The Cocabelles

Listen Up!

by Michael Smith on 8.10.09

Here at 4Q, we’re always on the lookout for something different. Often during our travels in and around Manchester, we come across the usual four piece band, which play a tight set of out-and-out no frills “indie”, basically the vanilla ice cream of the music scene.

I suppose this is a result of change in direction for the mainstream music industry. There are now dozens of bands in the chart releasing very similar stuff, making it hard to tell who wrote what. If anything they should all get together and make a kind of “NOW INDIE” compilation.

Anyway with the previous paragraph in mind, I’m glad to announce that we have something a bit different to present.

The Cocabelles are a 3-piece female group, originating from and around Liverpool. Carina, age 21 from the Wirral, started the group early last year.

Carina: “I’ve always been musically active, singing and dancing was a major part of my youth, and forming a band just seemed like the next logical step.” Carina spent much of her time trying to find the right members for the band, conducting quite a few auditions before settling on the current line up. As we have seen in the past it is often difficult to find the right setup. It can often be the downfall of most new acts.

Carina: “As soon as I met both Karina and Kelly, I knew they would be perfect for what I wanted to create. They added both the look and vocal edge I was looking for.”

The next step for them was creating the right sound, which they weren’t willing to rush.

Kelly: “Often you hear groups with a very mainstream sound, we wanted to create popular music but with a different edge.” This edge comes in the form of a 5-piece Jazz band. There is a real sense of power and theatre to their music. The Cocabelles believe it is important to provide a good live performance.

Carina: “Even though we often play small shows and performances, we like to change wardrobe a few times during the performance. It gives the performances a bit of glitz and glamour, as well as creating something different every time we perform.” With such a large number of people on stage at once, The Cocabelles often find it difficult to squeeze every member in.

Kelly: “There has been a few times when a member of the band has had to move slightly off stage due to the size of the venue. I suppose it’s to be expected when we have so many people on stage, not to mention large amounts of equipment.”

The band is strongly influenced by music from the 40s, 50s and 60s, traditional blues, soul and jazz. Carina wanted the group to be new and different but to take their influences from older artists. The girls are influenced by The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Muddy Waters etc, the list is endless. Some producers have tried to persuade the girls to do more “commercial” tracks with modern beats, but they are insistent on using live instruments in the studio and leaving their vocals as organic as possible.

Carina: “You do tend to get a lot of artists these days using special tricks in the studio to get the sound right. We believe it’s important for people to hear the real sound when they hear us, both on recordings and live. Anything else would degrade what we’re trying to achieve. When we’ve completed our debut release you will be getting the true unedited Cocabelles sound.”

So what lies in store for The Cocabelles in the future? Kelly: “We have recently played the Matthew Street Festival; we headlined the New Bands stage. We really enjoyed this performance and our plan is to continue to play as many live performances as we can.”

The Cocabelles are still in the process of completing the final tracks for their debut album. Carina: “We’ve only been together for about a year but we have accomplished a lot. We’re more interested in getting our music heard rather than doing the whole fame thing; we believe that fame will come naturally as we begin to gather acclaim.”

With the girls working hard on completing their first album, as well as beefing up their live presence, The Cocabelles offer something very different and exciting. They can easily pull the trick of fitting into a Friday night line of indie bands, or alternatively into a nice chilled out jazz bar. This is sure to give them a much wider audience.

Keep an eye out for their up and coming live performances as they are sure to break the mould of the current indie crop.