Several years ago, when the pandemic shut down music venues and isolated bandmates, the Cartlidge siblings’ musical journeys collided. The two London natives, Matt Cartlidge (guitar/vocals) and Issey Cartlidge (bass/vocals), had been in bands before, but had never considered playing together. With no venues open and no one else to play music with, Matt and Issey started The Molotovs and immediately took to the streets and parks of London.
Their early busking performances have become synonymous with the band’s gritty live shows. It is no wonder they have since shared a bill with bands like Palais Royale, Stiff Little Fingers, The Libertines, and Blondie. This fall, the band will open for the Sex Pistols on their American tour. Only the perfect concoction of DIY underground and mainstream aspirations can create an explosion like The Molotovs, who share the scrappy and explosive energy of the Molotov cocktail; an incendiary symbol of resistance. They host all-ages music nights and perform live constantly, which led them to meet Paul Cook at Glen Matlock at various gigs around London, instigating their upcoming American tour with the Sex Pistols. Their debut album “Wasted on Youth” comes out January 30 via Marshall Records.
Did you grow up in London?
Issey: We did. Yeah, we’ve been here all our lives. It’s been great. The city has such a rich musical history. It’s a dream.
What have you been up to?
Issey: It’s been a really busy time for us. We’ve been on tour with Palais Royale part of their European tour. We’ve been away on that. We were on a U.K. tour recently for our second single “Today is our Day.” We went to France for a bit. Did two festivals over there. We haven’t been home for a while. It’s good to touch these walls again.
Can you tell me the story about how you started busking? What drew you to try that out?
Matt: It’s not that anything drew us in particular, it’s just that we couldn’t get any gigs because we formed in lock down. If we didn’t busk, then there was nowhere to play, but we wouldn’t accept that. We had to play somewhere. We wanted to play for some people and get our name out there, so that’s the rest of it. We got up, and we went busking. It was a really good experience, you know. It makes us realize how lucky we are to be doing all the things we are doing now. We haven’t been teleported into 1,000-cap venues, or anything like that, or tour with the Sex Pistols. We have done our fair share. Our first year-and-a-half, two years, of the band was just busking in all sorts of conditions. In the blazing hot, in the freezing cold.
Issey: Our venues were the London parks and streets.
What did you guys learn about yourselves as musicians or band mates from busking?
Matt: That we need to get better. That’s the first thing.
Issey: We were like, “Let’s get us in the venues,” in a sense. We are quite hardy. Busking is a really tough gig because you haven’t got an audience, you haven’t got the luxury of monitors or hearing yourself. You just have to play and be so confident in what you guys are doing, and the songs that you’re playing, that you feel like you’ve got a right for the public to know about you. Especially with our early days.
Matt: With that, 90% of the people that walk by are completely and utterly disinterested and could actually probably do without the noise. On their way to work or on their way home from work. They could not care about you whatsoever. Playing to disinterested people is also really good character building, like a blueprint for another thing that makes us so grateful for the position that we are in now with a large fanbase, that sort of thing.
Issey: It was pretty organic. It started because, like any band starting out, we needed to get better. No one starts out where they are going to end up. When the gigs started to come, people would drop their business cards in the guitar case. It felt like we deserved it. We were on the right track. It was encouraging. Each new gig was a thumbs up to what we were up to.
I’m sure that contributed a lot to your energetic live shows. Now that you are filling much larger venues, can you tell me about what you are feeling before a show? Is there anything you tell yourself before taking the stage to stay humble?
Issey: On stage is the time not to be humble. Off stage is a different story, but for me, when I’m on stage, it’s like stepping into a second skin that is not myself entirely. It’s probably different for you. (to Matt)
Matt: Yeah, I’d say so. I don’t think for me personally it’s a second skin or anything like that. I’m more calm off stage than on stage. It’s a more frantic environment. The songs I’ve written, the way I feel when I play them and when I wrote them, I feel the exact same way. Every song has a different mood or feeling. On stage you can’t hide behind anything, can you?
Issey: Before we go on stage, we all group together. It’s not a calming process. It’s more like, “We’re gonna have it tonight. We’re gonna give them something.” Like he said, those songs are written mostly out of anger or frustration with the world. To sing those you conjure up those emotions against and you relive those experiences.
I saw a video online of one of your street performances. Matt, you said, “Put your phones down and get your hands up in the air.”
Matt: When was that? Was that during busking?
It was in 2023.
Matt: I never tell anyone what to do.
I’m wondering what you hope people feel when they see you play live?
