IPOD
RADIO
The Panic Channel - Chris Chaney
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Nov 6, 2006
The Panic Channel is the new band made up of former members of Jane's Addiction including Dave Navarro, Chris Chaney and Stephen Perkins. The new member is singer/guitarist Steve Isaacs. They’ve just released an album entitled One and I got a chance to talk with Chaney the day before they played the SuicideGirls Fifth Anniversary party.
Check out the official website for The Panic Channel
Chris Chaney: Just getting ready to head out because we’re going to do a little rehearsing today. We’re meeting at a rehearsal place in the Valley.
DRE:
Are you guys on tour right now?
CC:
No, it’s hard to tour right now just because Dave [Navarro] is finishing up his show. We can’t get out and do any consistent touring because he’s taping the Rock Star: Supernova show twice a week.
DRE:
What do you think of the Rock Star show?
CC:
Good entertainment. It’s like Rock School. I’ve done three records with Tommy Lee, so I’m pretty good friends with them. It’s just fun to check it out. I think it’s cool to keep rock alive because rock is such a dying genre of music. A lot of record stations across the country have stopped the rock format.
DRE:
Why do you think that is?
CC:
Pop and hip-hop have just taken over. A lot of people are just buying singles and not buying records. You’ve got to tour on the road and work hard to build a fan base these days. It doesn’t just come easy, especially in rock. Even if you’re already an established band, you’ve still got to have great music and work your ass off.
DRE:
So when’s your hip-hop record coming out?
CC:
My hip-hop record is out. No, I’m just kidding but I did play on the new Shakira record. I do a lot of sessions. This year I played on everything from Santana’s new one to Hoobastank. I was asked to go on tour with Jewel and Shakira, different artists, but I’m more into being in a band. I have two kids so I like the idea of being creative on someone else’s music just for a moment in time. I feed off the challenge of going into a studio where someone will play their demo and say, “Hey. What do you think of this? What would you play on this?” Also it keeps me making some income in town.
DRE:
Do you write much beyond your bass guitar parts?
CC:
I’m not a songwriter in the sense that I write lyrics and all the melodies. I’m like 50 percent of a songwriter. I come up with a lot of interesting musical grooves. I can write choruses, bridges, verses, intros, outros, segue ways. I do a lot of that on piano and bass and guitar. When it comes down to sitting in a coffee shop with an acoustic guitar, that’s not me.
DRE:
Is the Panic Channel the closest we’ll see to a band of your own?
CC:
I’m still in another band called the Coattail Riders with Taylor Hawkins, the drummer from the Foo Fighters. Taylor and I share a special friendship and connection as a rhythm section. We’ve known each other for 16 years and even though he’s been busy with the Foo Fighters and I’ve been busy doing other projects as well, we fit this band in the cracks of our main gigs. I’m really passionate about it because the influences are everything from Queen to Cream to The Who, Genesis, a lot of Police influence in there. We just have a good time. We’re not making a bucketload of money or anything but it doesn’t matter. We tour in a Winnebago and share a room at a Days Inn.
DRE:
Whose idea was Panic Channel?
CC:
[Stephen] Perkins, Navarro and I were jamming in Perkins’ garage and we were just having a good time making music. There was no definitive intention but we just wanted to start jamming with a singer. We hooked up with Steve Isaacs and we had instant chemistry. He has such a different approach. As guys who play bass and guitar, we would come up with lots of riffs but Steve wasn’t really a riff kind of guy in a similar to how Perry Farrell wasn’t really that kind of songwriter. He would really feed off of a bass line or a guitar riff or a drum pattern.
DRE:
What’s Steve like?
CC:
Steve treats a song like a baby. He’s really a perfectionist with trying to find the meaning of the song. He just puts probably more into it than anyone I know to pull out what a riff means to him. He brings an overall, larger picture to the song. Songs are about different stories. They can be about stupid things, deep things, whatever. It can be something very surface or something very meaningful. Steve’s songs have a lot of deeper meaning to them.
DRE:
Does doing this and being part of a band make you feel like more of a rock star?
