The Chameleons in session for Riley and Coe, recorded live earlier today at BBC 6 Music.
A legendary band, who have broken up, reformed, broken up again and reformed, The Chameleons were (and still are) inspirations for many bands from the 80s on.
The Chameleons got started in 1981. The band’s classic line-up consisted of bassist and vocalist Mark Burgess, guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding, and drummer John Lever.
They released their debut studio album, Script of the Bridge, in 1983, and followed it with What Does Anything Mean? Basically and Strange Times in 1985 and 1986, respectively, before abruptly breaking up in 1987 due to internal tensions and the sudden death of the band’s manager. After the break-up, Burgess and Lever formed the Sun and the Moon, while Fielding and Smithies formed the Reegs. Burgess also had a short solo career with backing band the Sons of God.
The Chameleons reformed in 2000, releasing their fourth studio album Why Call It Anything (2001) as well as the acoustic albums Strip (2000) and This Never Ending Now (2002). Renewed tensions caused the group to break-up again in 2003. Burgess and Lever continued to play Chameleons songs live with their new project ChameleonsVox, although Lever later left that group and died in 2017. Burgess and Smithies reformed the Chameleons in 2021 with two members of Burgess’ ChameleonsVox group.
With “Where Are You?”, their first ep of new material to be released in over 20 years and their latest album Arctic Moon slated for release (or released by the time this article is posted) any minute now, they’ve been busy touring the U.S. earlier this year and doing much promotion and gigging, much to the relief of fans everywhere.
If you want to catch up on The Chameleons and hear what they are up to, crank this session up and get ready for what promises to be a good year for the band – and hopefully many more to come.
Great way to start the week.
