Who the F*** are Cassia?

Words: Darci Jackson

Photos: Izzi Glover

You know when two things just go together? I’m talking: salt and pepper, left and right, pen and paper. Well, Cassia and summer are another one of those pairings.

And as we sat sprawled on the edge of a tennis court, in a peaceful park on the outskirts of Manchester, with the sun dipping in and out of the clouds, the lyrics ‘everyone feels alright outside,’ certainly rang true.

But before talk turned to the recent release of the Macclesfield outfit’s third album everyone, outside, there were more important things to be discussed; Such as the rat vs frog theory.

“I’m a rat every day of the week,” started Jacob Leff (drummer and vocalist), without hesitation.

Followed by lead vocalist and guitarist, Rob Ellis adding, “What’s the difference between the two?”

“You’re a rat.”

“Why am I a rat?” 

Leff nodded towards bassist and vocalist, Lou Cotterill (who’d been quietly observing this curious exchange) with, “You’re probably more frog than rat.”

We’ll leave it up to the Dizzy Magazine readers to settle that debate. 

Cassia have been a quiet but constant force, since the release of their debut single 100 Times Over in 2017, which has become a staple in their set ever since. Following their first album, Replica, came two more EPs and a collaboration with alt-pop singer, songwriter, and producer: Tayo Sound. The trio’s second offering was revealed in the form of Why You Lacking Energy? - a myriad of self-reflection intertwined into the band’s catchy laid-back energy. Fast forward three years and now we find ourselves in the joyous company of everyone, outside.

“It’s kind of like the album we’ve been trying to subconsciously make the whole time,” mentioned Leff.

“The soul of it is really true to who we are as people. It’s quite British, the way it looks, which I really like because we’ve kind of done the tropical thing - which is cool and fits some of the music earlier on but it’s not really who we are. And so it feels more honest and more true to us. We’re just well proud of it.”

“Everyone just left us to our own devices and let us get on with it,” said Leff. 

Ellis touched on how a change in approach made the process a whole lot more enjoyable:

“I think, in the past, we’ve maybe found the songwriting and the recording aspect a little difficult, sometimes. I think for this stuff we did switch our mindsets ‘round to just like ‘this is supposed to be fun, let’s just enjoy what we’re doing.’”

“We were lucky because everyone was writing individually, so a lot of the time you’d bring a lot of the song in, so a lot of the hard work was done and that particular person looked very tired afterwards. That made it fun.”

And it seems this attitude has translated itself to the live show: as they took the album across the UK and Europe, making a few stops in the USA and Mexico as well.

“It’s the best tour we’ve ever been on. The Europe stuff was just incredible as well - the vibe of the shows every single night was just what we imagined playing to, because people were just dancing and it was really cool,” reminisced Ellis.

“We’ve always toured in October/November time and it was always cold, and I don’t know why we did that [...] just touring in the summer we were like ‘this is amazing.’”

“It was warm and sunny all the time,” Leff added.

And Cassia are no strangers to Europe, after having lived in Berlin for two years.

“I’d love to be able to say that we lived the Berlin experience-” Leff started, before Ellis interjected, “We didn’t live the Berlin experience.”

Leff continued, “It was all lockdown. So we basically just stayed in a house for two years and did nothing but write music and smoke loads. It was great, wasn’t it?”

“Everything felt like you were on holiday all the time. You know sometimes in Britain you kind of feel like you’re in a rush? Out there I felt really relaxed, and when you get back to Britain it just feels like you’ve got to be on the fucking grind all the time.”

Ellis and Leff reminisced fondly on the obvious language barrier, before Leff held his hands up, “We didn’t do very well [with] the German language.”

But Ellis defended himself, “It’s hard to learn German in Berlin because it’s full of ex-pats. There's so many English [and] Australians. You go up to someone and you’re like… I can’t even remember…”

“Kann ich bitte eine Latte Macchiato mit Hafermilch,” Leff jumped in.

“And then they just respond to you in English,” finished Ellis. 

The promo surrounding the album took the band back to Berlin, as it involved laying out a patch of artificial grass in different cities and playing singles such as friends, miles out and forever to passers-by.

“We did one in Berlin, which was funny, where we made a sign saying that if you walked on the grass then we’d start playing. That was quite fun because like a dog would walk on and we’d start playing,” explained Leff.

“It’s funny though because [the grass] isn’t that expensive to buy and so we’d buy one in LA when we went to LA, and people were like ‘I can’t believe you flew the grass to LA,’ and people thought we flew this thing everywhere as if we checked it in to the flights.”

“Booked it its own seat on the plane,” joked Ellis.

Now whilst we didn’t see this in-person ourselves, the band also left lime green spray-painted squares reading ‘Who the f*** are Cassia’ out and about - one of which we found in Stevenson Square, Manchester.

They then translated this into making actual signs and putting them up around their hometown of Macclesfield. With us, Cassia mentioned how they were thinking of buying a billboard with this slogan but they said it was ‘probably too expensive’, and they also didn’t believe the residents of Macclesfield would’ve been too happy.

“We were gonna go ham with the Mac thing because no one in Mac knows who we are, which is quite funny. So that’s where the ‘who the f*** are Cassia’ came from because that’s kind of what people would say to us,” explained Leff. 

“We cable tied them to the hardest to reach places like quite high up, but people still managed to get them down.”

“I think they were gone after about three days,” followed Cotterill.

Ellis added, “We’re not vloggers. We make music. I’ve realised that. We can’t do the personality stuff and I think that that’s fine! I like that, when we make music, we come up with these fun ideas and we try [to] make it more about the music.”

“I feel very happy right now. Haven’t really got any sort of goals. I think goals can make things worse, make you more nervous and paranoid for the future. Whereas, if you do a bit every day and keep chipping away at something, that’s when you get real satisfaction.”

Although previously being described as ‘tropical vibes but not tropical guys,’ by a fan, Cassia admit they’re not going to convert to being tropical guys any time soon:

“It’s not going to work is it. Let’s be honest, we’re from Macclesfield. We would burn on a beach like fish out of water,” stated Ellis.

“I used to wear swimming trunks back in the day, as part of the look with the band,’ admitted Leff. 

Ellis then swiftly revealed, “I remember when we played the Christmas lights switch-on, in Macclesfield town, and Jake sported a pair of very high waisted trunks the entire gig. And I’m pretty sure it was snowing.”

Despite its ever-changing weather pattern (much like the rest of the building), Cassia are determined to make Macclesfield more than just a stop on the train between Manchester Piccadilly and Stoke-on-Trent.

“We’re going to put it on the map for real,” Leff exclaimed with an air of gravitas.