Chamberlain is at work writing a software manual when I call. As he describes the program, "It's really boneheaded in a cool way. You just drag loops into a timeline and start making music, like, boom." It's Apple's Soundtrack, a $300 package that enables even the tone-deaf to build respectable beats. But it's comforting that they don't hire boneheads to write the instructions. A pro-level musician since the '70s, Chamberlain has the chops that his software employer would like to render superfluous. He played guitar as a founding member of The Motels in the early '70s. After Code Blue disbanded, he formed the hard-roots trio Resurrection; and later, Orange Wedge, a four-piece he describes as "southern-fried acid-speed-blues." Then, sometime around 1993, Chamberlain put down his guitar.
At the moment, in addition to working on two short films, Chamberlain is gearing up for a Code Blue reunion show, part of a private event in December that will also feature a set by Bad Religion. A partner in the Rancho de la Luna recording studio in Joshua Tree, California, he also played fairly recently in Earthlings? with members of the Desert Sessions crew, a revolving musical collective anchored by Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme.
Chamberlain's sensibilities have, if anything, gravitated toward the lumbering jams of desert rock and away from the short, sharp constructions of Code Blue. He says he's not looking for another record deal, but if people are receptive, he'd like to continue with something more groove oriented. "I want it to be more ensemble stuff," he says, "like a really tight band that can jam within these songs. Yeah, there will be some vocals, but it won't be so song oriented. It'll be free form, like -- I would say the Dead, but I don't know their music that well -- maybe Medeski, Martin And Wood?"
I sense that Chamberlain has mellowed considerably, and it's reflected in the way he talks about his older material. He approached the Code Blue record with fire in his gut, requesting the production services of Chris Thomas, who just a few years prior recorded the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks. Thomas didn't think the band was "there yet," according to Chamberlain, and Nigel Gray was hired instead. Hearing faint traces of The Police, whose Regatta De Blanc album Gray had recently produced, I ask Chamberlain if he and his band were fans. Not really at all, it turns out. "When that Police connection really started -- all the pieces started looking like there was a Police influence -- it haunted me," he says. The signature reggae upbeat can be heard on "Burning Bridges," and Chamberlain admits that was one '80s influence that did wind up on his palette, for better or worse. "I think if you're English, there's reggae all around you and Jamaican influence is much stronger, and it's a more genuine influence to have manifest itself. But for me to do this reggae thing -- that was kinda weird. But it turned out to be an interesting song, where the lyrics were cool, so I'm not ashamed of it."
I ask him if it's fair the way the '80s are now regarded as kitsch. Of a pop culture we've since reduced to an emblem of plasticity and excess, he says, "That's what typifies the '80s because it didn't survive past the'80s, but rock music obviously has." And he hates to sound like those bemoaning boomers whose record collections end with Dylan's motorcycle crash, but Chamberlain claims the '60s were more resonant on many levels. "I know that the '70s I didn't care much for," he says, "but only because I was around during the '60s. I think everybody kind of agrees that, regardless of their legacy, the '60s were pretty intense."
Naturally, he means socially and politically too. Strongly opposed to the U.S.'s aggressive foreign policy in Iraq, Chamberlain was disappointed that the massive protests during President Bush's recent visit to London weren't even more massive -- and more adequately reported in the news media. Had it been the '60s, he argues, "We'd all be at the gates, tearing the gates down, saying, 'This has gotta stop.'" He's clear that he doesn't want to point to his generation as a superior model of activism. He just wonders why there isn't more protest surrounding a Vietnam-like situation entered into with even weaker justification. What's changed? Chamberlain appears to still be pondering that one.
His vision of gatecrashers joins with another image for a telling contrast. "It's funny how the '80s can be distilled down to that guy's haircut in Flock Of Seagulls," he says. "That's it, boom. You and I both know it's an oversimplification, but if you have to pick one thing. It is too bad that's somehow become the icon."
I mention that the jagged-edge rock of Code Blue holds up much better than a lot of stuff from that time. Chamberlain says he can't be the judge; he's too close to the material. But if he could criticize one thing about '80s music, it would be the tempos. Too fast, he says, which led him to do additional, slower mixes of two songs on the Handmade reissue: "Whisper/Touch" and "Hurt." About the latter he says, "It's just a good, kickin' rock song. I'm so glad I got to slow it down so it could actually groove."
Whether or not it sounds like its slicker contemporaries, "Whisper/Touch" will always have a place in the '80s time capsule. Lovesick teen Andie Walsh (played by Molly Ringwald) rocks out to it in the John Hughes classic Pretty In Pink, a film Chamberlain doesn't recall ever seeing. Although not a Hughes fan, Chamberlain was glad to be included in the soundtrack and now admits, "Over the years it didn't exactly keep me alive, but it was good money."
He suggests that the money didn't always flow from his musical endeavors, and in the early '90s he found himself at a career crossroads. "In the years following the release of Code Blue and my 15 minutes of stardom, I played a lot of Tuesday nights at the Coconut Teaszer to empty houses," he says, referring to the West Hollywood club that hosted mostly struggling bands after its hair-metal heyday. Chamberlain wasn't burned out per se; it was just that his circumstances weren't encouraging. "Burned out is kind of a catch-all phrase," he says. "I mean, yeah, I got burned out on disappointment, I guess. But just burning out means there's nothing left to burn. There was plenty left, but I just couldn't take the disappointment any more."
These days Chamberlain can't seem to play enough, even though he sometimes gets strange reactions when he asks people if they want to get together and jam. "That's been my experience with every musician I've talked to," he tells me. "It's been an embarrassed, almost kind of, 'Whoa, man, that's kind of sudden, isn't it?'" Where some might find it an act of intimacy, Chamberlain regards music more communally. Looking forward to his gig with original Code Blue member Randall Marsh, he says he's approaching it from a new perspective. As he describes it, "just kinda gettin' lost in the music. Sharing the music and sharing the groove."
Code Blue is available in an individually numbered limited edition from www.rhinohandmade.com. The original 1980 Warner Bros. album is presented in its entirety, along with 12 bonus tracks, including 2003 remixes of "Whisper/Touch" and "Hurt."
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