How did Plot 32 start?
Gaz: Myself, lead guitarist Adam and Stash were at Rebellion 2016 and we just watched Bar Stool Preachers play an acoustic set and were all feeling very emotional and said “there doesn’t seem to be that much ska punk going on in Leeds at the moment besides the usual suspects, how about we form a band.” Then Stash said “well aye man, that sounds cannae.”
Liz: I remember recruiting Rachel, we were on a Rocky Horror night out, we dressed up, and I was like “you’d be the perfect person to join our brass section and then you agreed so that was nice.”
Rachel: “I somehow ended up accidentally in a ska band when I was at school and I randomly mentioned that to you on a night out.
Liz: I Had to learn drums for this band, Gaz had to learn the bass.
Stash: A few had to start from scratch.
Liz: We started in February and we had our first gig in May which was very soon as I’d never played any drums before.
Stash: That’s pretty punk rock that, innit.
Who are the members of Plot 32?
Liz: I’m Liz and I play the drums, shall we tell you our favourite vegetable as well?
If you want, the answer is broccoli.
Liz: Yeah, my answers broccoli.
Gaz: I’m Gaz, I play bass guitar and my favourite vegetable is a beetroot.
Stash: My name is Stash, I’m 42 years old, my favourite vegetable is mushroom and I’m the singer.
Cat S: I’m Cat, I’m the rhythm guitarist and my favourite vegetable is a carrot.
Rachel: I’m Rachel, I play saxophone and my favourite vegetable is fresh peas.
Liz: We’ve got Adam, he plays guitar and his favourite vegetable is sweetcorn because he’s a sweet person and he’s pretty corny and then there’s Cat Robbins, she plays the trumpet, she love an aubergine apparently.
Who are your influences?
Stash: I think we’ve all got different influences. The bands probably influenced by bands like Operation Ivy, Bosstones, ska punk….
Cat S: I listen to a lot of Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, also I love anything a bit pop punky like New Found Glory as well.
Liz: Cat and Adam tend to write most of our songs but then other people chip in, Gaz and Rachel and Stash have all written some things, I haven’t written anything so I guess my influences wouldn’t come out that strongly but I love things like drum n bass, dance music but all of my favourite gigs growing up were Reel Big Fish. I think me and Cat spent years going to every single Reel Big Fish gig. I used to love King Prawn and saw lots of ska punk in Leeds back in the day.
This is your first time playing MPF, have you been before as attendees?
Stash: I’ve volunteered there before. We’ve been there as punters.
Liz: I’ve been almost every year. Infact I met Cat Robbins at the thing that was before MPF. There was some sort of anniversary show that the same people put on the year before MPF and I met Cat Robbins in the queue so we wouldn’t even have her as a friend or band member if it wasn’t for MPF. This sounds like a proper geeky thing to say but my drum teachers reminded me of it last week. I was talking about playing MPF and the stuff I wanted to work on and they were like “ooh, they said last year that playing MPF was your dream” and I was like “I wouldn’t of said that would I?” but clearly I did.
Gaz: You say it all the time Liz, when you’re drunk.
Cat S: I’ve never been, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s normally difficult for me to get time off work to get to it. But we’re playing some I’m forced to get time of work for it so it’s great. I can’t wait! It’ll be a good opportunity to see loads of bands that I’ve never seen before and get introduced to new stuff and seeing some old friends as well.
Stash: It’s nice when all you’re mates are there from all different cities coming together. You can spend a lot of time chatting to people with people you’ve not seen for a while.
Liz: It’s one of those few festivals where you know that everyone you know from across the country will be in the same place and you’ll bump into them at some point over the weekend. And they always have an amazing line up too.
Stash: I normally miss a lot of bands just through nattering and smoking.
Who are all you looking forward to seeing?
Liz: I have been doing so much research on this, I’ve got a playlist that I made myself. They do have an MPF playlist but I wanted to extra curate it. Shai Hulud, I know they’re quite famous but I’ve never listened to them before I knew they were playing MPF. Really love them. Really love Belvedere, Elephant March is a great song, just love all that relentless, fast pop punk stuff. And then there’s some really nice ska like Popes, JB Conspiracy, all the people that we love seeing and have maybe played with before. I quite like Riskee, some of that rappy stuff, Karl Phillips, we’ve played with him before haven’t we. Jeff Rosenstock. I’m trying not get my hopes up too much with anybody because you don’t know who’s gonna clash and you don’t know who’s going to have to pull out.
Cat S: We’ve had Brassick at Nice As Pie before so I’m looking forward to seeing them.
