User:Oseland/sandbox

Nick Chaplin (born 23 December 1970) is an English musician best known for his work as the bass guitarist of Slowdive.

Early life
Born in Slough, Chaplin was raised in Berkshire and still lives there with his wife and two children. His father introduced him to aircraft spotting at a young age and he continues to be an aviation enthusiast; an additional role of his with Slowdive is organising their worldwide air travel. Chaplin is a keen road cyclist, having completed the L'Étape du Tour, and an occasional mountain biker.

Chaplin had a keen interest in music from a young age, but did not start playing bass guitar until he was sixteen years old. The first bands he saw perform live were INXS, The Alarm, Status Quo (band) and Queen (band) at Wembley Stadium. However, in his teenage years Chaplin was fascinated by the Goth subculture enjoying bands such as The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Fields of the Nephilim, Joy Division and New Order (band). His style of bass playing is heavily influenced by such bands and, in particular, Peter Hook and Simon Gallup. When asked what albums motivated him tp play, Chaplin explained "For me it wasn't really a record, it was a video - The Cure in Orange, directed by Tim Pope, and I already loved the band but that video of their concert in Orange, in France, made me want to get up on stage and play."

Career
After the Pumpkin Fairies disbanded, its members formed a new band and the original line-up included Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Adrian Sell who all attended the Henley College. Chaplin was introduced to band members by an old school friend attending the same college and he was soon invited to join the band. Apparently, Chaplin named the new band Slowdive, based on a word appearing in a dream. Unlike many bass players who are part of a traditional back line rhythm section, Chaplin is renowned for standing stage front and engaging the audience.

When Slowdive disbanded in 1995, Chaplin worked in IT support before re-joining them in 2014. On reforming, Chaplin commented “We kept getting told from people in the industry, who we knew from the 90s, that there was a whole new audience for us out there ... People who, like you, discovered us via the internet, or who listened to bands that had been influenced by bands like Slowdive, and went back and listened to the older bands as well.”

When Slowdive released their eponymous comeback album, some two decades after disbanding, Chaplin pondered "When we released the record in 2017, I think it took us by surprise a little bit. When we got back together in 2014, we weren't really sure whether people were that interested. Clearly they were, and we saw that, but then it's like, they want to hear the old songs, and they're not going to be bothered with us if we release a new album with new material on it."

Equipment
Chaplin used to play a Music Man StingRay but now mostly plays a Fender Jazz Bass and occasionally a Gibson Thunderbird, all with with a Hot Cake overdrive pedal and Boss bass chorus pedal. As Chaplin says "I struggle with coordination, so I can’t have too many pedals… I’ve got a Hotcake overdrive and a Boss Bass Chorus and a tuner and that’s basically it. I don’t even have that many basses. At the moment I’m playing a Fender Jazz Bass, one of the newer active ones, I used to have a Jazz back in the 90s which was a passive one, and it never had enough grunt really for onstage, I used to always use the Music Man StingRay on stage because that was the one that would really cut through, and the rest of the band could always hear that big sound – and whenever I brought the Jazz out they’d be like, are you even playing? But I always wanted to go back to the Jazz cause I like the neck and I like the shape, so this time around when I saw that they’d produced some active ones that are slightly more powerful sounding I picked up one of those. That’s what I’m using at the moment. That and a Gibson Thunderbird, which I like cause it looks metal.”

Discography

 * Slowdive


 * Just for a Day (1991)
 * Souvlaki (1993)
 * Pygmalion (1995)
 * Slowdive (2017)
 * Everything Is Alive (2023)