INTERVIEW: Chimers’ Padraic Skehan on Lockdown Origins, Wollongong & Playing Loud

Based in the vibrant coastal hub of Wollongong, Australia, Chimers have rapidly evolved from a lockdown project into one of the most vital post-punk forces in the Southern Hemisphere.

Formed in 2020 by life partners Padraic Skehan and Binx, the duo excel at a relentless blend of driving punk rock and garage rock, capturing the same sweaty, visceral energy of legendary ’70s pioneers like The Saints, with whom they’ve shared the stage.

It is a sonic formula that has earned them a fiercely loyal following and a reputation as a must-see live act.

While Padraic — an Irish expat whose name is the Gaeilge form of Patrick — leads with discordant guitar work and brash vocals, Binx provides the powerhouse, off-beat percussion that has garnered heavy praise from the likes of Henry Rollins and Guy Picciotto of Fugazi. Their stellar sophomore album, Through Today, perfectly captures a “good loud” intensity that is as welcoming as it is raw.

Before they bring their fierce live set back to the UK, Ireland and France this July, I had the pleasure of chatting with Padraic. He was a delight to connect with, offering a candid look at the band’s rapid momentum, life on the road, and the undeniable creative chemistry that makes Chimers tick.

XS Noize: I read that Chimers formed during lockdown in 2020, with you both jamming in your backroom. Looking back, do you think the band would exist if the world hadn’t locked down?

Padraic: Yeah, probably not. Me and Binx have been together for a fair while, but I was always trying to suggest jams and whatever with the two of us. She was kind of always hesitant because she wanted it as “your thing and my thing”, you know, our time away from each other.

But just before lockdown, we’d started a band with a few friends of ours where we had two drummers, Binx and myself.

XS Noize: But you were both drummers before lockdown. You didn’t want to form a band together, but…

Padraic: Then when lockdown hit, we kind of had no choice, really. We have a jam room here at home, and since nobody could come over and none of the other bands were happening, we just fell into it.

Plus, we both work in community services, so we were both off work at the time. And yeah, we just happened to have a guitar lying around here, too.

I had always messed around with the guitar, but never played it seriously. I’ve been in bands since I was 15 or 16, but I was always the drummer.

XS Noize: It’s very lucky you had the guitar in the house during lockdown.

Padraic: Yeah, we’ve always had one at home, you know? Just to have and pick it up every now and then. My whole premise was to write two songs and record a 7-inch single. There’s a place here in Newcastle that does lathe cuts.

XS Noize: Yeah, I’ve noticed on Discogs you’ve released a few lathe cuts.

Padraic: Yeah, so they’ll do whatever you want. You can press one copy if you want. So we recorded four songs at a friend of ours’ studio and then just pressed about thirty 7-inches. It was just kind of a cool thing to do.

XS Noize: Well, you had time. That’s what we all had during lockdown — time.

Padraic: Yeah, we had time. There are only so many times you can walk the dog, you know? The dog was the fittest it’s ever been [laughs].

It was a really nice thing, honestly. And even now, we’re at a point where we can literally just go out and have a 20-minute jam whenever we want. Everything is always set up and ready to go. It’s just a matter of flicking a few switches and off we go. So yeah, it’s a pretty big advantage.

XS Noize: When it’s just you on guitar and vocals and Binx on drums, there is nowhere to hide. How has the challenge of filling sonic space without a bassist shaped your aggressive, chord-and-drone style of guitar playing?

Padraic: We don’t actually have a bass player for any of that, because as soon as you add one, it completely changes the whole dynamic.

I’ll tell you a quick, funny story about that. We did a release gig for the album, and we’ve had people get up and play with us before — friends of ours playing saxophone or second guitar or whatever. But Andy from Poison City Records, who released the album over here, is a bass player.

We were doing the launch gig in Melbourne, and I said to him, “Hey, do you want to get up and play a couple of songs? It’d be cool, a nice thing to do.” So we were doing soundcheck, and we were only about half a song in when we stopped. Andy asked, “Is the guitar too loud?” and straight away I just looked at Binx and was like, “See?”

XS Noize: Yeah, there you go! I understand what you’re talking about.

XS Noize: Wollongong has a pretty legendary reputation for rock music, especially with bands like Tumbleweed. What was the local scene like when you first moved there, and how much has being part of that community influenced the sound and direction of your music today?

Padraic: Yeah, I know the guys from Tumbleweed quite well. I actually played in a garage rock and roll band here called The Pink Fits with Lenny, their guitarist, for about seven or eight years.

As far as Wollongong informing our music, I don’t know. The city definitely has that stoner-rock legend status because of Tumbleweed, but there was also a major rock and roll scene when I first moved here. Stuff like The Stooges and MC5 was really big.

Now, I’d say the music scene is all over the place, just like anywhere else. I’m a kid of the ’90s, and back then you really had to find your specific tribe. Whereas now, because everything is so accessible, all kinds of music are being played everywhere.

I was 24 when I moved over, but Binx and I actually met in Ireland. I ended up coming back here with her, but she’s been part of the music community here since she was 14 or 15.

XS Noize: Moving across the world can be incredibly daunting. How long did it take for you to find your footing and connect with other musicians in town?

Padraic: My first night here, I went to a show and it was just on. I met people that night who I still hang out with today. It was like finding a full, ready-made music crew right off the bat, and within a few months I was already in a band.

It gave me a really soft landing, and I was pretty much indoctrinated into the Wollongong scene straight away.

XS Noize: You mentioned you have kids. I find there’s a beautiful irony in the fact that you release some of the most visceral punk rock and garage rock in Australia, yet your home life is grounded with kids. You said you’re a little bit older, so how do you compartmentalise the domestic headspace with the volume of being in a band?

