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::: 69 CHAMBERS :::
Sitting in a bar one night in the winter of 2000, we had some idea of the direction our music would be headed: a mix of alternative rock and metal with a dash of punk and a hint of pop. But what about a name? At the time, it seemed like every cultural center in our hometown of Zurich suddenly had something to say about porn. When half the theater walked out on a screening of the Mitchell Brothers' Behind the Green Door, starring Marilyn Chambers, it was reminiscent of the controversy the genre-breaking film originally generated. So we started talking film. Ah, the 70s. Not only did they give birth to the golden age of porn chic, they also launched the Hong Kong martial arts film into the spotlight with classics like, you guessed it, 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Feeling clever, someone suggested that there might be a band name in all this. And so there was. We liked the fact that both films were testing the borders of popular taste without any real danger of becoming mainstream. Hmm, that sounded familiar. We also liked the implicit commentary on consumerism and its relation to sex and violence. One day Marilyn Chambers is selling detergent for Procter & Gamble, the next she's starring in the most widely released hardcore porn to date. People didn't know if they were buying soap or buying sex. And where it dropped the veil on corporate advertising, it picked up the torch for women's liberation. The girl next door was no longer willing to do what she was told.
With a willful woman fronting the band, and with our collective tendency to be skeptical of what the mainstream dictated, the ideology the name implied seemed right. Though we also knew there was more than ideology alone here. The name pointed at once to the raw sexiness of Nina's singing and blustering guitar (not to mention her martial arts expertise!), the power-packed Kung Fu battery of Scott's drumming, and the Shaolin monk-like concentration of Dubi's methodical bass playing.
The initial response was encouraging. After being selected to take part in Universal Music's Breakthru Contest for newcomer bands, we made it through to the finals, playing to a rollicking crowd of thousands at the Zurich Volkshaus. The couple of years that followed yielded a string of shows in Switzerland as well as in Germany, two EPs and a video clip.
After a creative break, 69 Chambers reformed in summer 2006 with a new drummer, Dave Preissel from Switzerland's reknown rock band Pure Inc. and a whole new set of songs with a more focused intensity, with a sound that's more tenebrous and more ecstatic. The new material will be recorded and produced this summer by Tommy Vetterli (Coroner, Kreator, Gotthard, etc.) at New Sound Studio in Switzerland. After that, we are looking forward to doing some touring. Thanks for your support! |
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