Chubby and the Gang, the London punk outfit, led by Charlie “Chubby Charles” Manning-Walker, have broken up. They shared the news in a brief statement posted to Instagram: “Every dog has his day, ours came and went away. Thank you for the good times sorry for the bad ones and for a great six years. Who fuckin loves ya? Chubby does 😈❤️🥹”.
Formed in 2019, Chubby and the Gang had strong ties to the decade’s British post-hardcore scene: Manning-Walker had played with Violent Reaction and Arms Race, while other original members came from the Brighton groups Vile Spirit and Gutter Knife. The band put out their debut album Speed Kills—produced by Fucked Up’s Jonah Falco and notable for boasting not one, but two theme songs—in February of 2020 on Static Shock Records.
Soon after, Chubby and the Gang settled into a lineup of Manning-Walker, guitarists Ethan Stahl and Tom “Razor” Hardwick, bassist Maegan Brooks Mills, and drummer Joe McMahon. They signed to Partisan, releasing The Mutt’s Nuts in 2021 and an EP, Labour of Love, early the following year. However, alongside the news of 2022’s holiday double single Chubby and the Gang Presents: A Christmas Extravaganza, Manning-Walker announced that he had replaced all members of the band aside from himself. Their final album, And Then There Was…, came out last October.
Read about Speed Kills on “The 25 Best Rock Albums of 2020,” and revisit Madison Bloom’s column “A Guide to Static Shock Records, One of the UK’s Best DIY Punk Labels.”
