When Russell Harrison, bassist of Chicago hardcore band C.H.E.W., first replies to my interview request, he signs the e-mail “c/o Courageous Horned-toads Escape Wasps.” Harrison and his bandmates have suggested several other possibilities for their acronym over the years: Cocaine Heroin Ecstasy Weed, Crying Heavily Every Week, Cold Hands Elicit Worry, Chill Hard Every Weekend. By the time you finish this story, they’ll probably have come up with a few more. But C.H.E.W. doesn’t stand for anything in particular—it’s just that “Chew” was taken.
Ward pressed 500 copies of Feeding Frenzy and quickly sold the label’s share. C.H.E.W. got about 150 themselves, but few of them can be found unsold in the wild—Reckless has a couple left. UK punk label Drunken Sailor pressed a European version of Feeding Frenzy and still has it in stock online, though you’ll have to deal with international shipping fees. Iron Lung is working on a cassette edition, which should be done before May—that is, in time for C.H.E.W.’s two-week tour opening for Boston indie-rock stalwarts Pile.
Wake, Like Rats, C.H.E.W., Carnivores at Grace Tue 4/2, 6:30 PM, Subterranean downstairs, 2011 W. North, $10. 17+
When Harrison left Florida, Rudolph and Giralt were playing in a skramz outfit called Knife Hits, and Giralt had taken up an itinerant lifestyle. “I had not been living in Florida for a while, and was kind of bouncing around places—the Bay Area, northern California, and Philadelphia. I went back to Orlando for a short period of time,” he says. “There was another large cluster of friends who were from Orlando who’d migrated here. Everybody who grew up in central Florida around that time all have separation anxiety and all like to stay close to each other. I like Chicago, I’ve been here a couple of times, so I figured I’d give this place a shot.”
Jeane says Giralt decided she’d be a good fit for this new group. “It was like, ‘Do you wanna join my band? You seem like you could use an outlet,’” she says. “I was very crazy. I was losing my shit. I think I was always coming to work, ‘Oh my God, this happened!’ He was like, ‘Have you ever tried channeling this?’”
Their first live set included the seven crusty, bite-size songs they’d later release as a self-titled demo in March 2016. Rudolph broke a string a few songs in and had to borrow a guitar. Harrison couldn’t hear any of Jeane’s vocals, even though he’d planted himself next to a PA speaker. Jeane isn’t even sure if she could hear herself. “I remember being scared at the first show and just looking at my feet,” she says. “I don’t remember much after that.”
“But we went to Miami first, and then we went west,” Jeane adds.
