It looks like CHEVELLE have announced who will be joining the band on the road as the outfit’s touring bassist. Drummer Sam Loeffler recently spoke to radio station FM99 WNOR and was asked about the bassist position within the band, to which Loeffler replied: “His name is Kemble Walters, and he plays in a band called ÆGES. And he’s actually the guitarist-singer in that band, but he plays bass in another band as well. And we just asked him. He’s a friend of ours; we’ve known him for many years and did lots of shows together. And we were, like, ‘Hey, man, we love you. We love your hair. Do you wanna come and play some shows?’ And he said ‘yes.’ So we’re gonna do that. And we’ll see how it goes. He’s a rad dude, so I’m sure it’ll be great — until he has to go and do his other projects again, or whatever he does. But it’s cool. It’s casual. And he’s great. He’s a great musician, and he’s a great bass player, and he’s a great guitarist. And he can sing. And he’s got really tight pants. So, we really like him.”
Sam also discussed the departure of previous CHEVELLE bassist Dean Bernardini, saying: “He did it for 15 years and decided that he needed to be… His kids are now teenagers, and he needed to be home for a while. So, because of that, we have only rehearsed with [Kemble] once — well, twice, really. So we’re putting together setlists, working on that kind of thing, and sending music back and forth.
“It’s kind of an interesting time, because with putting out this album, we’ve been really busy,” he continued. “So starting probably next week, we’re gonna get back into just playing music again.
“It’s fairly depressing to play music knowing that you can’t go and do it. It’s one thing to go write music and play covers, but to play the music that you’re used to playing out in venues for years and years and years, it’s a little depressing — to know that you can’t do it. So we haven’t been doing that as much. Well, now we’re getting back into that. We have some shows at the end of June that we’re hoping happen — small festivals. So I think those will happen. That’d be good.”
“Niratias” was released on March 5.
Photo credit: Joseph Cultice
