Former Inspiral Carpets frontman Tom Hingley has been added to a stellar line-up at the second Macclesfield Festival on Saturday 21 July 2018.

Tom, now the main man in The Kar-Pets, joins The Happy Mondays, Shola Ama, The Virginmarys and The Manchester Ska Foundation.

Viva caught up with Tom before his gig at Rebellion…

How are you today? Excited to play Manchester tonight?
I’m fine. Always excited to play gigs and tonight is no different. Although, I’ve just noticed there’s a squashed grape on the floor I don’t know if I actually did that. But, yeah really excited to be playing tonight, it’s a really nice club. I saw this club about 10 years ago, I was walking down Whitworth Street and it used to be the Great Western Railway club and they were dragging these old Hammond keyboards out and sticking them in a skip and these Hammonds were so old that they had a little ash tray on it for the person who was playing it to put their cigarette on whilst playing. So, they were sticking them in these skips and I said no you need to take them to Johnny Roadhouse so they took them up there and got about a grand for them.

How do you find Manchester crowds?
Manchester is difficult for us I think because it’s a bit like London as there’s just so much going on every night. You can be playing here and Divine Comedy can be playing down the road and then Public Enemy can be playing close by too, so actually you tend to get your audiences slightly diluted. We’ve had a lot of luck with Manchester gigs though, we’ve had a couple of stage invasions. It’s such a rich cultural area I don’t think you can really know what to expect.

The Kar-Pets aren’t your average tribute band, whose idea was it to start it up?
Well, I watched the video for Lazarus by Bowie where he’s dancing around at one point, then lying in bed as if he’s dying. I think that video was probably filmed in three stages of his illness and right at the end of the video he exits back off the stage into a wardrobe which is very clever as it’s like kabuki theatre which Bowie was really in to because it’s as if he’s rebirthing himself by going backwards into a wardrobe. He’s also wearing a wig in that video so I thought to myself, I’m going to do an Inspiral Carpets tribute band. If Bowie can dress up as his former self then I can.

Is your show tonight at Rebellion a warm up gig for Macclesfield fest?
This is the first gig our new agent has booked and it’s quite a special gig for us as the gigs we’ve done previously we’ve had to host ourselves. We thought we’d give a pair of tickets away for this gig as it seemed like a good way of launching the press thing to do with Macclesfield Festival. It’s quite amazing that we’re supporting the Happy Mondays it really is just mind-blowing.

Did you know the Happy Mondays during your Inspiral Carpets days?
Yeah, I’ve written a book called Carpet Burns which goes through the careers of all those bands. Happy Mondays were one of the bands who knocked around with Inspiral Carpets in the early days before I joined in 1989. We’ve always got on really well and it’s massive for the Kar-Pets to be playing with them, I never thought that would happen.

So how did you get involved with Macclesfield Festival this year?
The person who does the bookings got in contact with us and asked if we would like to play there and I mean it was circumspect because I just didn’t think it would happen but we leapt at the chance. I’m also looking forward to having a look round Macclesfield it’s a great place.

When you were with Inspiral Carpets did you play some pretty exciting festivals?
Yeah, we headlined Reading festival in 1990 and we played Glastonbury twice in 1993 and 2003. We were on the main stage after the Darkness just before it started raining. We played V Festival 2003 and Noel Gallagher came to watch us at the side of the stage at one of the gigs and Liam Gallagher came to watch us at another.

Who’s your favourite Gallagher?
It depends what you want. I think that Noel is probably the songwriter but I’ve always liked Liam, I mean for about a year and a half he had a Clint Boon haircut and I think we were quite a big influence on them. Oasis were an absolutely tremendous, amazing band.

Do you prefer playing larger scale festivals or more intimate gigs?
Festivals are quite good because a lot of musicians get hung up on what other musicians think of them. I couldn’t give a fuck really. A lot of musicians want to complain if the sound isn’t very good and when you play a festival you get what I call the ‘supermarket sound’ which means you’re going to get the same sound if you’re the first or the fifth band on. We try to be as down to earth as possible and that is also something that Inspiral Carpets were when I was in them and I think you should always be courteous and polite to people. You’re privileged if you’re playing music.

Any particular festivals this year that you think have a decent line up?
Cool Britannia looks quite good. Shed 7 are playing and that’s great to see. They’re bigger than they’ve ever been at the moment and I think they’ve handled their career very well. I’ve looked at Leeds and Reading and people always slag it off but they know what they’re doing.

What it your festival survival kit?
A hotel room.

What have been your fondest memories so far playing with the Kar-Pets?
Just silliness really. We’ve done quite a few gigs now and this is the third year we’ve been together and we generally just try to carry a little bubble of happiness around with us. We’ve had a couple of stage invasions. We rehearse in Brunswick Mill in town and we sometimes Facebook live our rehearsals although I’m not sure we sound too good and when Mark E Smith died we played I Want You during a rehearsal so we streamed that and it’s been watched by 3000 people. That was fun.

Was Mark E Smith a big influence on your career?
Well he came down to the studio and recorded a version of Saturn Five with Inspiral Carpets and we did a Top Of The Pops appearance with him. I can’t say I knew him terribly well but he was a big influence on me back in the day because I’ve been in bands since about 1976, just crappy little pre-teen, shit middle class punk bands really so I think The Fall were a huge influence on me moving to Manchester as I came up here before I moved to see them play at the Hacienda.

You’re not from Manchester but do you class yourself as a proud Mancunian?
Well I’m from Oxford originally and I’ve lived here for 30 years and managed to create five Mancunian daughters. I don’t think you ever really become a Mancunian but it’s great living here and I love living here. I’m really lucky because I’m one of those people who never has to buy a drink wherever I go. I’ve only recently started making people accept drinks off me but I don’t actually ever have to buy a drink. I’m not an alcoholic. Manchester has been very very kind to me, probably far kinder than it needed to be.

How was it in the Hacienda?
I worked in the Hacienda around 1984 and at that time it was quite empty but it was a fantastic project. When I worked there later on it was a bit more druggy, around 1987 and I saw Happy Mondays play there in 86 maybe and they just looked like they were going to have a fight with everyone, it was fantastic. I also saw Frankie Goes to Hollywood there and Paul Rutherford drove up onto the stage on a chopper, revving this thing to get onto the stage.

So what are you listening to at the minute?
I’ve been listening to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel which I’ve never really listened to before. There’s also an old country and western singer called Karen Dalton who did a song called Katie Cruel. She died of AIDS in the 80s sadly, she was a bit of a narcotics absuer and on Katie Cruel she plays a banjo and whistles over the top of it and you can tell it’s really influenced by Bob Dylan and there’s just something about the music, it’s really melancholic and reminds of Morrissey and I can’t explain why.

Catch The Kar-Pets at Macclesfield Festival on the 21st July 2018.
Click here to buy tickets.