By Maria Arroyo
Photos courtesy of Press Here Publicity
Colony House is a four-piece alternative rock band from Franklin, Tennessee who debuted nationally in 2014. I got the opportunity to interview, singer Caleb Chapman, about their current album, “Leave What’s Lost Behind”, and about some of their different inspirations and experiences that lead them to the outcome of the finished project.
They were on tour promoting their current album, before the outbreak of COVID-19 which pretty much stopped them in their tracks. They went on the road back in January, just about 3 weeks after “Leave What’s Lost Behind” was released. Chapman said that “at the beginning, everybody was singing these songs with us and I love it and I wouldn’t change it.”
That Music Mag: If you had to explain how this all came to be in a nutshell, How would you describe it?
Caleb Chapman: So we’ve been a thing for the past 30 years. When Will (Chapman) and I were kids, we were playing sports together, had the same friends, and we always played music together. After we graduated high school, we started writing more music and then we met (guitarist) Scotty Mills… Had him come over and hang out and play with us and he’s been doing that ever since. Then a few years later we met Parke (Cottrell) and we asked him to play bass for us, and again he never stopped.
TMM: Now like you said, you all have been doing this for quite some time. Do you guys have a songwriting process that you tend to stick to and if so could you elaborate on it a little more?
CC: A lot of what we write starts with the feel of the song… the music theory is important when it comes to explaining what we want to a producer or other musicians, but for the most part, we go off of feeling.
TMM: Is that process the same for “Leave What’s Lost Behind”?
CC: Well, the writing was serendipitous in a way… We had a bunch of music that we had been writing for a long time and we hit a point where there wasn’t anything cohesive tying the songs together, so we scratched everything we had been writing for the past 2 years and started fresh about 3 months before we were about to go into the studio.
This was probably the most striking thing about this whole interview. They literally started from scratch: they tossed everything they had been working on and only had a few months to have something to start working on in the studio.
TMM: That’s completely insane… How was that experience for you guys?
CC: It was scary…but also freeing because we could establish a new direction.
TMM: So you’ve established this new direction. What is it you want to convey with this album? What do you want people to get out of this album?
CC: We are essentially pulling the mask off of what we do and exposing the insecurities and how to confront those. We hope that people listening to this album feel a little less alone. We also wanted to offer people that lifeline, a little bit of hope in the music and that they are not alone in these feelings, and to not let insecurities, fears, and doubt control your life.
Chapman also says that a Colony House album is “usually an overview of where we are at that season of life and this one for us has felt very therapeutic.”
TMM: Is there anything else that you would like to share with readers?
CC: We really just want to cultivate a conversation throughout the night, and we want it to feel like we are singing with people in the audience, and I think that goal has been met. To people out there, the best way someone can say thank you is just to express any kind of kindness or gratitude for the band. It’s amazing for us and we can’t thank you enough.
Hopefully soon, we can get the band back on the road when this whole pandemic subsides, but until then, keep listening to artists like Colony House, and let them know what you think!
