Sunshine Cave, vocalist and bassist, has big plans. “We’ve got a bit of a quiet July, we’ve got a pretty busy August and then we’ve got [booked] the rest of the year as much as we can be. We wanted to make sure we’ve got like Europe and stuff booked in for next year because we haven’t done much about this year. So yeah, we’re booking in festivals and stuff in for next year.”

It’s entirely reasonable to take this month as a bit of a break, considering how full on 2024 was for Cave and her band, the Neandergals. “I can’t even remember. It feels like everything went so quick and then you look back and you’re like, ‘Oh shit!’ Yeah, God, yeah, we did have a busy year, didn’t we?” Her 2024 started with recording Cavegirl and the Neandergals’ first EP ‘Carnal Desires’ at Western Star Records. “God, was that really last year? Bloody hell, yeah.He got in touch with us, to be fair,” she’s talking about Alan Wilson, head of Western Star Records. “He wanted to put us on. Like, you know, do an EP with us kind of thing. The thing was like, we didn’t even know how we wanted to sound. Like, we were such beginners that it was like we didn’t really know…we didn’t know anything. We just kind of thought, ‘well, you know, it’ll sound good if it’s going to be Western Star, so let’s just give it a go’. Luckily, Alan, he was really good. He was a really good person for our first recording experience, I think, because he was very patient with us. Obviously it was all very sort of professional, but he was good craic and that. So it made it easy. It was all very good, a very good learning experience, I would say. 

It’s funny, I think, because I feel like it’s – without some mega-pretentious –  kind of any artist prerogative of any medium to look back at your own work and be your biggest critic, you know? I was so early on in our sort of identity as a band. Like, we didn’t really know what we wanted to sound like. And also, not just that, to be honest: it was so early on, especially for me and Kirsty… we had only actually been playing our instruments for a very short period of time. So even just ability-wise, we listened back and we’re like, ‘oh, God, I want to play that song’. It was all so streamlined. We went from just practicing in my bedroom to being out here, getting to recording the EP within a year. So it was just…it was all a bit sudden. Listening back, I would change things. But I think you always will, to be honest. [You’ve] just got to take what you’ve done and then move on from it. But yeah, I’m proud of it.” 

Not only that, but they also dropped an independent live recording within months. “Yeah, so we did that. We recorded the EP tracks again and then did a few of the covers. Mainly, to be honest, because we wanted to have the recordings to be able to put on CD because obviously we did the other one with Western Star. We didn’t own the recordings, and we couldn’t release them on CD. So we wanted to be able to have CD as well as the EP. We thought a live one would be fun because we have the ultra-polished EP and then the live would be a different sort of sound. It was just a totally different experience. Like, we just did it on our own. Like, just rented the studio out and, you know, and then we just smashed them all out in like one take. I say one take, I don’t mean like, we did them once. We did them a few times, which was all [on the same day], you know. And yeah, the CDs have gone pretty well, and we put the single on, Spotify and stuff to try and get a bit of buzz about it. But yeah, that was good. That was good fun as well.”

As if recording wasn’t enough, Cave hit the US with her band on a whirlwind tour. “That’s wild. That was great. It’s so fun to say it, like, ‘yeah, we did a tour in America, like, really big deal’. But it came about because I have a friend in New York. My friend Greg, he puts on [shows at New York venue] Otto’s Shrunken Head. So he asked us if we’d play that. We were just going to go just to do that, just for the craic, but then my friend Laura Palmer from Screamin’ Rebel Angels… I was chatting with her about it and she said, ‘well, if you come, I’ll sort you out some more dates’, and so she sorted out the whole thing for us. She was just like, ‘yeah, I’ve got two weeks’, so she got us two weeks. We wanted to do more and it’s a shame because we got offers for all over the US, but obviously it’s like being able to actually afford to travel and stuff. But yeah, so we just went over there, borrowed all the instruments out of the crowd. 

[The Americans] loved it. Yeah, they did. They loved it. I knew New York stuff would be good because I had friends there. But even aside from that, it was packed. The New York dates were packed. Even Rhode Island and places like there have been before, somehow we got around and, yeah, it’s really good crowds everywhere. I’m trying to think, there wasn’t really anywhere where it was like proper quiet. All of them were pretty decent turnout considering, you know, we’re just three lasses from parts of England.’

