AN INTERVIEW WITH CABBAGE - 25/11/2016

CABBAGE are a five-piece band who are quickly being known as Manchester's latest 'ones to watch.

Consisting of Lee Broadbent (lead vocals), Joe Martin (vocals & guitar), Eoghan Clifford (guitar), Stephan Evans (bass) and Asa Morley (drums) this band have been and continue to create quite the buzz around their raucous live performances.

Before their gig at Social Bar in Doncaster we got a chance to chat with Lee and Joe of the band to find out more about everything 'Cabbage'.
 



Joe Martin taking over the vocals

 How was it that you all first met?

 

Joe: 'Well these two (Lee and Eoghan) started at things.'

Lee: 'We did things.'

Joe: 'Then I met these two about six years ago. I was Eoghan's old roadie, I had a big gash on my hand and he said 'how have you done that lad?' and I said 'drugs' and he was like 'Ahuhuhuhu' and we just clicked.'

Lee: 'Where did we meet Asa at?'

Joe: 'Well we had another drummer and then he fucking pulled out and me and Eoghan were like.'

Lee: 'Yeah but where did you met him?'

Joe: 'I don't know.'

Lee: 'There's this place called Gullivers in Manchester and it used to be quite a hub for musicians to go and get fucking wasted.'

Joe: 'Well yeah it used to be, it's been fucking horrendously gentrified but back in the glory days, which we were alive for, it's not often you can say that. There used to be a sofa round the corner and none of the bar staff came round that corner so you could just do whatever the fuck you wanted.'

Lee: 'Everyone who was in a band was in there doing... stuff and Asa was one of the many people that walked up 'alright my names Asa' so we talked.'

Joe: 'We had both been through the Shaun Gilroy Musical Academy.'

Lee: 'I've not, well technically have. I played drums for 'Rum Diamond' once.'

Joe: *sings* 'We only bitch about the ones who bitch about us. That one?'

Lee: 'Yeah, it's a good song that.'

Joe: 'It's a spikey classic.'

 

What was it that made you all first realise you wanted to make music?

 

Joe: 'Well, years of built up frustration really. I was always around bands and these two were both drummers for several years and we were always like a core of best friends who shared the same ideas so when we started writing music together it was fucking like a eureka moment.'

Lee: 'I picked up drums cos I needed to find a funnel before I probably blew myself up with a rocket.'

Joe: 'So yeah, when we started, well Lee started writing songs and wanted us to be in his band and then me and Eoghan had a couple of songs and then we did the EP and then it just kept going.'

Lee: 'Now we're careerists. Desperate for fame and money and acceptance.'

Joe: 'Yeah, now we're sellouts, we've got an EP called 'Uber Capitalist Death Trade'. We're one of the biggest bands in the UK, we subscribe to capitalism but also rail against it in our music cos we're massive fucking hypocrites.'

Lee: 'If I was about to get into music now, my friend has created a new genre. She's called Candice and basically it's called 'Confusion Core' and what it is, is just like she takes loads of ketamine and she stands infront of a microphone and reads stuttering poetry and that's why its called 'Confusion Core' so if I was a young person getting into music right now, that would be why I'd get into music.'

Joe: 'That's the future.'

 

Which song of yours gets the best reception at your gigs?

 

Joe: 'Urm, it depends. It changes every night, I dunno. It depends really.'

Lee: 'Which ones?'

Sophie (interviewer): 'Which song of yours gets the best reception at your gigs?'

Lee: 'Either Dinnerlady or Kevin, probably because they are form the old EP. Hopefully that'll change come the headline next week but it probably won't will it.'

Joe: 'Nah I think it will. It depends though. Some songs you get one person who knows every fucking word. There was a guy in where was it? Oxford, was it Oxford? No Bristol, he knew every single word to Dinnerlady and he's been to like five gigs and we've not been together that long.'

Lee: 'Hardcore.'

Joe: 'I got that excited I jumped into the crowd, shared the mic with him and he was singing all the words and then I was that excited I came back to the stage and forgot the rest of the song so it's a bit of a curse getting a good reception sometimes, if you're not professionals.'

 

So you just announced that you're special guests for The Courteeners at Emirates Old Trafford, how did it feel when you first got told?

 

Joe: 'Yeah, see sell-outs, that's what we are.'

Lee: 'Urm, orgasmic. Depressed. A culmination of the highest and lowest feelings a human can feel.'

Joe: 'The main pressure is just making it to the gig. It's six months away, fucking hell. Can't plan for the next three days never mind six months. It's ages away that, six months.'

Lee: 'When I was at school, I had tickets for Little Britain and it was a year infront and all I could think was that I was going to die before I had the chance to see Little Britain but I got to see Little Britain so yeah, I've got the same feeling.'

Joe: 'Yeah, it's the same sentiment really. We can't plan for that far ahead you know, so six months is fucking terrifying, I'm not terrified about playing the big stage, I'm more terrified about staying alive.'

Lee: 'We've got a headline tour first at places like Social Bar, which is more important cos it's intimate.'

Joe: 'Yeah it s more important, I want to be playing gigs like that every night like so many bands just work really hard and do gigs like this. We've just been shown the way to the pearly gates of some big fucking gig and I feel like we need to fucking earn it before we do that but we've got six months in which to do so.'

Lee: 'It's a stage test as well I think as well.'

Joe: 'We're gonna have a massive banner saying 'sellouts'.'

