Mark “Vox” Burgess will tell you that music is medicine — and he means it in both directions. As the frontman and bassist for Chameleons, he’s spent decades watching audiences bond with songs built from grief and despair. He understands that response personally. It’s happened to him, with the music he loves.

The band is back, with 2025’s (strange and delightful) Arctic Moon, and a North American tour that starts Tuesday in Minneapolis. I caught Vox on March 12, 2026, on Zoom, literally on the road in Manchester, clearly in the middle of a few chaotic days. He joined the call shortly after our planned time — and started in characteristic British apology, which I deflected with characteristic Midwestern humility.

(Dan:) Hello?

(Vox:) I do apologize!

You know what, Vox? I have interviewed musicians before. You’re right on time. You’re doing great.

I tell you, man, the last two days there’s been that much chaos. I have no control over any of it, and… it’s just been utterly chaotic.

Well, you’re talking to me in Minneapolis, which is a city that is internationally famous now for chaos. Is now still a good time? We can pick this up later…?

If you can hear me well enough, I can do it. I’m in the car.

I’m totally happy to run it from here, Vox. Totally fine. Thank you so much. I wanted to start with: Minneapolis is your first city. You’re going to be here in four weeks. Can I answer any questions for you about what you’re going to find when you land here? You’ve probably seen it all on the news, but what are you…

How are things? Has it died down a bit now?

Down a bit, right? As someone who’s actively resisting this, it’ll be done when it’s done, right? It’ll be over when it’s over. When we get to zero, then we can actually relax. But no — it’s perfectly safe and you’re very welcome here.

I can’t tell you how much admiration I’ve got for everything that I’m seeing in terms of resisting what’s going down. I think you’ve really taught the rest of America and the rest of the world what it means to actually stand up to these bastards. I have absolutely nothing but the utmost respect for all of you that have done that. It’s amazing. It’s been amazing to watch. I’m really so sorry about the tragedies that led to it — not just the prominent ones in the media, not just with Alex and Renee, but all the ones that we don’t actually hear about as well in the mainstream.

Right.

I’m excited. I’m very proud that Minnesota is going to be the first show of the tour. It’s an honor, really.

Excellent. So… we’ll start from the beginning. Do you want to talk about an early musical memory? When did this start for you?

Music’s been with me my whole life. It wasn’t really until 1977 that I started to realize that the most important thing about playing in a band wasn’t how proficient you were, but rather it was all about attitude. If you had the attitude, it didn’t really matter. The proficiency didn’t matter. From that point onwards, I thought seriously about being in a band. But when I first formed a band, it wasn’t career motivated — I wanted to do drama. My path was laid out to go study drama here in Manchester. I was just playing music as a hobby, something to do. And then two school friends of mine that I hadn’t seen in a while — I started to see these punk shows — asked me to join their band. They saw me rehearse. I had a little slow punk threesome going on, which really was a parody. We were parodying punk because by that time, it was 1978 and punk had become a bit of a parody of itself. We were lampooning it, but nobody really got the joke except me and my mates. They asked me to join their band, and Dave in particular — Dave Fielding — he took it really seriously. So I had to make a choice because I was only in the band six months and then we had a John Peel session, and everything just exploded. I had to make a choice between continuing with my plan to do drama or throw my lot in with these lunatics and do music. I chose the latter, because my tutor at the time said to me, look, you can always go back. You can always reapply to Manchester Poly. But you don’t get opportunities like this every day. So I did that, did the Peel session, and the very next day after the Peel broadcast, my life completely changed. I know it’s a cliché to say your life changes overnight, but it really did change overnight. Literally the phone rang and that was it. My life was different from that point on.

Not everybody could do that. John Peel could do that.

It was the only national radio station in the UK at the time. The BBC was the only station that went out nationally. And John Peel was a guru of underground music. Everybody listened to him.

Right.

Even the major labels listened to him — trying to get a heads up on what was coming through. If there was anything interesting, Peel would have it first, usually. So it was massive for us.

Through that experience, did you understand that you could change what music was? What you’re talking about in terms of inclusivity and that attitude — that’s punk. And you’re classified in a post-punk space, a reaction to that, an evolution of that. Did you think about the evolution of that?

