10 tips to start a superstar rock band, according to The Molotovs
“Go out and gig, because that’s the best rehearsal you’re ever going to get.”
Six years ago, The Molotovs were busking around London. Now, after a summer smashing through festivals across Europe, they’re preparing for their biggest UK tour yet - including two nights at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town after the first sold out.
For siblings Mathew and Issey Cartlidge, now 18 and 20 years old, it has been quite the crash course in starting a band. Before even releasing their debut album, ‘Wasted On Youth’ earlier this year, The Molotovs had already clocked up hundreds of gigs and shared stages with the likes of The Libertines, Sex Pistols and Blondie. When it comes to building a band from the pavement up, they’ve put in the hours.
So how do you go from Oxford Street busker to thousands of paying fans? According to The Molotovs: gig constantly, play absolutely anywhere, know exactly who you are - and learn how to survive your bandmates. Especially if they happen to be family.
We sat down with Mathew and Issey to talk busking, building a following, finding your identity, surviving terrible early gigs and why starting a band with your sibling risks turning things distinctly Gallagher-esque.
Consider this your ten-step guide to forming a band - flying platform boots not included…
1. Get out and gig. A lot...
“Genuinely, just gig loads,” says Issey.
“For us, it’s how we started,” the bassist adds, “You start because you just love the thrill of live performance. You want to go out there and get out this extra energy. From honing our craft that way, we obviously got to the point where we could record an album, be on a record label and do all the stuff that follows.”
“Go out and gig, because that’s the best rehearsal you’re ever going to get.”
“But do both,” adds Mathew, “We don’t just go gigging without rehearsing anything!”
2. Don’t get into a band with your sibling
The Molotovs have one fairly significant disadvantage when it comes to getting along with their bandmates: they’re siblings.
“I don’t think you need to get along,” reveals Issey.
“We’re quite Gallagher-esque actually,” shares Mathew, “It’s just that we don’t really have cricket bats around! She has hit me with 6-inch heeled boots before though.”
The worst it has got, they tell us, involved a festival, a pile of freshly cleaned clothes and a pair of enormous La Moda boots.
“I spent all my time ironing my clothes,” says Mathew, “I’d washed them all. They were all really clean. And when I went in there, they were all scattered across the floor - and she’d be stepping all over them with her muddy boots.”
“I loved these clothes. They had mud all over them. I went f*cking mental!”
Eventually, Mathew attempted to make peace.
“I was going to say something like, ‘Look, I’m sorry for going mental, but you understand why I’m angry, right?’
“I was halfway through the word ‘sorry’ and then a boot comes flying at me!”
Issey remembers it differently.
“I remember my thought process. I said to myself, ‘If you say one more word about this…’ because you wouldn’t stop going on about it. You wouldn’t stop!”
“I thought, ‘If he says one more thing, I’m getting him. You did say one more thing, and that’s when I got you!”
3. Don’t wait until you’re ‘ready’
“Every band shouldn’t do it the topsy-turvy way of recording first and then playing live,” says Issey.
“I think you can always tell when someone breaks and they’ve had something like a big online moment and they they’re like, ‘Sh*t, I’ve got to do some gigs!’ and they’re not prepared for it.”
And you can’t just post online content without getting out there anyway: Mathew has a fairly simple response:
“What are you going to film and post then?”
4. Busk until you can stop someone in ten seconds
“I think it hardens you as performers,” says Mathew, “because people who walk by don’t necessarily want to hear your music.
“They’ve had a busy day at work or whatever, and the last thing they want to hear is a couple of kids who can’t really fucking play, playing really loudly. They just want to get on their train back home to their loved ones or whatever.
“You’ve got to turn them around within about ten seconds of them walking by. That’s quite a skill.”
5. Play absolutely anywhere
Before the Molotov’s massive global headline shows came every kind of gig imaginable.
“We played everything,” says Mathew, “Weddings and parties, street parties and birthdays and all sorts. Churches, art exhibitions, private members’ clubs, pubs…”
“Anywhere that would have us,” adds Mathew.
“People’s gardens!” says Issey.
Pro tip: Busking could lead directly to the next booking, too.
“People would book us by throwing pieces of paper into our guitar case. It wasn’t money, unfortunately, but it was more valuable in the end,” explains Mathew.
Those notes would say “Ring me for a gig,” - which actually led to some of the band’s first indoor shows.
6. Treat every gig as training
“I guess our stage presence was built on those gigs,” remembers Issey, “It was like a baptism of fire.
“All those busking sets, all those gigs, and just knowing how to please an audience as well.”
Some were more memorable than others.
“We used to play at Millwall Football Club, before their games. Those were interesting!” says Mathew.
Then there was a wedding where the band performed The Beatles’ Oh! Darling for the first dance.
“It was a pretty bad rendition, but they seemed to enjoy it,” says Issey.
“The bride and groom fell out at the wedding,” she adds, “I was maybe 14 or 15 years old and I was on the steps just outside this social club, with all the bridesmaids and the bride. She was crying into my shoulder…”
After consoling the bride, there was still work to do.
“I was stroking her hair. Then I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to go on and do another set now!’”
7. Build your following in the real world
“We built up our following from that,” explains Issey, “People would follow us when we were busking and we’d have the social media.
“There are still people coming now who saw us way back then.”
That real-world following has grown at the same rate as their gig venues.
Mathew shares: “We sort of level it by London. The Electric Ballroom is like 1,500 capacity. Now we’re doing 5,000 tickets in London, and across the country it’s getting bigger.”
8. Know exactly what your band is
“Know who you are,” says Issey.
“That’s a good thing for anyone, but I mean know what your band is about. That can change, but have an identity. Have a strong visual image.”
That sense of identity helped the band get gigs from the beginning.
“A lot of the time, the reason we got good gigs was because we were aesthetically minded. We had a very ‘classic mod’ get up, but it worked because people could imagine us playing their weddings!”
9. Make the way you look part of the band
“I think the way we dress reflects the music, and I think there’s a very cohesive balance,” says Mathew..
“It’s having a tribe, isn’t it?” adds Issey.
“I guess it’s just a sense of identity,” continues Mathew, “I think it’s very human to want to attach yourself to a sort of tribe.
10. Don’t obsess over whether you’ve made it
For a band that has gone from busking to playing festivals across Europe, identifying the exact moment things changed is surprisingly difficult.
“You don’t really find success until you look back, really,” says Mathew.
“Yeah,” says Issey, “You’re just in the eye of the storm all the time.”
“There’s just so much. I guess it’s hard to say where the success is and quantify what that step up is.”
Six years in, perhaps that is The Molotovs’ simplest lesson of all: keep playing first, work out how far you’ve come later… and try to avoid the flying boots.
The Molotovs have announced that their second album, Welcome To Urbia, will be out on 9th April 2027. The record is the follow up to their No.3-hit debut, Wasted On Youth. The Molotovs’ ‘Welcome To Urbia’ UK tour kicks off across the UK this September, with a second London date added at the O2 Kentish Town Forum on September 26 after the first date sold out. Tickets are available now.
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