The Beat Surrender

In the space of two singles The Kabeedies have captured my imagination and won my heart with their gleeful indie pop that will surely do the same to you once you’ve heard them. They are without a doubt one of my favourite new bands to have emerged this year, in fact who am I kidding, they are my favourite band to have burst onto my stero for some time.

Only time will tell if they can live up to that hype, they won’t be to everyones liking and i’m kinda glad about that if truth be told, lets keep them our little secret shall we…no you’re right these three lads and a young lady from Norwich deserve to be heard, something that will be helped by the forthcoming single Treasure Hunting when it’s released.

I caught up with Fab (the drummer) for a quick chat as we get towards what has been a very memorable 12 months for the band.

Ok, I’ll ease you in gently, can you tell us a bit about your name and how it came about?

Well my lad, we were driving through London one sunny afternoon… having hailed a cab from Putney to Hyde Park corner, as you do. And we were discussing Evan’s favourite 60’s celebrity – Edie Sedgwick. After much ranting, we decided it would be best to conclude the discussion with something productive. So we thought – hrmmm…we’re in a Cab, talking about Edie… Cab-Edie…Kabeedie! And forthwith we formed a pop band. Which was nice.

Norwich and Suffolk seems to be really waking up at the moment with some great bands coming out of there like yourselves and The Brownies, what has kick started the revolution in that part of the country do you think?

Yeah Norwich is a fantastic place for music really. So many venues and places to practise, buy equipment, nice places to drink and socialise…which generally is the ingredients needed to produce lots of bands. Recently though, there’s been a decline in new bands forming around Norwich – which has coincided with a few bands from Norwich breaking out into National recognition, which has been impossible for a lot of bands from Norfolk and Suffolk to do for a long time (largely thankful to BBC Introducing we are…). But yeah, after a peak about 6 months ago less bands seem to be emerging, although the existing crop are doing pretty well. In Suffolk, Ipswich has the potential to have a very good scene, with lots of young bands already. But there are very very few places in Ipswich to play or practice. Although, promotions companies such as Mad Dog and Lovin’ It are beginning to allieviate the problem.

You’re a relatively young band, yet you’ve had so many positive things happen to you already, is it ever overwhelming walking into studios like Maida Vale etc knowing all the great artists that have graced the same stage?

Yeah, it’s been marvellous. We’re fantastically lucky to have been given so many opportunities by so many people. A lot has been down to Huw Stephens and The BBC Introducing staff and DJ’s, like Maida Vale and Glastonbury/Latitude Festivals. We get such a rush being part of set-ups that we know huge bands have been/are part of, and it just spurs us on to improve and get to stay there.

Talking of which, you’ve played with The Futureheads, how was that and were you fans before you played with them?

Yep I think we all loved the Futureheads before we got that chance, and we were all chuffed that it wasn’t some rubbish egotistical band that we’d have to pretend to like. The Futureheads lads were all genius, and realll nice. Barry was chatting about his herbal medicine, while we admired his lovely big arms, and Ross gave Rory his bass when ours broke onstage..which was lurvely, and not the sort of thing we’d expect a band of their size to do, they’re very down to earth – it’s refreshing.

I read somewhere that Sideburns was your favourite track of yours is that still the case as a band or have you moved on from that track now?

Ugh, well… that’s interesting. I personally have stages of liking and hating our songs. We never really let ourselves get comfortable with songs and just sit back and go ‘well we needen’t bother doing anything to that one then’, so we all have periods of self-consciousness about everything we write. I do like Sideburns, we all do, it’s one of our punkier, heavier songs and it’s cool. I think we’ve moved on Songwriting wise, as the lyrics in it are pretty weird. But it’s still about what we are: quick, fun, aggressive, that sort of caper. We’re always looking back at stuff we’ve done, making sure we don’t lose that core ethic.

You don’t seem afraid to tackle any lyrical subjects in songs, with some serious subjects already covered in your fledgling career, heroin as one example which is referred to in Mythical Beasts, are you wary when you are committing lyrics to song at all?

Well if writing music is about expressing yourself, then the lyrics will (at some point) have to cover negative issues. We just don’t want to depress people along with it, because it represents us as people and how we feel – ‘okay stuff might be a bit rubbish but don’t worry about it too much’. We’ve all been through rough stuff, everyone has, but we just want to have fun – so yeah combining the two is difficult. But I think with the way we write music, it’s never going to be too difficult – we just have to make the lyrics quite cryptic sometimes – which often get mistaken for random rubbish. If you look close enough it’s there.

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