Not really. Dave and Reggie were in a band together before they asked me to join. They were playing something more prog-rock than punk at the time, although they were big Who fans — the occasional Who cover or Stones cover and stuff like that. But the stuff they were writing wasn’t really punk at all until I got involved. They wanted to go in a more interesting direction. We shared a love of The Fall, for example. The first time we seriously discussed working together was after a Fall show locally in Rochdale. I brought that attitude into it, because I’d learned to play around punk. They’d been playing a lot longer than me. Their mentors, for want of a better word, were all established: Alice Cooper, The Who, and stuff like that. Dave was into very American folk music — Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell. Once I joined, it was like, we were going to do something. We didn’t want to sound like anybody else. Anything that reminded us of something we were familiar with in terms of style — not the actual songs so much, just the actual vibe of it — we’d throw it away and start again. We didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t wholly original to us.

I saw, of all people, John Mellencamp saying something about that: that’s the editing process. You record all this stuff, and then you figure out what you stole. You figure out what you’re too influenced by that you don’t want associated with you because you’re like, oh no, that’s too close to something else.

We decided consciously to focus on the writing more than the playing. Reg and David had been doing it for a while — they’d played loads of shows. When I joined the band, I’d played three shows in my whole life. It is an important part of the process, but our philosophy was: nobody knows us. The shows we can get are rubbish. Nobody wants to listen to us anyway because they don’t know who we are — so let’s just focus on the writing and push that. That was a conscious decision. We spent the first six months just writing songs and getting our sound together.

Chameleons at recordBar, Kansas City MO (04 November 2024)

I saw Mott the Hoople here five or six years ago — I might have been the youngest person in the crowd. I’ve seen The Zombies where that was a very wide range of an audience. And I saw Pulp last summer and that was actually a really young crowd. I was very surprised by the group that was out. Do you know what to expect when you hit the stage and look out, or can you even tell anymore?

I don’t think about it. I’m only thinking about the performance, song by song. When you walk out and you get a warm reaction, that sets the tone. But that can be in front of 35 people. It doesn’t really matter how many people. If I get the reaction, if the people that are there show that they’re really up for it — it doesn’t matter to me how many there are of them.

Or how they got there.

Or how they got there. But as soon as we get into the first song, I’m in the music. I’m more aware of the band around me than I am of what’s going on out front. We just try to enjoy it as much as we can. It’s strange, live, because usually the first song, you’re trying to sort out the sound — it’s never the same from sound check to performance. It does happen, but maybe three times out of every ten it’ll be right.

[Dan, Laughing]

Depending on the level of people carrying the show. Seven times out of ten, you spend the first tune trying to look over to the monitor guy, or if Christophe’s doing it from out front, you’re trying to make him aware of what you’re not hearing or what you need.

You’ve got a job to do and you want to be heard. People who go to a lot of shows know those signals, right? You know what to look for — people pointing at their mic, pointing up?

Yeah, they don’t want to stop and go, “Excuse me, can we just stop for a minute?” No.

[Laughing] “So… taking it again from the top.”

Yeah. I’m aware of what’s going on on the stage, aware of the band around me, and I’m trying to get my headspace to a place where I can perform them authentically.

People might have seen one of the Gallaghers on YouTube talking about your influence on them. People might be tracing these things and just finding out about you from folks who have drawn influence from you. So many artists point to you as a formative influence. Has that ever become personal? Have you ever gotten a chance to meet them and do that mentoring individually?

No. Never met the Gallaghers.

Well, maybe not the Gallaghers. But there is a wide swath of artists that name-check you. What is that attention like? Is it just flattering, or is it a more complicated feeling?

It’s flattering, but I don’t really care what they say. Everybody’s influenced by somebody. You’re only one of them, whether they want to acknowledge that or not. If you’re like us and you want to stand out, you want to do something original, then your influences are going to be subtle. But it’s not something I think about much. It’s like, “oh, that’s nice,” especially if it’s a band that you really like yourself and they come and say, “oh, I really love this record”. But what matters more to me are the people that are genuinely emotionally moved by it. People I meet after shows — some of them are in tears, and they need to tell us what it meant to them. It’s a need that they have. And that’s very humbling. I’ve been saying all last year: music is medicine to me. That’s what music is. It’s a healing thing. I’ve received that healing from music myself. So I understand it now more than I used to. I couldn’t relate to it before because it was us that they were talking about. But now, being wiser and older, I totally get it. I’m just happy that we inspire people. And I’m talking on behalf of the guitar players, because usually it’s the guitar — and that’s not me anyway. The sound of the guitar is something that’s got nothing to do with me.

But as a songwriter, there is a vision around that, right? You are trying to achieve something. And I think you’ve influenced more than just the sonic texture. I think the way that songs are structured — I look at something like “Perfume Garden,” and it just, it shouldn’t work. As a songwriter, you look at that and think, that is so effective. And it’s mysterious. How does something like that come about?

