Timing is everything… At a point in the 21st century when it feels like there’s too much to worry about in the world, in our lives, in this music and beyond, Chimpo comes bowling along to remind us not to waste our stresses on things that are out of our control.
Don’t Worry About It – a motto, a lifestyle choice, a meaningful message that captures both Chimpo’s serious and silly sides, it’s the title and vibe of the Manchester artist’s third album as he ties together his wide range of musical styles, lyrical whimsies and full-flavoured life experiences through a jungle lens.
The end result is a sonic happy slap of realness loaded with stories, characters and sentiments. Ideal for hippies, nerds, hustlers and thugs alike, Don’t Worry About It treads an impressive line between tongue-in-cheek and tender and will resonates hard with all jungle appreciators currently trying to navigate life with as few worries as possible. If possible.
We called him to share our worries…
You keep your albums nice and short don’t you? None of them have ever longed us out
You keep your albums nice and short don’t you? None of them have ever longed us outYeah you’re not wrong. The first one Hia was 10 tracks. The second one Outside was eight tracks. And yeah, this one is nine. They’re concise innit. People just skip through shit now don’t they? So the less tunes on there, the more likely people will listen to all of them. If you’re like, ‘Here’s my new project, it’s 26 tracks long!’ It’s gonna put people off a bit. They might think, ‘Well half of these are gonna be shit!’
Yeah it’s quite overwhelming when you’re faced with those type of massive albums, too…
That’s it. You’re already looking for the shit tunes to pass by to find the proper ones.
How do you keep the quality control so high, then?
I’m always happy to scrap something if I’m not mega excited or passionate about it. There are tens of thousands of tunes where I’ve got to a point where I’m like ‘nope’ and I’ve binned it. So you only hear the things I’m happy with.
It’s hard to do that sometimes isn’t it? Like you’re wrestling with ego and feel that because you’ve put time into something, it’s got to end up being something…
I’m not too precious with my ideas, you know. I’m never short of ideas and inspiration so if something doesn’t quite stick I won’t be disappointed if it don’t lead to something. I don’t make 40 tunes and whittle it down. I might start 100 ideas but I’ll only carry on with something I’m fully convinced about.
I hear that. You’ve had a bit of a mad journey with albums haven’t you? Hia came out as lockdown started, then Outside came super quick after. Now this one.
Yeah them first two came out within a year of each other and it’s been a few years since then. But actually this album started before Outside.
Oh?
Yeah. Hia come out then I started on this and had a whole bunch of tunes and I was playing around with which would eventually become Don’t Worry About It. But then I had to isolate cos my flatmate had covid and it was early on when you had to stay in. During then I made a few tunes that worked together and I thought, ‘Oh I’m in the zone here’ so I just cracked on and kinda accidentally made an album. So that was the theme of that one.
Then you got back into Don’t Worry About It
Eventually yeah. I had all these song ideas and chord progressions and melodies but they were all over the show. One was a reggae kinda vibe. Another was more soulful. The tunes didn’t gel together though. Then I thought, ‘Maybe all of these tunes will work as jungle tunes?’ So jungle would be the common theme that pulls them together.
So this is a lesson in refining all the sounds and ideas that makes Chimpo a Chimpo but in a consistent way that works
Yeah exactly!
Gotta be a concept behind this. Was it always going to be called Don’t Worry About It?
It was you know! So really long strong but basically when I was a youth worker one of the women I worked with used it in a quite a bragadocious way. You might tell her you like her new shoes and she’d be like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ It always made me laugh so I took that off her. Every time I said that to my friend Jack Banner, he’d piss himself and found it dead funny and he started saying it. So I told him I’d name my next album it. It was a kinda jokey promise to Banner, really. But then within the album there are themes about not letting things get to you.