CC:
I’ll say this. I’m just a lifer. No matter what I’m doing, I’m going to be making music. I’m not striving to be a rock star or anything. I just like making music. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be in the studio. I’m not the guy who’s going to be on MTV talking and all that because I don’t really give a shit about that. I’m not against people who are into it but I don’t put time and energy for that. I’m always trying to get better at playing music.
DRE:
What’s it going to take to get Perry out there to do something with you guys or to do something at all?
CC:
I don’t think that’s going to happen because I came into the last incarnation of Jane’s Addiction and Jane’s has basically broken up. It got back together three times and enough is enough. It just wasn’t really working. Perry had a different vision. We wish Perry the best. He’s an amazing talent and one of the coolest frontmen of all time. He’s such an amazing character and he brings so much originality and life to the stage. His melodies and stories are phenomenal. But it would be like beating a dead horse. They’ve gotten back together and broken up three times now.
DRE:
How was it working with producer Josh Abraham on Panic Channel?
CC:
Josh Abraham brought a lot to the record and also I have to give credit to Ryan Williams, who’s his engineer. We actually ended up giving a co-production credit to Ryan as well because he brought a lot to the record. He’s a phenomenal musician. Josh definitely knows how to trim the fat and sculpt the song into something a little more radio friendly. I love pop songs, but sometimes when you’re in the midst of being creative and someone says, “We’ll do it four times and go to the chorus twice and then do this four times,” I just feel like it’s taking the art and trying to squish it into a box. So I’m not the best at that. That’s one of Josh’s fortes. We had a few songs that were so different than the way they turned out on the record and to me they turned out a lot better and a lot of that was Josh’s vision. At the end of the day, a good producer’s job is to get the label the best record possible and he did that.
DRE:
When someone comes to you, what are they looking for?
CC:
I don’t want to boost my ego or anything.
DRE:
Nah, go ahead.
CC:
But one of the specialties I have is that I’m very open-minded to lots of music. I’ve done four Alanis Morrisette recordings and worked with Rob Zombie. I’ve done some country. I’ve done all kinds of styles but one of the things I’m pretty good at is hearing a song and trying to pull in the right part. I generally start off with the less is more approach to ground the song. I view myself as the foundation of the house and you can either build a castle on that foundation or a shack. I try to build the castle.
DRE:
I would imagine you turn down a lot of work.
CC:
I have, yeah.
DRE:
What makes you do that, is it that you don’t connect to the music or are you too busy?
CC:
Well, I was a hired gun for about seven years and I just got tired of being in that kind of position where I don’t have as much of a say. It’s hard for me to suck it up and be emotionally attached to music that I didn’t have anything to do with in terms of writing. So to just be a hired gun would be doing it for the money, unless someone like Brian Eno or Peter Gabriel called me, then I’d be out there in a heartbeat.
DRE:
How old are your kids?
CC:
I’ve got a three-year-old boy and a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
DRE:
Do they play music yet?
CC:
Oh yeah. My daughter’s a great singer. I play Stevie Wonder for them and a lot of classical music. I play Zeppelin, Beatles, just all the classic shit.
DRE:
What does she think of Panic Channel?
CC:
She loves it. There’s a song that’s like a B side called Go On which is her favorite song. It’s funny for me to have these little kids who like rock music so much. They want to keep looping the song over and over. We’ll get to the end and I’m like, “Don’t you want to hear the rest of the record?” “No, no. I want to hear that song again.”
DRE:
What advice would you have for them if they wanted to do music like the way you do?
CC:
The advice would be just to work hard and be passionate about what you do. If you have a talent for it and a love for it, then I would never want to stifle that or take it away. I don’t force them to do anything. I take my daughter rock climbing. She does ballet. She’s done tap class, painting. She’s into a lot of artistic things, like a lot of kids probably are. I never force her. It’s stuff that she wants to do. So if she wants to play bass, I’ll teach her or I’ll get her a teacher. If she wants to play drums, fine. I never want to stifle anybody’s creativity and I never want to force somebody to do something that they’re not into.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
The Panic Channel is the new band made up of former members of Jane's Addiction including Dave Navarro, Chris Chaney and Stephen Perkins. The new member is singer/guitarist Steve Isaacs. They’ve just released an album entitled One and I got a chance to talk with Chaney the day before they played the SuicideGirls Fifth Anniversary party.