It starts with an idea and we play with it. I’ll start off by trying to find the melodies and the cadence. And once I’ve found the lyrical cadence of it, that gives me the vibe, and the vibe will influence the theme. And then the theme and the vocal cadence — it’s hard to explain. It’s just something that naturally happens. You get something going between the four of you — now the five of us, there’s five of us now. You get something going between all of you and you feel like you’ve got something. There’s something there. And then you refine it over time. That’s how you do it.

I want to talk about the recording process — and you can hand me off to the guitarists again about this. When I hear that work from 1983 and the album from 1985 and even some of the Peel session stuff, it sounds so phenomenal today. And I come at that with the understanding that that was technically not as easy as it is today. That’s not computer aided. How has that changed? Is it easier now to achieve that sound, or is something lost?

It depends what you work with. We found a really great producer in Christophe Bride. He has his own studio, built his own live room, understands live music and how to capture it — even though it’s digital now. We try to keep it as analog as we possibly can, but we embrace the technology. It really comes down to how good the person is that you’re working with. He understands the sound of the band, he understands what we’re going for, and he’s able to get it for us. I had as much enjoyment from the Arctic Moon session as I’ve had from many previous projects. I’m really proud of it — the way the band works together, everyone’s input, all working towards one end: to try to make as great a record as we could with what we had. And I think we achieved it. That’s always been the philosophy — working with the right people. We did some early radio sessions; I remember doing one for Kid Jensen that we abandoned because it was just rank. The guy didn’t have a clue how to capture us. We tried to record with Chris — I think it was Chris Nagle? At Strawberry. We tried to do “Perfume Garden” with him and it didn’t work. Wrong engineer, wrong producer.

I can think of some approaches there that could be incorrect. But that band — the sound is just there, right?

When we did our first album, we knew the engineer really well, we knew the studio really well. And by that time we’d had the benefit of working with some of the best engineers at the BBC — the BBC hire the best, right? We’d had a couple of weeks with Steve Lillywhite, who at the time was one of the best producers around. We’d learned so much from that, that we were able to bring it into Script [of the Bridge]. It was a great studio — great records being made at Cargo Studios. A lot of Joy Division stuff was done there. A lot of the Liverpool stuff — Teardrop Explodes. A lot of The Fall records. Gang of Four. So many great records made there. Great live room as well. It all depends very much on the studio, the engineer, and your commitment to it. Knowing what you want and what you don’t want.

So what are you and the band planning to bring on this tour? Arctic Moon is its own thing. But is there something in the set or in your approach that’s different here in 2026?

Not really. At the beginning we were like, how are the new songs going to sit with a lot of the big legacy songs? They sit fine. Six months into the tour, it sits fine. We’re really enjoying it more than ever and the reactions have been really, really good. We just play what we enjoy playing. We rehearse a little bit before we set out and then it usually gets progressively better the more shows we do. With Minneapolis being the first one, there’s a lot riding on us to make that as good as we can from the get-go. Because there’s an emotional element involved there now, with what we talked about earlier.

Yeah. I appreciate that. Let’s say they haven’t seen Chameleons live previously. How do you want them feeling on the way out? Is there a particular moment in the show that you’re really excited about?

I want them to feel like they’ve just witnessed something that’s going to stay with them for quite a long time when they walk out.

I don’t think you’re going to have any problems there.

We want them to walk out going, fucking hell, that was an experience that I’m going to value. Rather than, yeah, it was alright, it was quite enjoyable. No — we want to instill the feeling that they’ve just seen something that’s going to stay with them for a long time.

One of the privileges of this conversation is that I get to introduce the Chameleons to people that may not have heard.

[Smiles and raises thumb to camera in appreciation]

I think it’s so important, because I think your work is so dramatic and so legendary in this space and in this genre.

We tend to reflect something that I like doing, which is going to see a band live before I buy them. If a record comes up and people are saying, hey, you’ve got to check this out — check out the band live first, then I’ll buy the record. Live is where it’s really at. The performances are where it’s really at.

If people are reading this and they want to get started in the catalogue, where would you direct them? What should they pick up first if they want to understand the Chameleons here in 2026?

Get the new one. And if that interests you and stimulates you in any way, then work backwards from there.

I think you’ve chosen a terrific starting point. I love the new record. Thanks so much for sharing with us, and thanks for hanging out with me this evening, your time, this early afternoon, my time.

I’m so sorry I was late. I really apologize.

No, you’re 100% forgiven — and I will see you in four weeks, OK?

Awesome. Thank you so much. Very nice talking to you. Thank you.