Cambridge band Bin Weasel go from strength to strength
From not being able to get a gig to running their own band nights and performing at major events such as Strawberry Fair in a very short space space of time, these are exciting times for Cambridge alternative rock quartet, Bin Weasel.
“It’s been great,” says Tom Anghileri, the group’s rhythm guitarist and singer – and its youngest member – of their recent flurry of activity, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in Histon.
“Our plan for this year was to try and do one gig a month, but actually we’ve got three gigs lined up in March.
“We’ve had two in February, we’ve got one pencilled in in April – could turn into two, depending on how we do in the Cambridge Band Competition.
“And then we’ve got May… and we’ve got other stuff in the pipeline for later on in the year, so yeah, it’s going great guns.”
Tom, a lawyer by day, reflects on how the band, which also includes lead singer/lead guitarist, Martin Brammah (aka ‘Boss Weasel’), bass player Neil MacMullen (B’Neil), and drummer Neil Hamilton-Meikle (D’Neil), first got together.
“Martin and I played in a covers band called The Juliets, which tends to get together once a year for Waterbeach Beer Festival – so I knew Martin, who’s the frontman, through that.
“During Covid, he just started writing again. He’d been in a band called Little Alien back in the early 00s, after he graduated, playing around Cambridge.
“So he started playing some of the old Little Alien songs, writing a load of new stuff, and the way that he puts it is the ‘musical desert’ caused by Covid inspired him to form a band.
“He got chatting to Neil [MacMullen], who’s a long-term mate of his who he knew was an excellent bassist, but they’d never played together, and told me at Waterbeach Beer Festival that he was planning on putting a band together.
“So I said, ‘Well, if you need a guitarist at any point, then look me up and I’m always happy to play’.
“That was the summer of 2022; we got together with a drummer who didn’t really fit, so we found the other Neil on the internet – and the four of us started playing stuff.
“Martin was bringing two or three new songs a rehearsal along, so we thought ‘2023 this is great, we’re going to get a load of gigs and this’ll be brilliant’.
“We got absolutely nothing in 2023 at all, so Neil the bassist quit, he went ‘We’re not going anywhere...’
“We put in an application for Cambridge Band Competition at the beginning of 2024, without a bassist – in fact the bassist from The Juliets said that he would dep in if we needed him too, but we put in an application and we didn’t get in.
“So that was kind of the death knell of Bin Weasel, until Martin got a phone call from the organisers saying, ‘One of the bands has pulled out, would you like a slot?’
“He jumped on it, so our first ever gig was in the heats of the Cambridge Band Competition last year.
“We won the heat, got through to the final, and have heard on the grapevine that we were in very close contention, along with The Flying Symbols, who ended up winning.
“But that really gave us the motivation to keep at it.”
Neil the bass player subsequently rejoined and the hardworking foursome’s success in the Cambridge Band Competition led to Bin Weasel appearing at last summer’s Strawberry Fair.
“I think it was September or October, we played our first night at [Cambridge venue] Hank’s with a couple of local bands,” recalls Tom, who first started playing the guitar after receiving one for his 18th birthday.
“We then played a Christmas gig at Hank’s as well – they’ve been super-supportive – and we also booked two nights at The Portland [Arms], one night at The Blue Moon, and another night at Hank’s for 2025.
“So we’ve played one of the Hank’s dates, we’re organising another with them now. We’ve played the Blue Moon date, we’re organising another with them for later in the year.
“We’ve got the two Portland Arms dates coming up, and for each of them we’re inviting two or three other local bands to join us.
“We’re trying to get a junior band in as well, because we thought the Under-18 Cambridge Band Competition is a really, really great thing… there’s The Fiver that happens at the Junction, but that’s really difficult to get into…
“So if we’re putting on nights and trying to encourage people along, let’s get some of these junior bands along.
“It was Disco Chickens at the first, and we thought, ‘This is great, this is a thing, we could do this’.
“We called it ‘The Weasel’s Nest’ and put a call-out on social media for other bands that were in a similar position that wanted to play with us – and we’ve now got I think 12 bands that have either played with us or are signed up to play with us.
“And more and more coming, which is awesome.”
Tom says that the focus at the moment is on performing live, but the band are also preparing to go into the studio.
“We won a competition at the end of last year for a day at Blaze Studios over on the Norfolk Coast, at Caister-on-Sea,” he reveals, “so we’re going in there on 1 March for our first proper studio recording.
“Then we’re planning later in the year to go down to Metway in Brighton, which is the Levellers’ studio, it’s their HQ.
“I’m a massive Levellers fan and a mate of mine is also and he’s very kindly offered to help us out a little bit.
“So we’ve decided that at the end of the year we’re going to go down to Metway, do a long weekend down there, and get an EP recorded ready for the end of the year.”
Bin Weasel’s next gig is on Wednesday, 12 March, at Hank’s Cambridge. That will be followed, on Saturday, 15 March, by a performance at The Portland Arms as part of the Cambridge Band Competition. They are also set to play their first London gig on 22 March.
For more on the band, visit binweasel.com. For more on The Weasel’s Nest, go to tinyurl.com/27tfrtma. Tom says they’d love to hear from any Cambridge bands looking for a platform.
