CHAMBERLAIN and SPLIT LIP

This page is being put together to keep the soul and spirit alive of one of the greatest bands ever.
How It All Began ...
a fan’s perspective
Growing up in a working class family on Indianapolis’ Southside, I always dreamed that there was something more to adolescence than the mind-numbing sense gratification of drugs and alcohol, the false coolness of smoking cigarettes, the comfortable security of apathy towards world events and the ridiculous posturing of cock rock heavy metal bands like Bon Jovi. In 1988 - at fourteen - I stumbled upon what I believed that "something more" to be - straight-edge hardcore. I had already become well versed in thrash metal and old-school West Coast punk rock like the Dead Kennedys. But, when a spiky-haired, leather jacket-wearing friend of mine since elementary school stumbled upon Revelation Records’ New York City Hardcore / The Way It Is compilation, I found my light in the darkness. I quickly turned a friend of ours onto this exciting new scene. When he answered a classified in Maximum Rock n’ Roll from a kid on the Northside of town looking for straight-edge pen pals, we could not have had any idea what we were starting. The kid who placed the ad was named Steve Dujinske. He was a year or two younger than us and lived in Carmel, a wealthy suburb right above the Circle City. He was forming a straight-edge band with two neighbors of his based around the ideology and music of bands like Pushed Aside, Brotherhood (whose members went on to form Sunny Day Real Estate), and Youth of Today. In the coming years, many kids would hear conflicting versions of how and why the band was named. The real story goes like this...
Shortly after finishing up an early band practice, Clay Snider (guitar), Charlie Walker (drums), Curtis Mead (bass) and Stevie D (vocals) let off some steam by bouncing on a trampoline in somebody’s backyard. Charlie fell and busted his mouth, and a moniker was decided upon then and there - SPLIT LIP.
Split Lip began playing around town and quickly amassed a small following. But, it wasn’t until the addition of 13-year old guitar wizard, Adam Rubenstein, new vocalist Dave Moore, and the recording of a couple of demos that the band really started to take off, garnering the attention of surrounding big-city hardcore scenes in Chicago, Louisville and St. Louis, and earning them an agreement with the then-budding Doghouse Records.
The band’s first recording for Doghouse, the now highly sought-after Soulkill 7-inch single, showed promising signs of what would soon become the band’s staples: introverted and deeply thoughtful lyrics, innovative guitar signatures and impeccable drumming. Each unique element of their sound endeared them to a hardcore scene long burdened with cookie-cutter clones, while shifting them gradually away from that very same scene...
Adam, the man behind most of the musical side of Split Lip, began to feel limited by the aesthetic restraints of the hardcore genre. His heart didn’t appear to be in it anymore. The band decided to call it quits.
Fortunately...
The separation didn’t last long. Split Lip reformed. The chemistry was reestablished. The band moved on to bigger and increasingly bolder musical horizons, releasing their sophomore album, Fate’s Got a Driver, called by one critic “their finest and most polished work.” Heartattack, Punk Planet and every other major underground music publication showered them with praise all over again, and a tour with Samuel and Colossus of the Fall ensued.
...
The year 1996 brought with it three important events in the life of the emo/hardcore band called Split Lip. Early that year, the five members of Split Lip decided it was time for a name change. The band had released its second album – Fate’s Got a Driver – in the summer of 1995. Their five-year journey was referenced in the song, “Five-Year Diary,” which was subtitled “Chamberlain.” The song immediately became a favorite among fans. Chamberlain also seemed to be exactly the kind of ambiguous moniker that would not confine the band to a particular musical genre as the name Split Lip had done.
And so, Split Lip stepped into the pages of music history, and Chamberlain emerged.
The season was about to change.
In the summer of 1996, with a new name and a new resolve, Chamberlain decided to remix and re-release Fate’s Got a Driver. Immediately following its release under the Chamberlain name, the album attracted the attention of UK-based record label, For All the Right Reasons (a Polydor subsidiary), which led to a licensing agreement for the release of an EP in Europe and a European tour that was launched in late October.
The month-long tour put Chamberlain solidly on the musical map in the UK, Germany and Belgium. To this day, fans residing in these countries write to reminisce about the shows they attended and to express their hopes that Chamberlain will return one day to Europe.
When Chamberlain came home from Europe in late November, the boys needed some rest and relaxation and decided to take a few months off to clear their heads and chart their futures. They played a final gig at Second Story in Bloomington in late January 1997, and were preparing to go their separate ways when a local promoter approached them and encouraged them to regroup and push forward. They agreed to give the proposal some thought, bid one another farewell and scattered to such far-flung places as New York and Montana. During a two-month hiatus, a personal manager was hired and a strategic plan was developed.
Regrouping briefly in Indianapolis in March to arrange some new songs, the band played a couple of local gigs at The Patio in Indianapolis and Second Story in Bloomington and spent some practice time at Big Brown – the old log cabin deep in the woods of Brown County, Indiana, where they had worked on the music for Fate’s Got a Driver.
But, the future had not yet come into clear focus.
By May of 1997, everyone had returned to Indiana and in late June, Chamberlain went into Bloomington’s Echo Park Studios to record a demo of their new material. Songs like “Stars in the Streetlight,” “World Don’t Want Us” and “Last to Know” had evolved from the long-distance collaboration of the songwriters and marked the beginnings of the album that was to become The Moon My Saddle.
The new demo attracted the attention of Los Angles-based Revolution Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. On November 5, 1997, Revolution hosted a Chamberlain showcase in New York City with the label’s A&R executives in attendance. Following the showcase, Revolution initiated discussions regarding Chamberlain’s signing with the label. The members were invited to visit Revolution’s offices in California and meet with their staff in January 1998. Airline tickets were in hand and hotel reservations in place. Everyone’s excitement was mounting!
