Indieterria meets Chaidura’s live band (Lexi, Sebastian and Jack)

Only 3 days remain until Chaidura’s gig at Aatma in the Northern Quarter part of Manchester city centre. Last week, we sat down with the singer himself and the main actor from the “Plastic Beauty” video, Valentine, to speak about the upcoming shows, preparations and their influences. Today, we would like to introduce you to Chaidura’s band. Dear readers, please meet Lexi – the bassist, Jack the main guitarist and Sebastian – the drummer extraordinaire! Together they will make such a glorious noise that X-Japan would be envious. Be there or you will miss a piece of Mancunian rock and roll history! You know, the First City has been built on rave, britpop and indie rock! Now it’s time to throw some visual kei glitter into the mix!

LEXI

This interview will be read by many fans of Chairura. Please introduce yourself to the world.

Lexi: Hi guyz!!! I’m Lexi, the bassist of Chai’s band! Music is my favourite thing in the world but I also enjoy watching films, shows, modelling, going to fashion events and trying new and different types of foods 🙂

You are a model represented by Named Models, fashion model, you design your own clothes, and you are also a multi instrumentalist playing guitar, keyboard and bass! Please tell us how you find time for it all!

Lexi: The past few months have definitely been the busiest of my life lol! I’m in my last year of college so I’ve been there 5 days a week every week, however I’m starting to finish up on my exams which is great! I try to practice bass (will focus back on guitar once the tour has finished though!) and the songs for tour for at least a couple hours as soon as I get back from college. Throughout the week, I usually have at least one event I find myself going to and it’s usually fashion based. I work 2 jobs and also try my best to fit in time to see my friends outside of college, so my weeks are usually pretty busy. I’m one of those people who doesn’t exactly have the time to be doing as much as I do but I always try to find said time no matter what!!

Your musical influences include Ethel Cain, Yoshiatsu Noda, Esprit D’Air and Lola Young. If you had a band of your own, what type of music would you play? Pop? Indie metal or J-Pop? Or maybe something else?

Lexi: Jack and I are actually planning on starting a “proper” band of our own soon! The working name right now is Big Little Heart! I love every single one of the artists you’ve mentioned here and their genres are so different, which doesn’t help as I’m super indecisive of what genre I want my future band to be. Right now, we’re leaning to visual kei/midwest emo which are two very different genres but I think it’d be cool to be an artist who could do both!

Please tell us about how you discovered Chaidura and how you went from a fan to collaborator?

Lexi: I found Chai through an Instagram ad! It was for the Basilisk music video and I absolutely loved the visuals. I became a fan of Chai and went to the first picnic he held in London (which was also the first time I met Jack). Around a year later from this picnic, Chai asked Jack and I to be in the “Heaven” music video and it was history from there.

You will be participating in the upcoming LIMINAL TOUR playing bass guitar. How do you prepare yourself for the upcoming shows? Is there anything you look forward to? Or maybe there are some things that you dread before hitting the stage?

Lexi: Preparation wise mainly practice, practice, practice. I’ve never played in front of a live audience before so it’s both what I’m looking forward to and what I’m slightly dreading! I also just try to remind myself that I’m on stage with my friends and I should just try and have the most fun I can without stressing. I’m obviously worried about having a huge mess up or blanking on stage, but I don’t think I should dwell on it too much. In my mind, I just keep imagining all of us looking cool, having fun on stage and playing some sick tunes and that’s what I’m looking forward to the most!

Lexi online:
https://www.instagram.com/alexiaology

JACK

You have been helping Chaidura with the promotion of “Plastic Beauty” on TikTok. We absolutely love your sense of humor in those reels! Please introduce yourself to the readers of our blog.

Jack: Hey everyone! My name’s Jack – the one and only guitarist for CHAIDURAAA!!! Coming at you from the Internet!!

You are being represented by two modeling agencies: Menace Model and BMA Models which is quite remarkable. Do you remember any period in your life when you were discontent or self aware about how you looked?

Jack: Remarkable is an understatement, even I have no clue how I’ve gotten to where I am haha! Yeah, absolutely, I grew up in an all boys Catholic school, and for those who know that pain, are also aware of how restrictive they can be and so growing up I never was fully allowed to express myself. That being said, over the past three years or so, I’ve been able to express myself more in the way I like and I feel as modelling has been a big help in finding that expression as well.

Need for cosmetic surgeries is almost a requirement in many Asian countries. From the perspective of a person within the modeling industry, how persistent are the unhealthy and far reaching beauty practices here in the UK?