Check out the official website for The Panic Channel
Chris Chaney: Just getting ready to head out because we’re going to do a little rehearsing today. We’re meeting at a rehearsal place in the Valley.
DRE:
Are you guys on tour right now?
CC:
No, it’s hard to tour right now just because Dave [Navarro] is finishing up his show. We can’t get out and do any consistent touring because he’s taping the Rock Star: Supernova show twice a week.
DRE:
What do you think of the Rock Star show?
CC:
Good entertainment. It’s like Rock School. I’ve done three records with Tommy Lee, so I’m pretty good friends with them. It’s just fun to check it out. I think it’s cool to keep rock alive because rock is such a dying genre of music. A lot of record stations across the country have stopped the rock format.
DRE:
Why do you think that is?
CC:
Pop and hip-hop have just taken over. A lot of people are just buying singles and not buying records. You’ve got to tour on the road and work hard to build a fan base these days. It doesn’t just come easy, especially in rock. Even if you’re already an established band, you’ve still got to have great music and work your ass off.
DRE:
So when’s your hip-hop record coming out?
CC:
My hip-hop record is out. No, I’m just kidding but I did play on the new Shakira record. I do a lot of sessions. This year I played on everything from Santana’s new one to Hoobastank. I was asked to go on tour with Jewel and Shakira, different artists, but I’m more into being in a band. I have two kids so I like the idea of being creative on someone else’s music just for a moment in time. I feed off the challenge of going into a studio where someone will play their demo and say, “Hey. What do you think of this? What would you play on this?” Also it keeps me making some income in town.
DRE:
Do you write much beyond your bass guitar parts?
CC:
I’m not a songwriter in the sense that I write lyrics and all the melodies. I’m like 50 percent of a songwriter. I come up with a lot of interesting musical grooves. I can write choruses, bridges, verses, intros, outros, segue ways. I do a lot of that on piano and bass and guitar. When it comes down to sitting in a coffee shop with an acoustic guitar, that’s not me.
DRE:
Is the Panic Channel the closest we’ll see to a band of your own?
CC:
I’m still in another band called the Coattail Riders with Taylor Hawkins, the drummer from the Foo Fighters. Taylor and I share a special friendship and connection as a rhythm section. We’ve known each other for 16 years and even though he’s been busy with the Foo Fighters and I’ve been busy doing other projects as well, we fit this band in the cracks of our main gigs. I’m really passionate about it because the influences are everything from Queen to Cream to The Who, Genesis, a lot of Police influence in there. We just have a good time. We’re not making a bucketload of money or anything but it doesn’t matter. We tour in a Winnebago and share a room at a Days Inn.
DRE:
Whose idea was Panic Channel?
CC:
[Stephen] Perkins, Navarro and I were jamming in Perkins’ garage and we were just having a good time making music. There was no definitive intention but we just wanted to start jamming with a singer. We hooked up with Steve Isaacs and we had instant chemistry. He has such a different approach. As guys who play bass and guitar, we would come up with lots of riffs but Steve wasn’t really a riff kind of guy in a similar to how Perry Farrell wasn’t really that kind of songwriter. He would really feed off of a bass line or a guitar riff or a drum pattern.
DRE:
What’s Steve like?
CC:
Steve treats a song like a baby. He’s really a perfectionist with trying to find the meaning of the song. He just puts probably more into it than anyone I know to pull out what a riff means to him. He brings an overall, larger picture to the song. Songs are about different stories. They can be about stupid things, deep things, whatever. It can be something very surface or something very meaningful. Steve’s songs have a lot of deeper meaning to them.
DRE:
Does doing this and being part of a band make you feel like more of a rock star?