Padraic: Yeah, we’re still trying to figure that one out, I think. I suppose the fact that it’s just the two of us helps. Binx and I are already so used to being in a working partnership together, with the family, the kids and all that kind of stuff. So the band just feels like an extension of that.

Sometimes it does feel like having a second job, but that’s fine; we signed up for it. And the kids are great with it. We always have bands staying over at our place, so they’re totally used to the whole lifestyle by now. In fact, we just finished a run of gigs with FACS from Chicago.

XS Noize: I read that you’ve mentioned looking back at old journals from a tougher, pre-band era and finding it a bit heavy to read. Is songwriting for Chimers a way of actively rewriting or exorcising those past chapters, or is it more about capturing a raw mood in the present?

Padraic: Yeah, I definitely dealt with some demons on the first album. Songwriting is so much like therapy in that way. But at the same time, I purposely try to write positive stuff now, because you realise after a while that sometimes singing those heavy songs just puts you right back in that bad place.

XS Noize: Live reviews constantly mention that your intended pauses and silences are just as powerful as the music itself. When you and Binx are locking in, how do you mathematically or intuitively measure those gaps in real time? Is it a literal look, or just an unspoken rhythm?

Padraic: Yeah, I would say that really comes out of the jam room. It’s definitely a major focus of ours, that intention to just lock in, because like you were saying, there’s nowhere to hide. We’re both incredibly focused on not dropping the ball, because if one of us does, it’s obviously very noticeable.

We’re not a jam band either; that’s just not the kind of music we make, and I’m obviously not a technical enough musician to pull that off anyway. For us, our energy and our whole thing comes from locking in and really playing together. That’s what we do.

We like to check in with each other every now and then, but honestly, when you see us play, you’ll probably notice that both of us have our eyes closed for the majority of the gig.

XS Noize: You’re just feeling it. Whatever works?

Padraic: Yeah, definitely. That’s exactly the zone we want to get into. Every gig is different, but usually, you’ve done a bit of travel, you’ve had a long day, and whatever else has been going on, so when you finally get up there, it’s time to just put everything else aside.

You lock in, and this is it for the next half hour or forty minutes.

XS Noize: Speaking of Binx, her driving drumming style is the absolute spine of Chimers. When you bring an initial riff to the room, how drastically does a track transform once she lays down her signature momentum? Does she ever completely turn a slow song on its head?

Padraic: Yeah, for sure. It’s kind of funny — some songs happen really quickly. We actually have a new one we were talking about last week that pretty much played itself the very first time we tried it. Then we have other ones where it’s been two years and we’re still going back and forth on them, like, “Oh, maybe we should change this…” You know what I mean? It’s just the way it goes.

But we definitely have some slower stuff as well, like “An Echo” on the last album, which Binx sings. That’s a quieter one, and it just kind of stayed that way. On the other hand, we’ve definitely had some songs where we’re like, “Oh, that’s not working, let’s try and beef it up a bit.”

Take a track like “3am”, which was a single off the Through Today record. It’s a bit more of a straightforward song, and sometimes we find those kinds of tracks don’t really work for us because there’s no bass. Since it’s just the two of us, it almost feels too straightforward. We usually need to chop it up a bit or make it more dynamic to really make it work.

XS Noize: How does that process actually look for you? To my ears, it sounds like you might bring in a riff, and then the two of you just jam it out and fill it in together in the room. Is that kind of how it works?

Padraic: That’s probably how it happens the majority of the time, yeah. But sometimes it just happens completely on the fly. Lately, it’s actually been more a case of Binx starting up a beat, and then I just jump in on top of it.

I love doing it that way because it feels really organic, and the song ends up growing directly out of the rhythm, which I really like as a starting point. Then, normally, the lyrics come last.

XS Noize: Unless you see a word. I know some people see a word or hear a phrase and then save it in their phone.

Padraic: Yeah, I actually do a lot of mumble singing at first, just trying to catch a melody. Then, if I’m out walking the dog, I’ll listen back to the recordings on my headphones and try to make actual words out of the mumbles. That usually gives me a starting point to form something real from there.

I remember reading that Alan Sparhawk from Low used to do that a lot, and when I heard that, I was like, “Okay, yeah, that is a really cool way to do it.”

XS Noize: On tracks like “3am” and “An Echo”, Binx steps up to the microphone, creating a vocal conversation with you. How does the lyrical dynamic change when you shift from a solitary perspective to a dual-vocal attack?

Padraic: Yeah, that’s definitely something we’re trying to include more. Because there are only two of us, we really have to use whatever we’ve got.

Binx was actually pretty hesitant to sing at all at first, so I’ve been pushing her on that for a couple of years now. But she’s definitely getting more comfortable with it, which is really nice. I think her voice is a fantastic counterpoint to me just screaming or shouting all the time.

She obviously has a much softer tone, so it creates a really cool juxtaposition. We actually have a couple of new songs where the two of us are singing together a bit more, which is exciting. So yeah, it’s definitely something we’re leaning into more for sure.

XS Noize: One final question. For someone who hasn’t heard Chimers before, what five songs from your repertoire would you recommend as a starting point or playlist?

Padraic: I think “Timber” would be a good one to start with. Then there’s a new, unreleased one called “Optik” that will be on the next record. We recorded it during a radio session for WFMU in New Jersey when we were over there. The rest of that session is on Spotify, but “Optik” is actually only on Bandcamp at the moment since it’s still unreleased, a bit of a hidden nugget.

Aside from those, I’d say “An Echo” for a bit of a change of pace. “Turn On Lights” is another good one. That was a 7-inch release only, but I’m pretty sure it’s up on Spotify now. And for the last one, let’s go with “3am.” Yeah, definitely “3am.”

Chimers tour the UK, Ireland and France in July. For all dates and releases, visit their Bandcamp page.