Jack: Being in the modelling industry you don’t tend to see much extreme beauty practices, but I think it definitely depends on where you are too. For instance, in some places around London, sun tans and Botox procedures are much more normalised than they should be, but in my opinion, as a whole in the UK, it’s less extreme than in other countries.

You starred in two recent Chaidura videos: “Heaven” and “Plastic Beauty”. What aspect of filming do you like the most? Do you have any personal input to the videos?

Jack: The two music videos have been absolutely phenomenal and just being able to get into the character and world Chai built, is so fun and an experience like no other. And as for the input: I like to follow Chai’s lead when it comes to his creative vision, but I usually come up with my own outfits and eye looks and obviously… HOW I ROCKED OUTTT!!!

You are also an established guitarist and you study music production. Do you plan to set up your own project in the future? If so, what type of music would you be making?

Jack: I am indeed, and yes I do plan to set up my own music projects. I’ve wanted to perform as far as I could remember, and in addition, I constantly work on my own songs in my spare time so one day (hopefully soon) I would love to release them. I’ve always grown up listening to jrock and jpop with bands like: flumpool, FACT, One OK Rock, BEAT CRUSADERS etc. and I do get influence from western rock and my favourite band Modern Baselball! So it would be quite a mix but hopefully more rock leaning!

Jack online:
https://www.instagram.com/j.tilley39

SEBASTIAN

You started playing drums at the age of six and have over 100 concerts under your belt. Please introduce yourself to the readers of Indieterria.

Sebastian: Hello readers of Indieterra! I’m Sebastian Fernandez, I have been playing the drums for 22 years now (since the age of 6). I am a full time drummer/musician who functions as a Drum Teacher and Session Drummer/Percussionist and of course I am the drummer of Chaidura!

As a drummer you are incredibly diverse. One week you play Glastonbury with indie band SHADE, the next you are on tour with pop/opera diva Claudillea Holloway (The Voice alumna), only to go abroad to play metal festivals like Hell Awaits in Belgium with Past The Fall. How do you keep such a busy schedule?

Sebastian: Honestly I ask myself the same question haha! For my teaching, I have a set, fixed schedule for every week and being a tutor is now a walk in the park for me, due to my extensive experience. For performing and studio work, it can be tricky to keep one united schedule. A lot of the time, I have new material or whole new sets of songs to learn for every new artist I end up working with, unless the music is simple and easy to study, then it’s easier.

You have been collaborating with Chaidura since 2022. Do you remember how you two met and how did you decide to make music together?

Sebastian: We actually connected on Instagram a few years ago. Now, it’s crazy when you think of it, because it feels like we only met each other and played our first show a month ago!! I really dig Chaidura’s songs, as they sounded influenced by a lot of the bands I truly like. I could mention Linkin Park, Bad Omens and Bring Me the Horizon among others.

When you play with Chaidura, you have a blindfold across your eyes. We wanted to ask you if this was a part of the stage image but found information that it may have been a deliberate form of tribute to the likes of Ernest Thompson and Cora Pistollious – blind drummers and street musicians who revolutionized popular music in 1930s by recording songs from the Southern states for Columbia Records.

Sebastian: I just thought that the blindfold would work well with the image of the entire band. Wearing one does not require any special preparations. It is a quick alternative in comparison to the amount of makeup Chai has to wear! Not that I have anything against wearing makeup or face paint, but as a drummer there’s a lot to take care of and you need to prepare well before a live show. I need to take care of loading in and setting up the drum kit. Sometimes you have to do it all in a short period of time. And then, after the show, there is dismantling of the kit and loading it all away to be taken care of. Most of all, with the coming Chaidura’s shows, I’m also responsible for the usage of backing tracks.

Sebastian Online:
https://www.instagram.com/sebastianfernandezdrums/
https://www.youtube.com/@sebastianfernandezdrums
https://www.threads.com/@sebastianfernandezdrums
https://musiciansunion.org.uk/profile/sebastian-fernandez-41a1a5da
https://www.facebook.com/sebastianfernandezdrums/

We have some good news for the fans who will be travelling to see Chaidura at Aatma in Manchester this Saturday, 13^th of June. As you know, Chaidura organizes picnics and takes care of his fan base. With the food prices being so high, especially in the city centers, Chaidura negotiated a massive discount for food (dine in only) at Dream Wok restaurant! Please show your tickets to get 15% off for the entire menu! Vegans are welcome.