The Song Remains the Same?

Formby-born Paul Kappa, leader of the Amazing Kappa Band, aka ‘The Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of’, on his near two-decade Cavern Club & Pub residency, life as a working musician during lockdown and the future of Liverpool’s live music scene.

Interview by Lawrence Saunders

When did you first pick up a guitar, and who inspired you to do so?

The main answer to that is Jimmy Page because I was absolutely obsessed with Led Zeppelin from the age of eight. My older brother Michael loved Zeppelin, as well as my sister. Listening to their records was a big thing in our household.

They used to have screenings of a Zeppelin film in cinemas around Merseyside – Liverpool, Maghull or Southport. I’d go and watch it every time it was on and look at Jimmy playing his Gibson Les Paul thinking ‘I want to do that!’.

My mum got me my first guitar in 1977, a Spanish classical guitar. I was absolutely rubbish at sport but when I got that guitar in my hands I took to it straight away. I could play ‘Stairway to Heaven’, which wasn’t considered a bad thing in those days!

When I was in first year at St Mary’s College in Crosby, one of the sixth form students had a Fender Stratocaster. Everyone was having a go at playing something on it and I said ‘can I have a go?’. They all laughed but one of them said ‘give it to the kid, it’ll be funny’. I played ‘Stairway’ and their jaws dropped. That felt good.

In those days, if you could play the guitar well, that was a good thing to do because all the popular songs had guitar solos in them.

How did you go from playing the guitar as a hobby, to earning a living from it?

When I left school in the early 1980s there were three million people unemployed and there wasn’t much down for you.

I went to art college and got kicked out. Then I went to work in a hi-fi shop but I couldn’t stand it. After that I went to work on the PA (public address system) at the old Bootle fire station on Strand Road.

It was a club that all the bands played in those days. It was an amazing time for people going out socially in spite of the recession.

The club had a house band who were on most nights and I started playing with them. I played stuff I’d learnt growing up like Jimi Hendrix and Zeppelin. I was playing the guitar with my teeth and behind my head – it became quite popular. I wound up working every night at the club.

Up until the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Amazing Kappa Band had been playing The Cavern Club & Pub twice a week for 18 years. Do you still enjoy it?

I’ve played the Cavern Club far more times than The Beatles did. I haven’t got a figure for it, but it’s quite a lot I think!

We have different experiences. Usually when we play on a Wednesday night it’s a little bit quieter. People sit down, and it’s a bit more of an appreciative audience. Saturday tends to be a bit more raucous, and party-like. You can get stag and hen dos, who are not particularly bothered about what you are doing. Sometimes the Saturday night set is just about people having fun but that’s the main part of the job, I suppose – to entertain.

We’ve built a really substantial following. We get people coming from Newcastle, Bournemouth, and all kinds of places to see us.

It’s not just the passing tourists, people come especially to see us play. We get so many Norwegians [coming to see us], because they’re here in Liverpool for the football and they make it part of their match-day routine to visit the Cavern to watch us. On the back of that we got invited to play in Norway.

We’ve also been to the United States, Russia (where we played in a lighthouse overlooking the Volga river) and loads of other countries on the back of the Cavern residency. It’s been really good for us.

For someone who makes his living playing live gigs, the pandemic has obviously had a massive effect on you. How have you coped in these past months?

I’ve been working almost every week solid since 1987, until this. So, it’s a big shock to the system.

I’ve been doing a lot of live streaming – which is something I’ve had to come to terms with and adapt to. It’s not something I’ve done before. I was nervous like I was when I was 14 years old, going on stage for the first time.

It was so strange because I was standing on my own in a room, singing into my phone, and I can see all these emojis popping up and I was thinking ‘oh my god, there’s all these people actually watching what I’m doing’. It was utterly terrifying for me because it was so new.

I watched it back thinking ‘you’re playing too fast! You’re sweating!’. I found myself talking to people much more as well – recounting my life story. Someone said ‘isn’t it great to see a different side to you’ and I said ‘no! It’s terrible!’ [laughs].

But it’s worked much better than I ever imagined it would and it’s opened my eyes to streaming. The thing is, I’ve got this horrible feeling that the world has changed and that streaming might be one of the major tools of the musician of the future – if it wasn’t already.

Many of Liverpool’s independent music venues, including the Cavern, have been under severe pressure due to the pandemic – with The Zanzibar Club sadly closing. Do you think the city’s live music scene will be able to recover from this crisis?

Being brutally honest, I don’t think it is going to go back to the way it was. I think we’ve crossed the Rubicon here, and we’re in a whole new world. I don’t like what’s happened.

There was a move away from live music. There were more and more pubs shutting down and a lot of cost cutting. You’re much more likely to see one guy singing Oasis songs [than a band]. That’s the model. It’s started to become a bit homogenised. Artists are almost being expected to do the same kind of songs and keep things on a certain level.

There’s been less trade for independent [live music] venues generally. I’m not saying the Zanzibar would have shut down if it wasn’t for the pandemic, but I still think there has been a move away from [live music].

The reason why I have persisted with the streaming is because I’m quite frightened we might lose these live venues and we will be left with the virtual model. In the future, I think bands will have to establish a little venue where they can bring a small live audience, who will pay, and they will have to stream those gigs to make extra revenue.

It’s going to have to be a small, shall we say bijou, venue. A lot of people are going to stay at home now. I think people have got used to staying in. I really hope I’m wrong, I desperately hope I’m wrong. I don’t want to be right about this. But I’m just thinking ahead to what we can do if I’m right.

Kappa have often been referred to as ‘the best band you’ve never heard of’. Are you happy with that tag, or would you rather be ‘the best band everyone has heard of’?

There’s a big part of me that would like to be somebody that people go ‘yeah, that’s him’, when they see me. But at the same time, if I was really well known, I’d be walking around the Lidl and people would be saying ‘oh, he looks fatter and balder than I thought he would!’. There’s something to be said for having a certain amount of anonymity – which I certainly do have.

I’m saying this to big myself up, but Artie Kornfeld, who created and promoted the Woodstock festival, is a big fan of mine and sends me messages on Facebook all the time. He’s up early in the morning and watches my streams. If, in some parallel universe, I’d have been born in 1948, and Artie had seen me – I’d have been playing Woodstock!

I think it’s maybe what you’re doing, and the time you’re doing it. The type of music I’ve played throughout my career has never seemed to be the right thing at the right time. There is a little part of me which wishes I’d been famous! But I have done some things that I look back on and think, ‘yeah, that was cool!’.

Follow @amazingkappa on Facebook for details of Kappa’s live streams and upcoming gigs.