Liz: There’s all of our friends bands as well. Smoking Gives You Big Tits, I love them. Great name, great band. Monolithian, that’s Simon from Rash Decision’s band with that lady in Bobby Funk. They’re gonna be great.
What can people expect to see from your live set?
Stash: They’re probably see seven drunkards falling about all over the stage.
Liz: We’re not a polished performance but we’ll be very friendly.
Stash: If we’re anything we’re friendly.
Cat S: We want everyone to have fun and we’ll be having fun and hopefully that’s all that matters.
Liz: There might be some cheesy, bad jokes. You might get some very light political and environmental messaging but the overriding theme will be fun.
What’s your best experience at a Plot 32 gig?
Stash: Outciders always a good thing.
Liz: Remember when we played that really weird festival and then somebody came up to us and told us and told us that she was Miss Chesire 2018. I don’t know if this was the same person or I’ve got it confused in my head…
Stash: Didn’t she call us weirdos?
Liz: She said you’re the weirdest bunch of weirdos that I’ve seen in the same place at the same time and I thought to myself that I really understand what you mean; we are all quite different to each other, we’ve got quite different opinions and we act quite differently and I just loved that she thought we were so strange.
Cat S: Illusive Festival was dead good as well.
Liz: That was definitely the weirdest festival that I’ve ever been too.
Stash: It was like a drum n bass festival with a random ska stage.
Liz: Everyobdy was off their face to the point where they’ve built little sort of caves under the stage for people to go and hide if they want to have some private time.
Stash: That sounds rude.
Gaz: We played two sets that weekend. We played one of the first sets on the Friday and we were all fresh and energetic and there weren’t that many people watching us. Then on Sunday we were all a bit worse for wear, we were depleted with serotonin and dopamine and I think the majority of us were hung over and we played the other set and people were absolutely loving it.
Stash: I think between us we probably introduced ourselves to everybody at the festival by that point .
Liz: They really had no choice but to come and watch us after we bombarded them with our friendship for the whole weekend.
That’s a solid plan, are you going to do that in Manchester as well?
Liz: We’ve already said that we really hope we play the Sunday so we get so we get to make friends with absolutely everybody at the festival and then relentless pressure them into coming to see us.
Do you know where you’re playing yet?
Liz: It doesn’t really matter. Early is good, late is good, middle is good. They’ve all got there advantages.
Have you got a venue that you particularly want to play?
Liz: I love the Zombie Shack which I guess might be where we play as it’s a bit of a small one. It’ll be lovely to play in a smaller venue that’s packed out.
Stash: I’d rather play a smaller venue with more people in than a bigger venue with the same amount of people.
Cat S: Somewhere with a big enough stage to fit seven of us.
Liz: Yeah, so basically we want a venue where the stage is half as big as the crowd space so we’ve got room but no-one else does.
Stash: Not too high though, as I’m prone to falling off.
Liz: I would like a drum riser so we could have a combination of those things.
Cat S: Are you going to build our ideal stage here Colin?
I will send Tree a message and ask him very nicely.
Stash: It would be good if the drum rose over from the floor, that would be good.
Liz: We played for Tree the other day didn’t we and the drums were on a bit of a riser. It was the first time that I thought people could see me and I loved it.
Stash: I mean coming up from the floor as you’re playing.
Just fly across the room.
Liz: Who is it that does that?
Cat S: Do Slipknot do that?
Stash: A zip wire would be good. A good entrance on a zip wire.
Liz: Nobody had done zip wire drumming have they? Perhaps I could be the first.
That would be a lot of wires that you would have to time very precisely to make sure all the kit is in the same place.
Stash: You’d imagine that the kit would already be on stage and you’d just arrive and land on the chair.
Liz: Oh no, I imagine you’re going to zipwire a platform with the drums set up already.
Gaz: This is just sounding like a death clock out of metalopolis with the ridiculous stage set up.
Stash: When people book us we should start requesting these things and see what we can get.
Liz: We must be halfway between getting nothing on a rider and getting some flying drums. Perhaps if we aim high we might get a crate of beer.
Stash: We’ll take £20 if we can get a zipwire.
Is there anything you’d like to add?
Gaz: I guess we could say we’d like people to come along and make friends with us. We’ve been told we either get the party started or we keep the party going or we end the party really well so really your choice is across the board.
Stash: Take care of yourself and each other.
Plot 32 play at Zombie Shack at 22.15 tonight!
Check out Plot 32 on Facebook here and Bandcamp here.
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