Hi, how was your Christmas and New Year?
It was really good thank you. Plenty of booze, snow and "Breaking Bad".
What was in inspriation behind the name Black Onassis?
Thinking of a band name is hard because there’s always the tendency to overthink it. I was sitting drinking tea one day and the name just came into my head pretty suddenly, no rhyme or reason to it really.　
When you were recording your debut album Desensitized, were there any instruments, effects or techniques used in the recording process that you had not tried before?　
One thing I’d never really recorded before was vocals with a vocoder. It’s always dangerous ground to tread the line between it sounding interesting and sounding wank. But with Minus Humans it came out cool. Also, on this album there was a lot of experimenting with tape which came out really well. A lot of the drum loops and guitar noise were done using a six track tape recorder.
Where was the album recorded and over what time period, for example, where the songs ready before you hit the studio?
The bulk of the album recording was split between our rehearsal room and my house. We did some basic drum tracks at a professional studio as well, but the majority of it was pretty DIY. The tracks came together over a span of a few years. I feel like that time gave the album a lot of diversity. There’s a variety of inspiration, headspace and mood throughout the album that reflects what was going on in our real lives.
You used many guest vocalists on the record. How did you choose the people you wanted to sing or, where the songs written after you would knew who would sing them?
It was all through people we mutually knew. Lucky for us we had a few mates with strong personalities that happened to be good singers as well, so we had a go with them. And it all worked out really well I think. We didn’t actually record any of the vocals in person. The music was written first and then we’d send that over and bounce ideas off each other over email. They were all pretty spot on, no awkward conversations there.
What did you find were the main benefits of creating music in New York rather than the U.K. ?
New York is great because it’s all over the place in many ways. There’s so much going on it can put your head in a spin. And you are exposed to so many different types of music here, it can really influence you without you even realizing it. But you can write a good song anywhere really. It’s more personal inspiration I think.
You head back to the U.K. this winter for a tour; What are you most looking forward to and what can your audience expect from the shows? Will there be guest vocalists?
I’m looking forward to playing to UK crowds again. I’ve really missed that. There are few places on earth that are more passionate about music than Britain . There may well be a guest vocalist here and there, you will have to wait and see!
Other than your UK dates already announced, what are the plans for the band in 2014?
Just want to keep playing more. Would love to get back to the UK in the summer and play some festivals. And writing more tunes- I’m always writing.
Chris, you are often described as a "former member of Kasabian" when talking about Black Onassis. Is that a help or a hindrance?
It depends really. It’s good because it gives me a chance to reconnect to people that are fans of my previous work. It’s nice when people recognize the contribution I made to that band. I’m really proud of my time in Kasabian, but Black Onassis is a new thing, and I look forward to a time when it’s mentioned without that association.　
Since you have been in America , have there been any other bands or artists that have really caught your attention
There are a few bands that have caught my attention out here. Black Moth Super Rainbow being one. I really like their sound they do something that is very hard to do well which is incorporating vocoder into songs. A really inivitive band that nail it.　
The artwork for the album and website are very striking. Who did the design and was Nick or yourself involved with the creative process?
I did a lot of the art work. Most of the ideas are visual interpretations of the music. Kind of like glitchy neuron impulses and sporadic thoughts on paper inspired by a world with far too much electronic information flying about.
