Chapped Lips
Chapped Lips | Rot EP Release Show | Milwaukee, WI
January 31, 2025
Photographed by Anna Oleniczak
Milwaukee is home to one of the greatest and most interesting local music scenes in the midwest. Home to Chapped Lips, a four piece band with two vocalists and guitarists, Slater Gutierrez and Sam Kaffine, alongside bassist Zach Schroder and drummer, Jonah Mueller. In their most recent creative project, the release of ROT, the new EP, has been in the works for years. Its release was accompanied by a legendary show at Cactus Club in Milwaukee with one of the biggest, and most rambunctious, crowds this venue has ever seen.
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To kick off their weekend stretch through the midwest, playing shows to promote the release, Chapped Lips headlined Cactus Club. With support from The Kilroys, Totally Cashed and Shoobie, this was a sweaty and packed night for the south Milwaukee venue. A venue of this size, about 200 capacity, can easily fill up for the class act that is Chapped Lips. They earn a lot of community support, but they earn those supporters through reciprocation. Any of the opening acts this night could agree. Even when other bands take to the stage, Chapped Lips could be found at the front row and in the pit, creating the energy they expect from others when they’re on stage. The guys in Chapped Lips know what it can be like to have a lack-luster crowd from early-day performing, so they do their best to reciprocate that energy. Just another reason that this show was so special.
Consisting of four new songs, the long anticipated EP from Chapped Lips feels concise and polished, while still being allowed to let go and be fun. “ROT”, the title track, leans more into a punk breakdown at the bridge, which hasn’t been seen in a lot of their previous work. The pace for this song makes for a perfect mosh pit and the energy really builds to head at the breakdown. Slater’s vocals really were taken to a new level here, showcasing a range of screams that are quite cathartic. Most interestingly, this EP is very concise and the tracks seamlessly transition into one another; a note for their attention to detail. Songs like “Static on the Screen” stand out to me, the art of noticing where Sam Kaffine earns his title as the ‘Riff Bank’ of Chapped Lips.
General structure of this EP is all over the place; making it that much more interesting to listen to. It’s unexpected, but still predictable and planned out. Most interestingly, these songs were recorded live to the release. “Skies No Longer Blue, Pt. 1” creates a really interesting soundscape, an incredible amount of layering and suspense building; really forcing the listener to feel something as they hear it. It’s more vulnerable than other tracks I’ve ever heard from them. A creative feat to say the least.
I had the chance to sit down and chat with Chapped Lips before their EP release show to ask them about their creative process and get to know them a bit better. Here’s what they had to say!
“We’re honing in on the sound for sure, I think being young songwriters on the first album; we all had a lot of big ideas.”
CRAVE: If your band was the soundtrack to a movie, what would the plot of the movie be?
CHAPPED LIPS: It’d be something bad, like Cars 3 or Death Proof. It’s just a really intense movie for no good reason; kind of like our music. Like, it has no reason to be doing all of that- that’s how it feels with our music.
CRAVE: If Chapped Lips had to start a completely unrelated side hustle, what would it be?
CHAPPED LIPS: We could have some really good answers, or some really bad answers. Maybe from Zach…I’d widdle little pencils! With no lead, just really tiny, useless pencils. Or, sexy car wash!
CRAVE: How do your inspirations, your quirks and quips, develop into a collective style? How does it all work together?
CHAPPED LIPS: Arguing. A lot of fighting. We’ve known each other for so long that it’s just so natural. When I hang out and make music with other people, I’m like why is this so weird and hard? With these people-it's just what we do. It comes so second nature at this point because we’ve known each other so long and we go so far back. I think our influences go so far back..it's like a random idiot we knew from high school.
CRAVE: You guys all met in high school?
CHAPPED LIPS: Yeah, I met Sam and then the rest of them. I (Slater) am the youngest and the newest of the band. We all knew each other when we were like 17, and I (Zach) met Sam when we were like 14 or 15.
CRAVE: When you recorded the new EP, was it all DIY or did you use a studio?
CHAPPED LIPS: For the first album, it was recorded all by ourselves; originally started in Jonah’s basement. Then we collected enough gear and moved into an actual recording and practice space. Then, for this one ROT we recorded it with Jereimiah Lunde, of Lunde Records. There’s pros and cons of doing it on our own, we have no money. The actual recording sessions felt more efficient, we did it live. So, before we did it track-by-track, we played it live; it’s just we have no money. It was a very streamlined process, but yeah no money for sure. Seriously, no money, I had to sell my car.
CRAVE: Are there any tracks that standout to you or hold a special meaning?
CHAPPED LIPS: I think a good live moment is from “ROT”, that was probably the song that we worked on together the longest. We were f***ing around with that forever, since Slater was in high school. We took a long time to figure out its structure and how it's actually supposed to go, then changing it over and over and over again. I will say the last track, “Skies No Longer Blue, Pt. 1”, it’s the newest one so I might have a recency bias, but I feel like it's exciting to play that one; just because it's the newest. I think it's also, like, we have a lot of songs on the album that are very epic, big and dramatic so, I think that’s a good addition to that lineup of “bigger” songs. I think something else to be note is that we tried very hard to reduce the length of the songs for the EP and I don’t know if that was inherently a negative or a positive thing, but I think it was a nice thing to try to achieve. What I would always be told about the album is that “Oh, your songs are so long.” It wasn’t that length is a problem, I took it as I need to be more focused. Like, this part doesn’t need to go through eight times, it can go through four times and still get the point across. So, yeah, at times if you run through something too quick it won't be as effective. Sam usually comes up with most of the structure and he’s got the “riff bank”, these four songs were more collaborative than anything we have ever released. In the past its been either Sam or Slater writing the majority of it, but now Zach has written a majority of his own parts. We’re honing in on the sound for sure, I think also being young songwriters on the first album, we all had a lot of big ideas.
CRAVE: What inspired this release?
CHAPPED LIPS: The past two years was basically like a tour for the album, Sorry, I’m Late, and then even before the album was out we were playing songs from it, live. The way our whole timeline is very unorthodox, very weird, very complicated.
CRAVE: What are you looking forward to for the EP release show? What’s next for you?
CHAPPED LIPS: Seeing a bunch of loved ones and just like having a good time with our friends in the rest of the bands. We’re shooting for a double album, sometime next year, that’s our plan at least. We’re mature now, we’re older. After having such a long break, we want to expedite things more.
CRAVE: Any final thoughts?
CHAPPED LIPS: Thank you very much for listening, we really appreciate it. We will see you at all the shows, all of them. You’re on the guest list.
The future is looking really bright for this upcoming band, but mostly because of their care-free mindset and contributions to their scene. It's obvious to see their love for performing and creating at their shows. Chapped Lips don’t fit into a mold; they’re fascinating to listen to, but even more so to interact with in person. If you get the chance to see them in your city, take that opportunity!
