After weeks of asking for an interview with almost every band I could think of in the entire city of Manchester, I was finally able to secure one with the enemy of the state, Punk Band Cabbage. May I add though, we’re in the middle of a bloody pandemic and no band is touring so what are you all up to, eh? None of you got time to help a poor Uni student? Well, whatever I don’t think I could have got much better or more interesting a conversation I did anyway.
It’s ten past six on a Friday night and I’m sitting at my desk waiting for a call from Lee Broadbent, the lead singer of Cabbage, except I’m not waiting because I’m the one that has to dial the number. My first ever proper Interview and I’m late because I’m absolutely shitting it.
When I finally get around to it, Lee picks up the phone and is rather chipper for someone just coming home from work. Feeling rather shitty for making him wait an extra ten minutes I apologise, though Lee reassures me that’s it’s alright.
In my head it’s best to jump straight into the questions, so we begin to talk about Cabbage’s newest album, Amanita Pantherina. As the album was released in September last year, I thought that it may have been a lockdown project but how wrong was I.
“It was a pretty two-fold the experience and by that, I mean the album was completely recorded pre-lockdown, we actually finished the thing around about November (2019) and then things occurred that made the whole world go into panic mode and the day that lockdown was announced was 2 weeks before we were due to release the album so I mean it couldn’t have been a worse time for us really.”
I’m honestly in awe and a little star-struck at this point, given the circumstances the album still entered the album charts at number 9 which is insane for a band at their level.
When preparing my questions, I realised that Amanita Pantherina is a type of mushroom which is a little weird as a name for an album, Broadbent explains that “Joe Rogan has a regular guest on his podcast called Paul Stamets who’s a mushroom expert, I wouldn’t say he’s got a degree in mushrooms but it’s something like that, and he was just describing this one type of mushroom … not only does it roll off the tongue wonderfully, we just thought it was a nice metaphor for progress and politics in the western world. You know there’s this minute bit of progress and then there’s something that unravels the whole continent back to square one.”
After a bit of a chat about similarities in upbringing and the amazing borough of Tameside, from which we both hail, it seemed right to bring up Cabbages newest venture, Brassica Records. The new label which was a main priority for Broadbent and his colleagues before lockdown had slowly come to a halt as restrictions came into force. However, it became apparent that this was not the end of a dream and Brassica has only just gotten started, “we’re ready to go out and start producing as much music as possible.” The band are very fond of their northern heritage and want to be able to give a voice to other bands in the area, “we’ve always wanted to do and to give back to artists round here who don’t have the space to record especially in Mossley and Tameside. There’s not many middle-class bands round here like in other parts of the country and the idea is to give the people around here a voice and let them express themselves in whatever way they want.”
megbartonmcr 
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