Locnville

Locnville
Birth name	Andrew & Brian Chaplin
Origin	Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Genres	Pop, electro, hip hop
Labels	ContraBanned Just Music Sony Music Entertainment Jive Records (Worldwide) Epic Records (UK)
Associated acts	Given Phike, Ayce, Pascal and Pearce, Natasha Meister
Website	locnville.com
Members	Andrew Chaplin Brian Chaplin

Locnville (sometimes abridge as LCNVL) is a South African electro hop music duo. Identical twin brothers Andrew and Brian Chaplin formed Locnville in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2009. The twins are singer-songwriters, song producers and musicians, in addition to being guitarists, drummers and business entrepreneurs.

Their debut studio album titled Sun In My Pocket was released in South Africa in February 2010 and had proven to become a major success, peaking at No. 1 on the RISA South African Albums Chart and later winning them the award for "best newcomer" at the 2010 MK Awards.

Their second studio album titled Running To Midnight was released on 1 July 2011, including a high-definition music video for one of the album's tracks titled "Stars Above You".

The twins are related to the late Charlie Chaplin (their grandfather was the first cousin of Charlie Chaplin).

Life and career

1990–98: Early years

Andrew and Brian Chaplin, were born identical twin brothers in New York, United States on 14 May 1990 to Pam Eichner, an American actress, and Spencer Chaplin, a guitarist. At the age of two they relocated to Cape Town, South Africa, where the family lived together until their parents’ divorce in 1997. The twins then started spending alternate weeks with either parent. Eventually they returned to the United States in 2001 with their mother and finally moved back to South Africa in 2003 to live with their father. Andrew and Brian discovered their passion for music at the age of six when they got their first guitars. The twins regard the bands Pink Floyd and Oasis as big influences whose music was regularly played by their parents. Andrew elaborated in an interview: "Our family was pretty musically orientated, so I think we got a pretty good sense of melody and rhythm from a young age."

2006–2009: “III”

At a young age the twins started performing at events in and around Cape Town and it didn’t take long before they were discovered by South African record producer Gabi Le Roux who introduced them to Khayelitsha-based artist Given Phike. Soon the twins and Given Phike created the musical trio III (Three).

On 27 August 2007, III released a twelve track album, titled What They Say, on a South African mobile phone based social networking application called MXit. They were the first group in South Africa to release music in this format and in this sense made local music history.

The group disbanded soon after and Andrew and Brian Chaplin went on to create Locnville, the name of which is still a mystery, however the twins did say it has to do with their background and the fact that they had lived in both the United States and South Africa.

Sun in My Pocket (2010)

After three months of pre- and post production by Deon Phyfer including two weeks of recording, mixing and mastering at LMX Studios in Cape Town their debut album, Sun in My Pocket was originally released on a music download format with the original title of Retro Electro in November 2009. The CD format of Sun in My Pocket was later released in South Africa in February 2010 after being remastered in the UK by Wez Clarke (Ministry of Sound, Hed Kandi).

Locnville were later deemed the "buzz act" at the Midem International Music Conference in Cannes in January 2010, sparking interest in the duo from international record labels. In May 2010 it was announced that Locnville signed a worldwide deal with Sony Music International.

During September 2010, the twins visited the United Kingdom where they met their fans and worked on their materials. The single "Sun in My Pocket" is also featured in EA Sports FIFA 11.

Locnville was also featured on an episode of the popular MTV series My Super Sweet World Class. They were in the episode, gifting tickets and backstage passes to one of their concerts to birthday girl, Nina Rykaart, of South Africa.

Running to Midnight (2011)

On 1 July 2011, Locnville released their second studio album titled Running To Midnight. The brothers started an official “one-hundred day countdown”, a move made to create a hype towards the build-up of the release. The move proved to be a successful one with social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, being abuzz with the news of its release. Various competitions to encourage the purchasing of Running To Midnight where also created.

The new album was written and recorded over 9 months in Cape Town, the USA, and whilst on the road promoting their debut album across Europe.

In an interview, one of the twins, Andrew, stated that the new album was “much more relevant to where we are now”. The other twin, Brian, added that the new album is “not our previous album”; saying in so many words that the new album brought with it new sound and “a seriously intense and fun story”.

Entrepreneurship: Contra-Banned & Villey clothing

Contra-Banned

When creating Locnville, the twins also decided to create their own record label called Contra-Banned that would distribute their music at the time on a so-called “VirtualCD” format. They later on stated that the reason for creating Contra-Banned was that “artists get a tiny percentage at the end of it all...”, and they felt this was unfair as they put a lot of time and effort into what they did.

Villey clothing

File:Villey Clothing.png

The official logo of Villey Clothing by Locnville

In December 2010, the twin brothers released their own clothing brand called Villey clothing. Currently available for online purchase at TheGreekMerchant.com.

Discography

• Retro Electro / Sun In My Pocket (2010)
• Running to Midnight (2011)
• Faster Longer Mixtape (2013)
• The Odyssey (2013)

Singles

• "Sun in My Pocket" (2009)
• "6 Second Poison" (2010)
• "There" (2010)
• "Love Rush" (2010)
• "Passion to Go" (radio single) (2011)
• "Stars Above You" (2011)
• "Staring at the World Outside" (2011)
• "The Good Guy" (2012)
• "Closer" (2013)
• "Yesterday" (2013)
• "Desperado" (Pascal & Pearce feat. Locnville) (2013)
• "Dreamcatcher" featuring Tailor (2013)
• "Pop Ya Like A" featuring Reason and Lakota Silva (2014)
• "Wasted" with Chad Da Don (2014)
• "I Can't Sleep" (2015)

Awards and nominations

Year	Recipient/Nominated work	Award	Result
2010	Sopot Hit Festival	Foreign Hit Years	11 place
	"Sun in My Pocket"	Best Newcomer (MK Music Awards)	Won
2011		Best Newcomer (SAMAs)	Won
		Best Selling Album (SAMAs)	Won
2013	Locnville	Best African Act (MTV Europe Music Awards)	Won
2014		Best Pop (MTV Africa Music Awards 2014)	Nominated

External links

• Locnville on Facebook
• Locnville on Twitter