After eleven years with the group, Champs founder Josh Smith left the band in 2003. Subsequently, the band took a few months to regroup and look for a new guitar player, eventually finding their match in Philip Manley from their cohorts, Trans Am.
Once Manley settled on the West Coast after completing a six-month tour with Trans Am, the Champs headed out on the road, spending most of 2005 circling the globe.
“People don’t really seem to like us much in Europe. We do pretty well in the UK, Ireland and Scotland, but in the rest of Europe we don’t seem to go over that well. I don’t know… They’re more used to defined genres, and if they have no idea what you’re doing, then they don’t really get into it.”
In all, it was a year and a half before they could begin to write the new record.
Even though The Fucking Champs as a whole may have been quiet during the last five years, each member has been fruitful in his other musical pursuits. Manley still plays with Trans Am and occasionally with Oneida. Green, a professional recording engineer, has just joined Soete in another San Francisco-based prog rock band, Crime in Choir, and is slated to release his fourth solo record under the name Concentrick on Drag City later this year.
Though earlier Concentrick records had more of a minimalist, electronic quality, Green describes this new record, his favorite so far, as “a total guitar rock record.” Balancing solo work with writing band material can be tricky, but Green takes it all in stride.
“Some of the songs that are on the Champs albums I originally thought would be Concentrick songs, but they’ve ended up working into the Champs albums. I guess I sort of make that my priority.”
The Champs have licensed three songs to the Sims video games, with Green contributing solo guitar work as well. They’ve also been approached on several occasions to provide music for television and film.
“We had seven to nine songs of ours used in a special feature on the end of a DVD, and, not only did they not pay us,” Green laughs, “but they never even sent us a copy.”
Even after that unsavory experience, the band remains open minded about any new opportunity that comes their way. Currently, the Champs are gearing up to tour in support of the new album.
As for his take on the new material, Green says, “I’m still a little too close to it. I wrote a lot of the songs on this one. It is usually more collaborative, but with Phil being out of town and Tim being busy with practice [with Crime in Choir], I ended up writing most of the rock songs on there, so it’s hard for me to tell if they are good or not. I’m sort of self conscious about them.”
Though Green may have his reservations, he notes that longtime fans have been quick to embrace the new material. He is also looking forward to the band’s future.
“When Phil gets more involved in the songwriting, I imagine it will take on a whole new dimension.”
And who can blame him for being excited? After all, isn’t VII the luckiest number there is?
– Story by Jamie Ludwig, photo by Becca Henry