Band's tour no wind-up

Photo: Tara Atkinson

Proletariat

GREAT press, festival slots, headline gigs in Manchester and now raucous indie outfit Proletariat have secured a clutch of prestige tour support dates with fellow Mossley aces Cabbage.

Proletariat - frontman James Cummins, guitarist Connor Dolan, bassist Aaron Hall and drummer Luke O'Reilly - are flying high at present, and all of the lads were "buzzing" when Cabbage frontman Lee Broadbent invited them to support at his Peterborough, Dundee, Dunfermline, Darlington and Barrow shows in October.

Despite Cabbage soaring almost through the roof up and down the UK over the past year, Broadbent has offered terrific support to village cohorts Proletariat, and Cummins is clearly grateful.

"Ever since we recorded our EP, Lee has always been quite close to us," he said.

"When we first sent our tunes his way, straight away he was like: 'This is great and there's pure passion in there'.

"He's also been helping us with getting it released and stuff, too.

"He is close to us, and it's almost like he's being a bit of a mentor figure.

"He rang me and just asked if we wanted to jump on some of the dates on the tour, but I couldn't replicate everything I said in reply, not in a newspaper!

"Basically the bottom line was a big 'yes', and even then the other lads didn't believe me. They thought I was being a wind-up merchant.

"This is probably the biggest opportunity we could get right now, which is brilliant.

"Now we need to think about how we're going to get around. We've been looking at camper vans and all sorts."

Proletariat's punky sound is definitely out there now and as well as being featured on these pages, they have had favourable reviews in prestigious websites such as Gigslutz, This Feeling and Scruff of the Neck.

Cummins said: "It's great having stuff written by those kind of people, but there's also lots of little indie blogs writing about us too.

"We've been waking up, going on Twitter. There'll be an article on there.

"For the first time we're not having to chase people to ask if they'd fancy writing about us, and to be honest, everything we've read so far has been positive.

"It just gives us all a massive boost, and if it's getting our name out there more. That's what it's all about. It's nice."

No wonder Proletariat are heading to the massive Cotton Clouds festival in Saddleworth and will headline at Manchester's Soup Kitchen on August 19.

They have made a huge impact on the unsigned scene - not least at Liverpool's Sound City festival.

Cummins said: "It was pretty surreal really. It was our first time heading over to Liverpool, but we were on a major festival so it was great.

"There was an amazing line-up, the Kooks, the Cribs and Cabbage. We didn't know what to expect.

"We hit the stage, and we only had about 10 people that we knew would be there.

"However, by the end of the gig we ended up pulling in about 200 or 250 in.

"It was so good, and the energy we had on there was just going up a notch with every song."

Proletariat will support the brilliant Touts at Manchester's Deaf Institute on July 7 and play Cotton Clouds on August 12 before that headliner at the Soup Kitchen a week later.

That should be a storming night.

"Hopefully, it'll coincide with a release so it will be a special gig," added Cummins.

"We've done Jimmy's with a 120 capacity. Now the Soup Kitchen will be pushing 200.

"We've got our good friends King Cartel on as support, so it will be a really good gig.

"I've seen some of my favourite bands, like Spectre, at Soup Kitchen, and it has got a nice vibe to it.

"It'll be downstairs in there too, so with all that brick and dust it'll suit us.

"The sound's getting bigger there, we're getting livelier, so it's all good."

Proletariat head into the Hop Pole Studios, in Ashton, to record four new tracks in a couple of weeks.