CC:
I’ll say this. I’m just a lifer. No matter what I’m doing, I’m going to be making music. I’m not striving to be a rock star or anything. I just like making music. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be in the studio. I’m not the guy who’s going to be on MTV talking and all that because I don’t really give a shit about that. I’m not against people who are into it but I don’t put time and energy for that. I’m always trying to get better at playing music.
DRE:
What’s it going to take to get Perry out there to do something with you guys or to do something at all?
CC:
I don’t think that’s going to happen because I came into the last incarnation of Jane’s Addiction and Jane’s has basically broken up. It got back together three times and enough is enough. It just wasn’t really working. Perry had a different vision. We wish Perry the best. He’s an amazing talent and one of the coolest frontmen of all time. He’s such an amazing character and he brings so much originality and life to the stage. His melodies and stories are phenomenal. But it would be like beating a dead horse. They’ve gotten back together and broken up three times now.
DRE:
How was it working with producer Josh Abraham on Panic Channel?
CC:
Josh Abraham brought a lot to the record and also I have to give credit to Ryan Williams, who’s his engineer. We actually ended up giving a co-production credit to Ryan as well because he brought a lot to the record. He’s a phenomenal musician. Josh definitely knows how to trim the fat and sculpt the song into something a little more radio friendly. I love pop songs, but sometimes when you’re in the midst of being creative and someone says, “We’ll do it four times and go to the chorus twice and then do this four times,” I just feel like it’s taking the art and trying to squish it into a box. So I’m not the best at that. That’s one of Josh’s fortes. We had a few songs that were so different than the way they turned out on the record and to me they turned out a lot better and a lot of that was Josh’s vision. At the end of the day, a good producer’s job is to get the label the best record possible and he did that.
DRE:
When someone comes to you, what are they looking for?
CC:
I don’t want to boost my ego or anything.
DRE:
Nah, go ahead.
CC:
But one of the specialties I have is that I’m very open-minded to lots of music. I’ve done four Alanis Morrisette recordings and worked with Rob Zombie. I’ve done some country. I’ve done all kinds of styles but one of the things I’m pretty good at is hearing a song and trying to pull in the right part. I generally start off with the less is more approach to ground the song. I view myself as the foundation of the house and you can either build a castle on that foundation or a shack. I try to build the castle.
DRE:
I would imagine you turn down a lot of work.
CC:
I have, yeah.
DRE:
What makes you do that, is it that you don’t connect to the music or are you too busy?
CC:
Well, I was a hired gun for about seven years and I just got tired of being in that kind of position where I don’t have as much of a say. It’s hard for me to suck it up and be emotionally attached to music that I didn’t have anything to do with in terms of writing. So to just be a hired gun would be doing it for the money, unless someone like Brian Eno or Peter Gabriel called me, then I’d be out there in a heartbeat.
DRE:
How old are your kids?
CC:
I’ve got a three-year-old boy and a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
DRE:
Do they play music yet?
CC:
Oh yeah. My daughter’s a great singer. I play Stevie Wonder for them and a lot of classical music. I play Zeppelin, Beatles, just all the classic shit.
DRE:
What does she think of Panic Channel?
CC:
She loves it. There’s a song that’s like a B side called Go On which is her favorite song. It’s funny for me to have these little kids who like rock music so much. They want to keep looping the song over and over. We’ll get to the end and I’m like, “Don’t you want to hear the rest of the record?” “No, no. I want to hear that song again.”
DRE:
What advice would you have for them if they wanted to do music like the way you do?
CC:
The advice would be just to work hard and be passionate about what you do. If you have a talent for it and a love for it, then I would never want to stifle that or take it away. I don’t force them to do anything. I take my daughter rock climbing. She does ballet. She’s done tap class, painting. She’s into a lot of artistic things, like a lot of kids probably are. I never force her. It’s stuff that she wants to do. So if she wants to play bass, I’ll teach her or I’ll get her a teacher. If she wants to play drums, fine. I never want to stifle anybody’s creativity and I never want to force somebody to do something that they’re not into.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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