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BiTS INTERVIEW: CHRIS CHALMERS (The 2:19)

The 2:19 a band from Belfast—out of the blue—became an IBBA Pick Of the Month. UK DJs
were both delighted and intrigued by the band, about whom it was very difficult to find any
information but there was much enthusiasm for their music. Ian McKenzie tracked down the
band and Chris Chalmers (guitar and vocals) was thrust into the limelite. This is what he told
me:

BiTS: Okay, Chris, let's make a start. Tell me something about yourself and the band. Anything you
want to.

CC: I was playing a gig with another band and Paul, our guitar player, asks me afterwards if I would
like to put something similar together with him. Paul and I have known each other for a while and
we’ve tried to get a band

started a few times, and it
hasn’t quite worked out.
It all started when Paul
came to see me play with
another band and then we

recruited the rest of the
guys. That was October
2019. That’s where it all
started, really with that.

BiTS: How long has the
band actually existed?

When did you start
gigging, for example?

CC: We only fully formed
in March 2020, right
before the lockdown, so we did two gigs, I think in winter of 2019 without a drummer and then
that’s it so far. Nothing since then and then Monty, our drummer, he joined on I think it was the 16th

of March 2020, and the next day my daughter came home from nursery with a cough, so we started
self-isolating. Then a few days after that, Boris announced the lockdown, so we weren't really able
to do anything after that.

BiTS: Do I take it that this is a lockdown album, or is it not? Did you do it at a studio or by sending
tracks to people or whatever?

CC: No. We did it live in a studio in July of 2021, but the whole thing came out of the lockdown, yes.

BiTS: Tell me about the band. Who’s in the band? Yourself you play?

CC: Well, I sing and I play a bit of guitar mostly because the guitar parts are me and then Paul
Wilkinson plays lead guitar. A fella called Marty Young plays bass and his brother Ady Young plays
rhythm guitar. We have a guy called Monty Sneddon on drums and a guy called Andrei Marinescu on
harmonica.

BiTS: When you went into the studio, was the album already written, or did you do a lot of work
while you were in the studio?