If you were going to catch one live show this year, you’d want to catch one from this band. 3 piece Rosie & The Goldbug could fill any arena with their stage performance and even give Muse a run for their money, along with being softer on the eye too. As you can see from the list below, they have a huge touring schedule coming up including Bestival, and Latiude which they were hand picked to play.
By their look and modern attitude you’d think they were from London, New York, Paris even. But they were all home grown in the west country of Cornwall to Hippie/Musician parents who taught them a lot of what they know. Including teaching Rosie how to play the Piano, she was literally locked in a room to do so and in protest would hover over the keyboard and then start to hit it. This anger does tend to come out in her live shows although in a controlled manner now of course…
Deciding to release this debut ‘War Of The Roses’ EP and their upcoming single ‘Lover’ and self titled debut album themselves with the help of their management was an easy decision for this independent, forward thinking band who wanted to make it purely on talent alone and stay true to their roots. It’s the modern thing to do, and they wanted to see how people took it without a major label attached, hoping people would be more honest and raw about them.
Produced by half of Kish Mauve, the electro top duo whose song 2 Hearts was covered by Kylie Minogue for her comeback single, they were on a role of forming some great partnerships. Including in that writing with Marcella Detroit (formerly of Shakespear’s Sister) and Glasgow band El Presidente.
They formed in early 2007: Rosie, who’d studied music at Roehampton University outside London – ‘the course was all about studying pretentious jazz modes and it made me realise I wanted to just write three chord pop tunes and rebel’ – had returned to Cornwall to start a band. Pixie is her sister’s boyfriend; his compact stature and – to be frank – his pointy ears account for his nickname. But there’s nothing petite about his playing: he wallops out big fat bass sounds. It’s as if he’s channelling the pound and roar of the sea he grew up with, courtesy of hippie-surfer parents and a childhood/youth that was largely spent in a beachside caravan.
Plums and Pixie were at university in Exmouth together (in fact, they still are). Then, Plums’ old band supported Rosie’s old band. Rosie, fed up fronting a band full of belchin’ ‘n’ fartin’ lads who seemed intent on playing boring old indie-guitar wank, saw an escape route. After all, Plums is like no other drummer you’ve ever seen. She’s mesmerising onstage, all Keith Moon limbs and Aladdin Sane attitude. Maybe some of that comes from her time as a teenage member of Kagemusha Taiko, an internationally renowned Exeter-based Japanese drumming group. Maybe it just comes from the fact that Plums is, like both her band-mates, a full-force character. Rosie And The Goldbug are a trio with three razor-sharp points. You won’t regret listening…