Cambridge’s hottest new rock band are about more than cool haircuts.

WORDS: Will Simpson

“The first thing that people say to us is never: ‘I like your music,’ but ‘I like your hair, mate’,” says Caimbo frontman Leo Robarts, laughing at the absurdity. Well, there’s certainly no denying it – Robarts and his bandmates are blessed with the sort of healthy, flowing locks you’re more likely to see in shampoo ads than on the heads of rock bands. One magazine has already written about the band and used the somewhat ambiguous headline ‘Hair rock returns!’ Caimbo, though, are taking this as a compliment.

“I think it’s cool,” guitarist Piers Mortimer says chirpily. “It makes us stand out from everyone else who’s out there. At the moment, you see loads of bands with that short pretentious indie style rather than the free-flowing 60s thing we’ve got.”
Piers and Leo first met Ali Sloane (bass) and Dave Cullin (drums) at boarding school, and the band was eventually named after a slang word they invented for their home town of Cambridge. But with their unashamedly American sound the four-piece already look set to move on to larger venues than the Fenland pub circuit they currently frequent.
“We all grew up on The Police, U2, The Cult and that kind of stuff,” Mortimer explains. “I was a huge Bon Jovi fan as a kid. We’ve always loved that kind of… I don’t want to say ‘stadium rock’, but that big sound that people associate with America. But that’s not a bad thing. I’m quite enjoying the fact that people think we sound American.”
The group went over to their spiritual home of Los Angeles to mix their debut album, Electric Dreams, with Pearl Jam producer Tim Palmer. And, as Mortimer explains, they managed to find time to road-test the songs on the locals.
“We were walking along Venice Beach one day and got talking to these guys who run this massive hat stall. They asked us if they could play our CD over their system. Luckily we had a copy on us. By about track three this huge crowd had gathered. There were a whole load of tramps dancing, a guy in a business suit, and even a guy on a skateboard who had no arms and legs. It was totally surreal. We really should have filmed it for a video.”
Caimbo might be influenced by their 80s antecedents but Electric Dreams pulls off the neat trick of sounding like it could only have been recorded in 2008. “That’s very important,” Mortimer insists. “If you don’t sound modern then people will instantly compare you to someone else.”
“We don’t want to sound like a museum piece,” Robarts adds, “but we were all always going to play classic rock cos that’s what we were brought up on and that’s what we love.”

Check out Caimbo’s Myspace.

Like Caimbo? Check out our other tips for the top in our introducings section!