THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
releases new album
‘CHIP CHROME & THE MONO-TONES’
Out Now

LISTEN TO THE ALBUM

WATCH ‘LOST IN TRANSLATION’

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Today, The Neighbourhood release their new album, CHIP CHROME & THE MONO-TONES, via Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment Australia.

Already approaching 50 million streams and views combined, the album includes previously-released singles ‘Pretty Boy’, which came with a Ramez Silyan-directed video that garnered support from peers like The Weeknd, ‘ Devil’s Advocate’, ‘Cherry Flavoured’, and ‘ Middle of Somewhere ’. The album is the follow-up to their 2018 release, HARD TO IMAGINE THE NEIGHBOURHOOD EVER CHANGING, and also includes ‘Lost in Translation’, whose Mowgly Lee-directed video came out yesterday.

Speaking about the new album, frontman Jesse Rutherford says: “Chip Chrome landed right on time and has proven to be the silver lining for The Neighbourhood.”

CHIP CHROME & THE MONO-TONES finds the band fully transformed into the album’s title characters with Jesse Rutherford serving as Chip Chrome and the rest of the band as The Mono-Tones. Initially introduced in 2019’s ‘Middle of Somewhere’ video, Chip Chrome and The Mono-Tones quickly became a vessel for inspiration and a tangible extension of the next stage of The Neighbourhood, the characters allowing for a new evolution of their sound and artistry.

Stay tuned for more from The Neighbourhood coming soon.

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About The Neighbourhood:

If you escape from your world, you have the chance to possibly make it a little bit better upon your return.

Instead of stealing away to some remote locale or exotic hideaway, The Neighbourhood frontman Jesse Rutherford escaped to a different place. In his case, retreat happened inward where Chip Chrome resides.

Under silver paint and flaunting glistening diamond grills, he introduces himself on The Neighbourhood’s fourth full-length album, CHIP CHROME & THE MONO-TONES.

Big questions remain…

Is this still The Neighbourhood?

Are Chip and frontman Jesse Rutherford the same person?

And, what is next?

“I wanted to speak in a different way with music,” explains Jesse. “At the end of the day, I’ve been trying to figure out what it really means. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to put it into words—even though it’s supposed to be my job with the lyrics. Chip helped me find that voice. He’s the best leader I could be for this project, for the boys, and for my friends. The Mono-Tones are the voices in my head that are always there. They can be a bit haunting and keep me up at night, but I trust their taste. In the same way I want to make the guys happy, I want to make the fans happy. To do that, I shut everything out, sat alone, found what makes me happy, and discovered my voice. The funny thing is it takes the piss out of being so serious. I don’t want to be brooding. A lot of these songs are based on major chords, so it might be a happier version of The Neighbourhood.”

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Chip Chrome has always been somewhere behind-the-scenes as The Neighbourhood rose to prominence. Since 2011, the Southern California quintet—Jesse, Zach [guitar], Jeremy[guitar], Mikey [bass] and Brandon [drums]—have consistently zigged and zagged past conventions and expectations. Following the success of their platinum-selling debut I LOVE YOU. Powered by the 5x US platinum smash ‘Sweater Weather’, they collaborated with everyone from YG to Denzel Curry and graced the stages of top festivals such as Coachella and late-night television, including Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! Beyond over 1 billion streams and views, they earned critical acclaim. Of 2018’s self-titled album, Atwood Magazine, wrote, “On THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, The Neighbourhood bring 42 minutes of brilliance and resilience, remaining lucidly transparent about life’s greatest emotional toils.”

However, Chip stepped into the spotlight on the 2019 single ‘Middle of Somewhere’.

“We came out of the gate pretty hot and successful with ‘Sweater Weather’ but then I always got stuck in my head and thought, ‘How can I do it again?’,” Jesse admits. “I didn’t want to do that this time; I wanted to do something totally new. We had a plan to do the music video for ‘Middle of Somewhere’ and I showed up in silver spandex and paint! To my surprise, it was the best move I could’ve made with the band, because they ended up liking how whacky and interesting it was. In the process, I still got to do the most Jesse thing possible. Chip was a way for me to say, ‘I’m going to do me. You’re not going to stop me’.”

At the top of 2020, he unplugged himself and plugged into Chip. As Jesse puts it, he “got off the internet, picked up a guitar, played it until [his] fingers bled, and learned how to write songs in a new way.”

That brings us to the first single ‘Cherry Flavoured’. His delicate delivery drips through the cracks of a simmering beat and clean guitar towards an admission, “I sold my soul a long time ago. I feel like a ghost now.”

“‘Cherry Flavoured Conversations’ means exactly what it sounds like,” he goes on. “It’s something that seems really good and sweet when you’re talking about it, but it may not be possible in reality. I ended up going to an internal place and got back to me. I realised, ‘Maybe I’m the one who’s putting the cherry flavouring in these conversations?’ I needed to take a look at myself.”

Meanwhile, ‘Devils Advocate’ hinges on a guitar-driven melody punctuated by off kilter bleeps and bloops and fluttering falsetto.

“It’s about getting back to being a simple man rather than trying to chase a designer brand,” he says. “I’m attracted to designer stuff, diamonds, and the good life, but there’s nothing like finding greatness in the simple things.”

Then, there’s ‘Pretty Boy.’ The rustle of surf guitar rings out over tambourine and a delicate bass line as he croons out an apocalyptic love song named after his dog.

“After these two earthquakes last year, I was playing guitar on the couch, I had my dog on one side, and I had my girl on the other side,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘If it’s all over right here, it’s not a bad scene to end on, you know?’ It made me appreciate what I do have. We’re on this ride together, and it’s a pure little moment.”

Based around “a fire sample Brandon dug out of the crates,” the effervescent ‘Lost In Translation’ rides out a seventies dancefloor groove to a hook about “how there’s so much noise and it’s so hard to be heard or even hear anything.”

Meanwhile, the record closes out with ‘Tobacco Sunburst.’ It would be the first song Mikey contributed to the group on guitar. The buzz at the beginning came from an airplane taking off near the Coldwater Canyon home they shared during the writing process. It concludes on a sparse and stark refrain.

“The album was originally going to be called ‘Tobacco Sunburst’, because I wanted it to be based around guitar,” Jesse reveals. “The song is a special moment. There’s a washed-out vibe to it. It suggests what the future of this band could be. We could put it out when we’re forty, and it would still hold up.”

For as much as Chip has affected The Neighbourhood, Chip also has the power to affect listeners everywhere.

“I think Chip was really about saying, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen, but you’re never going to know what to expect from us, because we might switch it up’,” he leaves off. “At the end of the day, this is an art project. It’s supposed to be fun. I feel like the boys and I are closer than ever. It’s amazing we get to live this life of music together. If we still get to have a voice in the world, we’re going to use it. CHIP CHROME & THE MONO-TONEShelped define my voice. The more I hear it, the more I think, ‘This is totally a Neighbourhood record’.”

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AMNPLIFY – DB