Matt: It’s not for me to tell them. If it resonates and connects with people, then I guess I’ve done my job. That’s what half of me thinks. The other half thinks, well, even if I don’t, then I’ve still done my job because I’ve stayed true to myself, and I’ve written the songs that I want to write, and no one has told me how to do it any other way. I didn’t get into music to have people tell me how to write my songs. I’ve heard my fair share of people tell me all that, and I’m done with that, you know what I mean? It’s never worked for me before, so why would it work now? It’s completely us.
Issey: Totally. Our performance is very energetic. We wanna kind of inject some of that energy into the audience. If they are going to take anything away, they need to feel revitalized. They need to pull that energy out and go contribute to the world and to the people around them.
Matt: Uplifted, they’ve got to feel at the end of it. I don’t want them coming out of it feeling downtrodden, but I don’t think that’s what our music is.
Issey: We want action, not apathy.
In the fall, you will be on tour with the Sex Pistols. I am interested in what your first introduction to the Sex Pistols was?
Matt: I honestly can’t remember when my first introduction to the Sex Pistols was.
Issey: We’ve had the vinyl around when we were super young. We’ve got an expansive record collection. I remember before I listened to any of their music, I remember that iconic album cover with the bold clashing yellows and pinks. That’s been there since a very early age. That has to be our first interaction with it. I can’t remember when we heard them ourselves.
Matt: They’ve sort of thing that you do hear quite often. I guess it’s on the radio and all the rest of it. You hear it one way or another. You can’t hide from the Sex Pistols. I think that’s quite cool. You can’t hide from a band. Then they’ve achieved what they have set out to do.
Issey: We have done over 600 gigs together in the last five years. One of those gigs was in Notting Hill which is part of West London. We played there all the time. Paul Cook happened to be there one time. He has been at a couple gigs since then. He even got up to play drums with us on “God Save The Queen” at a gig in another West London venue, Bush Hall. Then we met Glen Matlock at various gigs. Just because we were supporting so many bands, he just happened to be in the green room or on stage.
They have an omniscient presence in London.
Issey: Totally. They have always been like rats. You see them all around.
What do you hope to get out of a tour with the Sex Pistols? What are you most looking forward to on that tour?
Matt: First of all, going to America in general. The only state we have ever been to was Texas. That was in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest festival. That was mental, just seeing how America was. That was our first glimpse of it. Being on the road for four or five weeks straight is one extreme to another. We have only spent a small amount of time there, something like four days. Now we will be there for four weeks or more. Other than that, a lot of new fans. We have had a lot of support online from people in America who were like, (American accent) “Y’all should come over” to wherever: insert place in America. I think it’s a completely different part of the world for us to conquer that we have never really done.
Issey: I am interested to see how they respond to a band like us. Most of the people there will be there to see the Sex Pistols and these other iconic punk bands from the ’70s. They have kind of passed the baton on. To see another band that has the same punk rock ethos and how they react to a new generation of punk bands, to see if they are welcoming of that.
Matt: Also because of how different we are with our Mod roots and our clothes. They might like it; they might not like it. They might go, “Oh, these kids are playing dress up,” or whatever. Which we’re not. These are my clothes. I fancy my clothes unripped.
When you were a child, what rock star did you want to be?
Matt: Billie Joe Armstrong! I take it you have heard of Green Day.
Issey: He was a massive Billie Joe fan. The amount that he plays The Jam now is a substitute for Green Day then. He had neon green toxic waste hair, his guitar right down by his knees.
Matt: I always try to imitate all my heroes, whatever it might be: the way they dress, the guitars they play, the way they move on stage. It all filters into your subconscious and also totally directly. Some of the stuff and some of the outfits, the guitars I’ve played have been out and out copies, but I don’t try to hide that. I’m just a massive fan. I’m a fan. It’s contributed so much to my life, and I don’t think anyone should try and hide that, who much it’s done form them.
Did you see Green Day on their latest tour?
Matt: I don’t think so.
Issey: We saw them on their Hella Mega Tour when they played London Stadium. There is a pretty cool story to that. Matt has always had a dream—You know how they pull people up on stage to play guitar with them? That’s always been his childhood dream; he’s tucked up tight at night and got that thing in his head. We went (to London Stadium), and he had the sign like, “Get me up there, I know the three chords to the song.” Billie Joe Armstrong started chatting with him. You know what he said, “You’re that kid out The Molotovs, right?” And we were just absolutely blown away in a stadium of, like, 60,000 that he recognized us.
Matt: 70,000
Issey: We had a couple shout-outs from Billie Joe Armstrong in the press as well.
Matt: Radio X.
Issey: Radio X, he mentioned us. This is, like, the antithesis of a big arena like London Stadium. They played The Marquis in Covent Garden which is, like, a 60-capacity pub. It’s where we drink all the time. It’s, like, this freakish Mod pub, is how it’s known, where they just play vinyl. We stood outside the window watching the whole set. Then again, we gave the eyes of recognition.
