NORTH WEST rock and rollers Cabbage are on the march, with blistering tunes about war, dinner ladies, Mossley and austerity.

Cabbage singer Joe Martin gives his take on Brexit Britain, as Cabbage tune up their guitars very loud ahead of this weekend’s Beat-Herder festival in the Ribble Valley.

Where has the anger and protest in youth music gone?

Unless you’ve had your head in a washing machine for your entire adult life, how are you not writing something political? It’s baffling.

No bands are saying anything whatsoever.

Not every group should be political; there’s loads of room for pop bands, but when you get to the point when nobody is saying anything about what this awful government is doing to our country, it is crazy.

We live in a hideous, narcissistic driven age of online judgement, where folk are obsessed by boosting their own agendas.

Narcissism encapsulates people to the point of disregarding politics.

We are not claiming to be bastions of originality, yet many bands are occupied solely by themselves.

We just have a go with our idiosyncratic, satirical attack in the form of discordant post punk.”

Where did you conjure up that marvellous name from?

The fridge.

There was absolutely no thought went into it, which was exactly the way we wanted it. I was instantly at home when I met the rest of Cabbage, though.

I realised I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t had a wash!

Apparently, anything can happen at a Cabbage gig. Uber Capitalist Death Trade, one of your songs, is like The Dead Kennedys driving at 100mph. That is one heck of a powerful message.

We wrote it just before the Chilcott Report (about the 2003 war in Iraq) was published, which showed the young consensus like ours are very aware about what is going on around us.

We live in a terribly corrupt world where people make profit from war and it is nauseating the effect it still has today in the Middle East.

It really feels like no one in power is doing anything to make light of what we feel is obvious deceit from our leaders.

In the General Election, though, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader, worked very hard to galvanise young people politically, spreading a realistic message of simple equality.

In terms of the music (Contactless Payment and Austerity Languish), it was like a natural talking point for us.

A posh broadsheet newspaper rather rudely described your home town of Mossley as an insignificant dead zone eight miles east of Manchester.

It’s a very typical view of Mossley, but we love our town.

Everyone’s really down to earth, it’s an area that’s always promoted a staunch community sprit.

Truth is, though, Mossley still reaps the benefit of cotton mill worker culture, everybody grafts all week and then utilises the weekend to get smashed.

Our local pub is next to the station, so if glorious hill ranges designed by glaciers isn’t your thing then there’s a pretty 15 minute train ride into Manchester.

One great thing about Mossley, though, is that we went to Wembley in 1980, but unfortunately we got beaten by Dagenham 2-1 in the FA Trophy final.

Cabbage are making their Beat-Herder debut in the lush fields of the Ribble Valley.

I’ve been four times to watch and it’s a truly magical place, the most surreal, belly laugh inducing festival I’ve been to.

Every corner of it has been finely crafted and thought about.

The entire town of Clitheroe, I believe, descends on Beat-Herder, and there are rumours it can be heard from the ramparts of the castle.

Clitheroe folk are extremely proud of how brilliantly eccentric their local festival is.

I’m beyond excited about performing there, it shall be the highlight of my summer.

Beat-Herder Festival, Dockber Farm near Clitheroe, runs from tomorrow until Sunday. For details, contact 0844 888 9991 or visit www.beatherder.co.uk