Lee: 'Shopping trolley full of empty beer cans, performance artists covered in faeces.'

Joe: 'Shit we're gotta have room for all that.'

Lee: 'Yeah boyyy. I've already sorted it out. We even want someone at the front of the stage.'

Joe: 'Juggling fire?'

Lee: 'Nah in like one of those red and yellow cars you have when you were in primary school, a naked mate in that and then a couple of prostitutes stood at the side of the stage and then he goes up and picks them up.'

Joe: 'We do not condone illegal prostitution in this country.'

Lee: 'No, or the dehumanisation of women.'

Joe: 'Or the desensitisation of young adolescents horny males who no longer go out, they play xbox and put the console while it vibrates next to their body parts.'

 What caused you to start writing music about the themes you do?

 

Joe: 'I think the themes wrote the music really, they're natural talking points.'

Lee: 'It's like a catharsis, its a catharsis. You've gotta get it out of you or you might turn into a bitter, savage murderer or summat like that.'

Joe: 'Yeah that's the thing, you've gotta find a way to, luckily for us we've got this perfect outlet which allows us to channel all this shit. Next question.. Are you gonna write this up or are you er is this.'

Sophie (interviewer): 'No, well I'm gonna type it.'

Joe: 'Ah right, I think you should also release a limited edition audio version on type.'

Lee: 'For one ninety-nine.'
 



Playing live at Social Bar, Doncaster.



Out of all the up and coming bands and artists, who do you recommend people listen to?

 

Lee: 'The Blinders.'

Lee & Joe *shouting*: 'The Blinders.'

Lee *shouting*: 'Are our favourite band.'

Joe: 'We endorse The Blinders wholly.'

Matt (from The Blinders): 'Fuck off.'

Lee: 'I think that's all we have to say on the matter.'

Joe: 'Yeah, we want them to clap when the songs finish tonight so we've said that.'

Lee: 'If we promote them enough we can finally get on tour together, it will happen.'

Matt (from The Blinders): 'Get us on tour with Cabbage.'

Lee: 'And then someone will die.'

Matt (from The Blinders): 'Someone will die and it will be me.'

Joe: 'They do gigs writing 'Fuck the NME' on their chest but we're a bunch of NME darlings so it's quite a contrast.'

 

You just released your EP 'Uber Capitalist Death Trade,' what was the reception for it like?

 

Lee: 'Urm, five tweets, thirty-four likes on Facebook urm I think fourteen shares.'

Joe: 'I think you've just about summed it up all of the important points.'

Lee: 'That's how you get recognised these days, how many likes you get on fucking Facebook.'

Joe: 'I think it actually is thirty-five likes but.'

Lee: 'We got some.'

Joe: 'Social media is everything to us, it's got so much history man yeah, so much soul. Apart from that, god awful. Everyone hates it.'

 

What's the best place you've ever played?

 

Joe: 'Here.'

Lee: 'The soundcheck at the Scial Bar Doncaster was the best gig I've ever played.'

Joe: 'Yep, super. Er, Hull fucking was great last night so I put Hull up there.'

Lee: 'Urm, what about Aatma?'

Joe: 'Yeah Atma was good.'

Lee: 'We dressed up like Devo for our first headline.'

Joe: 'What did Devo used to say? 'We are but men, we are Devo' summat like that. Soup Kitchen was also really good. We dressed up as New York bank robbers for that.'

Sophie (interviewer): 'Do you dress up for every gig?'

Lee: 'Not all gigs.'

 Joe: 'Not in a kind of planned way.'

Lee: 'Nothing is contrived. It's just bled out of us.'

Joe: 'We feel the need to make an effort, you know people have paid to come and watch us.'

Lee: 'In a time when you can sit at home wanking fucking on Facebook people actually come out and spend time to watch live music still so its our duty to put the effort in.'

Joe: 'Absolutely. It wouldn't feel right, just wearing fucking an Ed Sheeran hoody. Gap years over pal get a job, you know.'

 

Throughout the rest of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 what else can you expect from Cabbage?

 

Lee: 'We're not gonna die.'

Joe: 'Rehabilitation.'

Lee: 'Urm.'

Joe: 'No comment.'

Lee: 'Er, more sacrifice.'

Joe: 'Yeah.'

Sophie (interviewer): 'But no deaths?'

Lee: 'No death just sacrifice.'

Joe: 'Maybe. Although we do have a plan for the ultimate sacrifice. Do you remember that plan?'

Lee: 'Yeah yeah, shall we tell them?'

Joe: 'Nah we can't tell them. It involves.'

Lee: 'One, two, three *gun noise*.'

Sophie (interviewer): 'Right, okay.'

Joe: 'And then it's done. Forever.'

Lee: 'That's when we get kicked out of Cabbage and we're forty year old fucking whizz heads fucking playing fucking a casio keyboard.'

Joe: 'Forty, fucking hell.'

Lee: 'Well, we'll look forty.'

Joe: 'Twenty-six.'

Lee: 'Thirty-one.'

Joe: 'Yeah, er, more of the same. Just sell-out fucking bullshit. A band who pretend to be interested in politics but in reality we'd sell our souls for a pair of Levi's.'

Lee: 'Or anything for that matter, a free drink.'

 

You can listen to the latest EP from Cabbage here:

 

You can catch Cabbave live at any of the February tour dates below:

 

Written by Sophie.