It’s been almost exactly two years since Phnom Penh ska band Checkered Past last played. This Saturday night they’re back with a new line-up, new instrumentation and new excitement, at Oscar’s on the Corner. After their penultimate rehearsal LengPleng stopped in for a chat.
“Our last gig was April 29, 2022 at Duplex,” says singer Ariane. “So this gig will be almost two years to the day since we last played.” After that show all three horn players left for other lives in other places, and while there was an attempt to keep rehearsals going, as time went on the odds seemed to be against them. “We broke up amicably over pizza and drinks,” says bass guitarist Jon. “We thought well, it’s hard to find a replacement guitarist, we’ll never find three horns again, let’s say it was a magical moment and be happy that we got an EP out and we made some good music.”
“It was a consentual parting of ways for an undetermined time,” adds drummer Mike. “We played for four years, we had a great time,” says Ariane.
But there was always a sense that with the right alignment of stars, Checkered Past could rise again. The first part was the slow search for a ska guitarist. “We tried out a few guitar players but from a guitar point of view people are not interested in just going chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk,” Mike notes.
Then Neil Furey, mostly known for his blues outings, emerged as an interested party through conversations with Ariane and Mike. “Mike and I said now that we’ve found a guitarist, let’s practice for a while, see if it works,” says Jon.
“So every month I’d contact Jon and Mike,” recalls Ariane, “And ask are you meeting Neil now? Yes, yes, we’re doing something. Then I message again – are you still doing anything? We’re still practicing, we’re meeting again next week. Another month – so what’s going on? Are you looking for a different singer now or what?”
“That’s kind of my fault,” says Mike. “I did make a point of saying let’s not message Ariane until we’ve actually got something to message. Jon adds: “We wanted to be sure. We didn’t want to have a false start.
“Eventually I was invited to a rehearsal,” says Ariane, “And it was so much fun, it made me so happy. I’ve been listening to ska all my music-listening life, and I was in a ska band in Germany for 11 years – there are points when I think oh, I’m done with this music, it’s nice, I’ve loved it for a long time, but I might also be done with it. But getting into the rehearsal room again with Checkered Part – I need this! This makes me so happy.”
The horns appeared how? “Some sort of spaceship pulled up alongside the Earth and dropped a whole bunch of horn players in Phnom Penh,” Jon explains. “On trumpet we already had Neil, who was Neil One, technically. The other Neil is Neil Two.”
“My singing buddy Jonathan Dunn, who doubled on trombone, was very keen to play with the band when it was on hold,” says Neil One, originally from London, who has been in Cambodia now for about five years. “So we had a few months of practicing, playing a few tunes. But we never actually performed with them.” Like the other horn players, Jonathan moved on. But then there were new horn options.
Trumpeter Cameron Smith, who has previously visited Cambodia with Australian band Plan B, landed and was promptly snapped up by several ensembles, including Checkered Past. And then saxophone player Bandi was brought into the fold to complete the threesome.
“I’ve been playing with the band for a month now,” says Bandi. “I’ve known Mike for about six months and every time I’d run into him he’d say I’m in a ska band and we’ve been looking for horns. Then one day I got a message from Jon saying I heard you’re a sax player, do you want to come play with us? And I thought, hey, my buddy Mike’s been talking about a ska band… It wouldn’t happen to be the same one?”
So the new band is definitely a development on previous iteration. “It’s not the same old Checkered Past,” explains Jon. “There’s a bit of expansion. We also have Jesse Zenchuk, on keyboards, which is hugely important, the holy grail that we’ve been searching for.” “We noticed today rehearsing without him – there’s something missing. It’s amazing,” adds Mike. “And after just three rehearsals,” notes Ariane.
So Phnom Penh will have a ska band again. “I have a mate who is not a massive ska fan, but he says going to a show makes him feel like he’s running naked through a sunny meadow full of flowers and not getting sunburnt,” says Mike. “Everyone needs a happy place.”
And what should we expect on Saturday night, and into the future? “We will play some original tunes, including one from the EP. We’ve already got a pretty good demo of a new one. We now have possibly five writers in the band, maybe six, seven. There may be an album in the works, bringing in some cameo appearances from different musicians.”
So we’ll get one night before everyone is off on summer break, a tease for what’s coming in the second half of the year. “There is,” says Ariane, “a checkered future on the horizon.”
Photo: supplied