With a voice that could sit easily in either Echo & The Bunnymen or Teardrop Explodes, it seems strange that Chapel Club’s Lewis Bowman doesn’t even rate himself as a good singer.
Almost painfully self-conscious, Lewis finds it hard to equate his voice with the quality of the band, despite his vocals being an integral part of their sound.
“I was never a singer before I joined this band,” he says. “When Mike was looking for people to sing in the band a friend said to get in touch with me. When he got in touch, I asked’ Really?’
“I was loath to try, but once I did they just said ‘right, you’re in’. People are really nice about my voice I’m not trained and sometimes it can go horribly wrong. I like the fact that I’m not professionally trained, though, because all the inflections reflect the lyrics and so on.”
London-based five-piece Chapel Club are on tour at the moment, promoting their debut album Palace, which came out last week on Loog Records. The tour brings them to The Doghouse tonight.
“We’ve played all the usual places in Scotland but the only time we ever visited Dundee was when we were on the way to Edinburgh from Aberdeen. We got a puncture in the van at Sainsbury’s, so hopefully it’ll be a bit better memory than the last time!
“I think it’ll be a good night because there’s been quite a lot of people getting in touch on our Myspace saying thanks for coming up here, so hopefully they’ll all come to the gig.”