But, it was not to be. At year-end, Warner placed Revolution in a signing freeze, and the talks with Chamberlain were halted. In the middle of a cold, gray, Indiana winter, the band picked itself up and – once again -- resolved to move on.
In the spring, Chamberlain headed west on an extended tour that took them through Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. In Los Angeles, they staged a dynamic showcase performance at Hollywood’s famed Viper Room and attracted the attention of major label A&R reps. Heading home, they played shows in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and South Dakota.
Back in Bloomington, Chamberlain went into the studio to record a couple of new songs, which were released that summer on the single, Believe. They toured briefly following the release of Believe and returned to the studio to begin work on The Moon My Saddle.
In early September, two members of the original five-piece group, Curtis Mead and Clay Snider, left the band. With a new record scheduled for release in mid-October, it was a time of uncertainty and high anxiety. But, later that month, Seth Greathouse, bassist, and Stoll Vaughan, rhythm guitarist, were invited to join the band. Less than two weeks after Greathouse and Vaughan signed on, Chamberlain performed in Chicago before an audience of more than 1,000 people. The performance garnered rave reviews.
The Moon My Saddle was released on October 19, 1998. Chamberlain toured constantly behind the album’s release, staging more than 200 performances during the record’s initial release period.
With a new line-up in place, the band traveled to New York City in November 1998 to perform at the CMJ Music Festival where their performance at Brownie’s drew a large audience and, again, attracted the attention of major label A&R reps.
As winter swept onto the plains, Chamberlain returned to the Midwest with high hopes for the coming new year.
Throughout the early months of 1999, Chamberlain continued their rigorous touring, attracting thousands of new fans to their music. The Moon My Saddle received critical acclaim at home and abroad and marked a turning point in the band’s life and direction. CMJ New Music Monthly magazine would later call The Moon My Saddle “an astounding album that confounded indie and alt-country audiences alike” – an album that marked Chamberlain’s “transformation of themselves from punks to the authoritative interpreters of Heartland rock ‘n roll.”
In May, original band member and drummer Chuck Walker left the band to seek new opportunities. His loss was a real blow, following on the heels of Stoll Vaughan’s departure a couple of months earlier and the band’s decision to eliminate the third guitar position. But – as fate would have it – within a few weeks, Wade Parish had been found and added to the line-up on drums.
That summer, the new (and final) line-up – David Moore, Adam Rubenstein, Seth Greathouse and Wade Parish – headed for the hills again to work at Big Brown where they laid down some four-track recordings of new songs slated for inclusion on Chamberlain’s next album – “Santa Fe,” “Strange Days” and “Wherever I’m Standing Now.”
Arriving in New York City in early September – along with the worst late summer storm to hit the Northeast in years – Chamberlain performed again at the CMJ Music Festival. And, again, they met with industry reps from labels including Virgin, RCA and Reprise. Their appearance at CMJ was followed by a series of performance showcases at Chicago’s Elbo Room in October and November – amidst the buzz that their signing with a major label was imminent, as evidenced by a Reprise offer of a demo recording deal. The new demo, which was recorded at Airtime Studios in Bloomington that fall, included new songs, “Steady Tryin’ to Holler,” “Hey, Louise,” “The Best” and “Masterpiece.”
The year (and the century) drew to a close. It had been Chamberlain’s most ambitious year – a year marked by the band’s successful transition to a new sound, a new line-up and a new promise of long-awaited industry recogniton.
During the first three months of the year 2000, the band continued to practice and perfect their unreleased songs in preparation for recording their fourth album, and the songwriters created a steady flow of new material. In late February, Chamberlain traveled once more to New York City where they staged a showcase performance hosted by RCA – a performance that was reported to have “rocked the house.” They played regular gigs on the home front and headed out to Austin, Texas, to perform at the SXSW Music Festival. In late March, they embarked on a tour that took them to Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. David Moore would later describe this tour as “the last and the best.”
But, when Chamberlain arrived back home in Indiana, the fabric of their promising career began to unravel. A series of setbacks and disappointments related to the band’s earlier hiring of a Los Angeles-based manager created dissension within the group. Opinions differed regarding a number of management issues and the band’s future direction. The members of the band could not reach agreement. And, in what seemed like the twinkling of an eye, all the ground that had been gained during the previous year slipped from beneath their well-worn boots.
In the end, it came down to what one long-time band member called his need to walk away from Chamberlain “to see how much I’d miss it” – the reason, perhaps, another long-time member called the ending “a car crash without impact.”
In early May, the members of Chamberlain went their separate ways. Adam returned to school in Bloomington to complete his degree in Journalism and began to compose new songs for a solo release. David returned to school in Indianapolis to complete his degree in English Literature. Seth and Wade found jobs, and Wade continued to play drums with other Indianapolis-based bands.
Chamberlain’s promoter and management support staff continued to handle the band’s ongoing business, legal and public relations activities, hopeful that the break-up would prove to be just another hiatus from which the boys would return reunited, reenergized and recommitted…to one another and to the fans who had made Chamberlain’s eleven years on the road such an awesome journey.
The musicians have left the stage. But, the music they made lives on. A new generation of Chamberlain fans has entered the scene: 16- and 17-year olds who have been drawn to the music for the same reasons the generation that came before found it appealing and unforgettable. And, the fans who have lived with the music for a decade still hang in, hold on and hope for more.
Written by Ryan Downey Publisher / Editor - Prophet Fanzine Taken from the Chamberlain website