to start a real band with a certain defining style,” said Cappello. “So a lot of the stuff I was listening to when I was writing those songs was bands like ‘The Lemonheads’ who where this really great indie rock group, they had a power pop kind of sound.”
Cappello particularly admires ‘The Lemonheads’ 1992 album “It’s a Shame About Ray” he is also influenced from the New Jersey based indie rock band ‘Titus Andronicus.’
‘Loner Chic’s recorded their EP up in Massachusetts with the help of their friend Brian Stack an audio engineer.
“He has worked with bands like, ‘My Heart to Joy” and ‘The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die,” said Cappello. “So we went up there banged it out in like three days and then we did a few other additional sessions some of which were recorded here in New Haven and some guest vocals in my living room it was pretty cool.”
Over the summer of 2014 ‘Loner Chic’ went on their first tour as band, “The other guys in the band, they have been on a few tours before but this was my first time getting out on the road,” said Cappello. “We played like ten shows it was a ten day tour all over the east coast as far beyond as Virginia Beach”
Cappello fondly remarked that the tour ended just in time for him go back to school, which was late in August, “It’s cool to keep the band up while doing school work,” said Cappello.
In the upcoming months they plan on visiting venues and local shows in Connecticut, with a possible show at the Yankee Doodle house Nov. 21st in New Haven.
“Just as a side note it’s named after this breakfast place that used to be on Broadway (New Haven) now Broadway is fully of these stupid chain stores, but ten years ago it used to have a lot of cool kind of businesses,” said Cappello.
‘Loner Chic’ plans to continue their pursuit of music and expand their tracks onto a vinyl in the future, “It’s funny you should mention plans for the future cause actually one of the first songs that got us noticed was in Connecticut was the song “Plan for the Future” from my solo album,” said Cappello.
Photo Credit: Dale
