A DAY IN THE LIFE: CAPE ORANGE

13 hours ago
6 min read

Cape Orange draw you into their imaginary nation, a place of escapism and euphoria.

Somewhere between post-work pints, HMRC-induced despair and the search for a decent chocolate milkshake in Woolwich, the London trio have carved out ‘The Cape’: an imagined sanctuary soundtracked by sharp hooks, self-aware humour and the kind of emotional honesty that feels increasingly rare.

For F Word’s latest Day In The Life, the band hand over the camera roll entirely, documenting the scenes that orbit the release of their new single, “A Bit Behind” - out today. Through exclusive behind-the-scenes photographs and a candid conversation that spirals from burnout to overdrive pedals, Cape Orange invite us further into their wonderfully unserious universe; one built on friendship, frustration, loud guitars and the quiet hope that music can make life feel at least 2% better.

Welcome to The Cape. It’s definitely not a cult.

F WORD: For some people, this may be the first time they’re hearing your music. How would you introduce yourself at this point in your life?

CAPE ORANGE: Welcome to the Cape, our imaginary nation. We’re not a cult! Don't worry for those of you who’s mind went straight to that. No. The cape is a state of mind, an imaginary island. Close your eyes and think of your happy place, that’s the Cape. We have built this community to help you escape the toils of everyday life. AKA boring hospitality jobs, deadlines, late trains, bad weather, bad friends, good friends who have moved away, high rent, London. Apart from arse holes the Cape has a pretty open immigration policy. We, the founders of the Cape, are 3 girls with many a problem, and we like to sing about it (or drum to it). Therefore we create these anthems of the Cape. You could press play, it might just save your life.

General notices: We hold gatherings and summits every few weeks, here we all stand around shaking our heads to the songs of the Cape in unified euphoria. You can sign up to the Cape using a link in our bio and we do encourage new members to bring their friends. Please note again this is absolutely not a cult. Ask the swifties.

We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams. We are the world, we are the children.

FW: If you had to assign a temperature, a colour, and a taste to this single, what would they be?

CO: That's hard as the song is a dichotomy. Jen thinks A Bit Behind is a sad song, so in that case cold tones, blues and the taste of stale water or lukewarm chamomile tea might be best to describe this. The song draws on themes of burn out and hard luck so in that case she wouldn’t be wrong. Maddie thinks this is happy, it's a pretty happy sounding open song. Essentially - we’re tired, but we're happy about it. Happy, free, confused and lonely as Taylor would put it. Except we’re not quite free from the shackles of taxes. We’re still getting nailed by HMRC. But we are HAPPY as it is all for the cause of The Cape (TM). The Cape (TM) teaches us to be grateful for suffering as something better is promised for all of us, we just have to open Spotify and listen to the outlined songs.

Jessie doesn’t really know about this, she hasn’t really thought about it, she's more interested in what pints the venue are selling tomorrow.

FW: What was the biggest change you made to the single during the writing process?

CO: WE LET OUR DRUMMER (JESSIE) WRITE THE SONG. Well, she started it, with the bassline and the chorus hook. And it actually turned out well! She has also been allowed to write a few since, it really is her Ringo moment, although she’s not quite got to the level where she can take her own vocal solo, you never know her Billy Shears moment may be coming soon! Just you wait. She was getting fed up of Jen moaning about her day job and decided to write the hook from that. (They live together).

FW: What do you hope listeners will take away from this song?

CO: We hope it sticks in your head like a headache. In all honesty, we wrote this song so you can feel slightly better after listening to it than you did before you hit play. We write very confessionally and straight up, sometimes our songs are just rants to music, this is kind of the way that this one went. Like one big therapy session, we hope that when you listen you feel a sense of release. Granted we do describe a very specific scenario, but the feeling is universal. Unless you’re like some super successful banker or something we might alienate those listeners for the time being, it should probably come with a trigger warning.

We are here for you, a better life awaits you at the Cape. You just need to hit play. We hope you’ll quit your job.

FW: Is there a genre you’d like to experiment with on a future project?

CO: I wanna get Jen a bit more HEAVY METAL. Maybe not quite that but lean more into the rockier parts of our sound. Shoot for the moon, land in the stars.

It’s interesting at the moment, we’ve been a band for a while which is not entirely a ‘cool’ thing to say. These days if you try too hard, you lose the nonchalance everyone wants you to have, it’s not ‘effortless’ and therefore not cool. If something is too thought out it is contrived. Bands seem to get a kick out of telling people they formed yesterday, I’ve seen a few at the moment. The industry LOVES new, think why so many change their name its the same band, new brand. It seems they don’t want you to work hard at something, at least they don’t want to see it. You must be the finished product now. That's not how we work, or how we have ever worked, I do wonder if that’s how anyone works.

We constantly are going through sounds. We started making songs that were way more pop, quite clinical feeling / a bit sterile. This also paired with low budget means we weren't entirely getting the energy in the songs like in our live shows. It’s also really easy to add too much to the song, add too many things, when you strip it back to the elements, it sounds better. It sounds like a band. We’re now looking to lean into more of this when recording so genre wise I guess we’re steering less into pop and more into that good old ‘rock’ if you could call it that. But rock has so many facets it’s funny when people talk about rock. Basically Maddie rediscovered her overdrive pedal and Jen has discovered she can sing LOUD.

FW: If you had to choose one essential component of a great song, what would it be?

CO: A feeling, any feeling, just as long as the music comes from a well meaning place in your soul.

FW: What’s your go-to lunch on a studio or writing day?

CO: There is a particularly fab caf in the middle of an industrial estate where the studio we use is in Woolwich. Think steak pies, greek salad wraps and the best chocolate milkshake known to man. Excellent cake and custard puddings.

FW: What do you hope the impact of your music will be?

CO: Well this single at least isn’t really going to make you question your whole reality or anything, neither is it going to spark debate about what we really mean that line in verse two. It really is straight forward, if we can make people feel 2% better about themselves we’ve done the job. Basically if the impact is we’ve got some people to dance about for a bit we’re happy.