Matt: We almost got in; we were just outside the window. That was good enough for me. There were 300-400 people outside who weren’t. It was hectic. There were people standing on the bar and things like that. It was really good to see that a big band like that goes and plays small venues like that. They haven’t lost touch. They don’t do stuff like that for the money. Otherwise they could do Wembley.
Issey: We hope to support Green Day at some point.
Matt: Don’t get me wrong, if they want us to support them at the Marquis that’d be nice. We’d do it.
Issey: America would be nice.
What about you, Issey? What rock star did you want to be?
Issey: I didn’t have a direct person to look up to like Billie Joe or whatever because there aren’t that many women in music to start off with. Or people who I could imitate. I binge-watched all of Blondie’s stuff. Wendy James from Transvision Camp. But it’s a lazy comparison just to see another blonde musician in a band and go, “Oh, Debby Harry.” Or on the grungier side, “Oh, they’re like Courtney Love.” That’s a cheap comparison. I was more inspired by the male bands as well that we listen to. The Libertines were a massive play for me. Suede, Elastica. Those sort of things. I took a lot of my live performance from a woman in a great band called The Courettes. That’s a garage band. When I saw them at the Mod pub in East London I was like, “That’s it. That’s how I want to perform.” It’s her and her husband. She looks absolutely manic on stage. She takes the guitar and points it at people and has it like a machine gun. She’s brilliant. That’s the closest line you can make.
Matt: We actually bumped into them in the airport in America.
Issey: We were playing South by Southwest. They are always touring. They are the hardest working band. They don’t stop gigging.
Matt: They must do at least 300 gigs a year.
I saw Dream Wife in San Francisco. They are a London band, and the bass and the guitar players had a total shootout, posing their instruments like weapons.
Matt: Wilko Johnson from Dr. Feelgood used to do that. They are like a massive influence for Paul Weller from The Jam. An early ’70’s garage rock, blues sort of thing.
I’m curious where the name The Molotovs comes from?
Issey: Apart from the obvious Molotov cocktail, it was always a name we played around with in our minds. It suited the band for its incendiary energy. It has the same themes as the word itself. Even the history of the molotov cocktail coming from the Finnish war against the Russians. Molotov was the Russian foreign minister at the time. It was used as a mocking name to call this weapon of resistance because they thought this great power Russia was going to beat a small Finnish nation. You see it today with Russia and Ukraine. They held on for a lot longer than the Russians anticipated. There was a lot of guerilla fighting from civilians.
Matt: Everyday people used the name Molotov to call their weapon of resistance.
Issey: They used the name Molotov of the grand Foreign minister to call their weapons of resistance.
You both played in bands before you came together with The Molotovs. Was there a moment when you were younger when you thought, “I would never be in a band with my sibling?” Or did you secretly always want to play together?
Matt: Never, ever, ever imagined we would end up together. It’s just fate. The way the world works. Lock down was horrendous for so many people for so many reasons–I wish it never happened—but something good did happen out of it.
Issey: Aw. We were in bands beforehand, but we were very much doing our separate things. We were on our own music journeys. We never thought those two paths would cross. We have always been close; we have also had friction and fallen out. We never planned for it to happen. It happened very naturally and very quickly. As soon as we were like, this is kinda working, it sounds good. We didn’t think, “Alright let’s start a sibling band now.”
Matt: We didn’t think, “Oh, this will sell.” We never really sat and thought about it and went, “This is starting to take off.” It just happened in a heartbeat, really. That’s what it feels like. Now it’s been a five-year-long slog playing every toilet in the country it seems. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
What does it mean now to be able to play together?
Matt: Whenever me and Issey have our arguments and stuff like that, which is pretty frequent, don’t get me wrong, I mean, not a day goes by where something isn’t argued about. It could be who ate the fucking ham in the fridge, but you know what I mean.
Issey: We were arguing about that earlier today.
Matt: Yeah, you ate all the fucking ham in the fridge!
Issey: Yeah, fine. (laughs)
Matt: It was a full pack this morning! Don’t worry. It’s nice to hear people going on about how cool she is and how nice she is and how great a singer and a bass player. It’s nice to see that. It reminds me that she’s not all that bad. Even if I’ve got to go ham-less. Isn’t that a Shakespeare play? (laughter)
Issey: Since we know each other so well and have so many common experiences, it does make it very funny at times, but also, we get into arguments constantly. Always crashing heads. I don’t think we can agree on one thing about the band, ever. It makes it tough in some ways, but you get on stage, and it crystallizes into something great. It feels right. On stage is where everything else just doesn’t matter anymore. That’s where it’s kind of perfect.
Photo courtesy of The Molotovs