Keen eyed fans will also have noticed a lineup change among the Neandergals in 2025. “[We’ve got a] new guitarist, which has changed the sound to be honest. But, yeah, so it’s really fun. Ellie  – ‘Ruby Raptor’ – she was working and doing a degree part time as well. So she had other things she did spend her time on, which is completely fair enough because obviously we’re gigging quite a lot and it is quite intense. Then we found Betty Brutal, just by fluke, like we didn’t know her or anything. We just put out an advert and she answered and, yeah, she is brilliant. She is so much fun. She’s there, energy-wise. She’s definitely brought a whole new dynamic to the group.

I feel like we’ve been really lucky actually because we musically straddle everything as in psychobilly, rockabilly, Blues, Soul, Garage, that whole sort of thing. We’ve been really lucky in that actually everybody’s embraced us, which to me is better for us because we don’t… I mean like, bless her, she’s totally new to this. She comes from a metal background. It’s all brand new for her. I got brought up on punk and Motown. That was my kind of background and Susie loves Stoner Rock and stuff as well, soul and popcorn and that sort of sixties bluesy thing. I think it’s nice for us to be able to use all those influences and then to have us be seen by everybody as well. The thing is with all these subcultures, obviously you do have the kind of like hardcore [fans that are like] ‘that’s all I’ll listen to’. But actually, most of the time, within subcultures, everybody is quite eclectic and everybody comes from a mixed background, and especially things like psychobilly, where in and of itself the genre is a mix of things anyway, isn’t it? To be honest, I think what I was quite surprised about is that, as women, we were kind of like, ‘hmm, are we going to be well received?’ Actually what we found is that everyone’s like, ‘oh, God, yeah, we need some more women on the scene’, you know? Like, it hasn’t been nice to kind of get that feedback as well, like, so yeah. 

We are very tongue-in-cheek and actually we are poking fun at the whole cave girl thing. Obviously, I think you get people drawn in because it’s like, ‘oh, young women in little outfits’ you know? But then it’s the fact that we are actually poking fun at the fact that the whole scene is pretty Jurassic in some ways. There are still a lot of Neanderthal views and that out there. It hasn’t been realised, but whatever, they’re still listening and they’re still singing along, like, you know?”

2025 isn’t over yet, and Cave explains why she’s taken a little bit of time away from the spotlight: the next release is in the works. “We’re doing new ones this year anyway, because we were doing Billy Bootleggers for the first time, and they need ninety minutes. So we’ve started writing the new ones, so we’re getting a new album together. So next year, full album. We’ll do ourselves, and save it up. We’ll get a new album out on vinyl next year, it is the plan. I would say quite a different sound, but not all of it. Like, we’re still sticking to it. We’ve got like one very rockabilly [song]… I think very rockabilly. Rockabilly, psychobilly, kind of, spread of them both. I feel like I don’t play fast enough to call it Psychobilly, that’s the thing. But yeah, so we’ve got one that’s sort of on that page. We’ve got a couple of more garagey sounding ones, more kind of Crampsy feel, which we love, we love those ones.”

Cavegirl and the Neandergals are also heading over to Europe for the first time later this year, hitting up Finland with a run of shows. “Finland’s amazing. It seems really random, actually. Obviously, I can see all our Spotify statistics and that, and it’s always Finland [at] the top of our listeners all the time. So, yeah, we have a little following there, it’s quite a good scene over there. It’s so massive, if there’s a gig on, everybody goes to it, because it’s so spread out, and people will travel to go to it. So, hopefully, hopefully it’ll be a good turnout, we’ll see!” The Neandergals are bound to win over European crowds, and we’re already hyped for their next album.

As Cave herself puts it: “We are proud to be part of a new era of the rocking scene. Along with pals like The Bitter Lemons, Mandelbrot Shakes, many more, we’re really happy to be reinventing a retrospective scene with a fresh twist; not only as and for women, but to create a safe, welcoming and inclusive space to introduce the music and style that we love to absolutely everyone. Bedrock n roll is for EVERYONE. Or else it’ll die with the dinosaurs, right?!

CAVEGIRL STYLE NOT CAVEMAN VALUES 🦴🖤”

Kate Allvey

Buy a copy of ‘Carnal Desires’ here from Western Star Records.

Buy a ticket to see Cavegirl and the Neandergals in Birmingham on 16th August here