Don’t let the bullshit of the world get your down! It’s quite an empowering experience
That’s right mate. Thinking about it, Outside would have worked with this title too… Don’t take life too seriously innit. Don’t fret things that are unchangeable. Stuff like that. Like I wrestle with my conscience lyrically, you know? I like saying stupid, arrogant and reckless things. It’s fun. But sometimes you put words in the world and you don’t know the influence they’re having. So I feel more settled in my conscience that I’ve put something positive out there too. Hopefully not too corny. I want to strike a balance of being positive and being fun.
You do it well. There’s some wicked examples of that. Invincible is one. It gets harder and harder to get up to mischief the older you get innit…
Haha yeah. Spot on.
Some mad bars on that track. ‘Used to be rioting now you’re dieting’ is great, but the one about ‘hakuna-matata-ing from the noon until the ‘marning’ is the absolute tits.
Hahah. Thank you mate. That’s a bit of a favourite of mine. Glad you noticed that.
It’s ridiculous. That track is a bit of a coming of age tune isn’t it?
A million percent. It’s that acceptance that we’re not going to live forever and at some point in a good period of my life I did think that. zero consequences, zero responsibilities, nothing matters but fun. I maintained a good 20 year run of that. relentless recklessness, you know? I’ve been taught the hard way that you can bow out gracefully or you can be that shabby disheveled guy in the corner of the pub who looks three times older than he is. It ain’t glamorous is it?
Haha definitely not
So that’s Invincible. It’s a tongue in cheek acceptance that I’m getting on a bit. And to have Skittles on there was important cos he’s been with me during them 20 years. We’ve spoken about it a lot in recent years. It can be a bit crushing to accept this stage of life is kinda near an end. Well, sometimes…
Doing it in intervals! So here’s a thing. Years ago I was in Miami and I managed to get a dealer to write me invoices for my gear, then I put them through my work as expenses. What’s the maddest that you’ve ever charged to the game.
Hahah. That’s mad mate, I don’t think I’ve managed to charge anything like that to the game. But here’s one… Years ago I was working in Maplins and one day I went so drunk and still awake from the night before that I can’t even remember getting into work. The first thing I knew was that I woke up in the warehouse out the back. They’d put me out there and locked the door to keep me out of trouble. Apparently I’d been chasing the manager around trying to tickle him!
Hahah! Brilliant.
Eventually they woke me up like, ‘Get up dickhead’. I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t remember anything. So I asked, ‘Do I still get paid?’ They said ‘yeah, now go on fuck off dickhead and next time come in sober.’ So I guess I charged that one to the game.
Defo. In all seriousness though, it seems like quite a poignant tune. This life can put pressures on relationships.
There’s a few levels to that one. I actually come up with the hook and liked the vibe of it then I wrote the verses around the chorus. It’s about two things really; one side is love and relationships, the other is underestimating people’s abilities. The verses sound dead anecdotal like they’re specifically about one person but they’re more of a patchwork of stories of experiences. Both of them are like that but I’m sure some people will think I’m talking about them but I’m not. Or I am but only a little bit. It’s less autobiographical than it sounds, you know?
I get that. It’s a very soulful tune and Composure is a very soulful one too.
Yeah man. I was going for an 80s soul vibe on that one. It kinda went back to the vibe and style I was on when I wrote Outside. That’s inspired by a mate’s bad temper actually. He was always getting into situations because of it. I’d been out with him, I come home and this idea came to me on my way home drunk so I got on the keyboards when I got home.
It ties into idea of not letting this world beat us
Yeah man it’s a bit zen Buddhist shit innit. I try and live by it as much as possible, you know? Keeping your composure and not worrying things out of your control are both in that type of vibe. I don’t study it on a super deep level but I’ll watch a few lectures and be open to it. It’s a positive way to live if you can.
Absolutely. It’s all about trying to be as present as you can in everything and not letting the shit get you down
Yeah man. I always try and remember the Dr Seuss line. For every ailment under the sun there is a cure or there is none. If there’s one seek to find it, if there’s none never mind it.
I LOVE that!
I try and remind myself of that. If you can’t do something about it, step out of it. There’s no use in wasting energy in something you can’t do anything about. But if you can do something, go and fucking do it mate.
Chimpo – Don’t Worry About It is out now
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