Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | April 24, 2014 | 27

Music

Coco andthe Butterfields

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YOU may not yet have come acrossCoco and the Butterfields, but then,they are only just embarking on

their first UK tour.Made up of five former buskers from

Canterbury – Tom Twyman, DulcimaShowan, Jamie Smith, Micah Hysonand Rob Wicks – the band make merry,hippyish folk-pop and are pretty muchdesigned for festival season.

Travelling around in a crazy colourfulvan and investing in lots of featheryheaddresses on stage, ELLA WALKERfound out a bit more about them fromfrontman Tom, ahead of their CambridgeJunction gig.

So Tom, what’s your sound like?We like to think it’s quite a unique sound.Unlike what people would ever haveheard before, but it’s a combination ofwhat you might class as stereotypicalfolk, or country, but we’ve also got bitsof blues grass and hip-hop elements.Overall I think it makes quite a pop-ysound really. But it’s definitely a veryhappy sound.

With the five of you starting out asindividual buskers, has that meant a lotof big personalities vying to control thedirection of the music?I think that [big personalities] was keyto the band taking off as well as it has.Because everybody is so different in theband, it’s really helped make it extremelydiverse.

You’ve basically created your own genre:Fip Fok. How does that feel?People started saying that word ‘Fip Fok’as a joke because they combined thewords folk, pop and hip hop. It was nevera planned thing.

But it suits you?Yeah, it was basically a case of buskingwith a guitar, adding a violin and then abeatboxer over the top which makes it

really quite interesting, obviously there’sa banjo and a double bass and then onbigger shows we have brass as well, atrumpet and trombone, but it sort of justhappened. It just sounds quite fun.

What are your influences?As a band we try and stay as original aswe can, we try not to get influenced byanyone other than each other. We don’twant our band to sound like anyone else.

Who would you like to collaborate withthen – if you could pick anyone?Jason Mraz, a lot of us are a big fanof him, we’d love to collaboratewith him one day. It’d bequite cool to get Eminemto rap on a track – that’s thedream collaboration.

What do you want peopleto take from your music?When they comeand see us live,obviously youwant them

to have a very, very good time. But withregards to the music, whether you wouldclass yourself as someone you enjoyship hop or someone who enjoys grungemusic or rock music or folk, come awayfeeling that you don’t have to necessarilyput yourself into any specific category.

Do you ever still get the urge to returnto your roots and go busking?We try and do it whenever we can.Obviously we don’t get nearly as muchtime as before, but busking for us iswhere it all started and it’s the rawestform of performing. It’s fantastic because

you can attract so much attentionand it’s a really good feeling whensomebody stops and you know

they’ve taken the time out ofwhat they were doing to listen to

you. It’s really, really good funbusking.

Can’t make it to see themat the Junction? They’re

playing Cambridge Folk Festivalthis summer too.

� Coco and the Butterfields, CambridgeJunction, Monday, April 28 at 8pm. Tickets£10 from (01223) 511511 / junction.co.uk.

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