“We Thought We Should Lock It In” – An Interview with Marketplace
To quote the title of their 2025 EP, Hartlepool indie-pop band ‘Marketplace Mean Business’. With a winning mix of belting indie-pop tunes, fun DIY videos and cracking live shows, the quintet have been rapidly gaining an audience in the UK. After some brilliant showcase performances at The New Colossus Festival in NYC and SXSW in Austin, the rest of the world is starting to take notice.
That 2025 EP marked a significant step forward, earning support from BBC Radio 1, Radio X and BBC Introducing, alongside editorial playlisting from Apple Music and TIDAL. This momentum has translated into a packed run of live dates and festival appearances, including The Great Escape, Kendal Calling, Y Not Festival and Supersonic in Paris. They recently played a homecoming gig in Hartlepool as well as Stockton Calling and will be heading back out on the road for more festivals and live shows later this year.
Marketplace is made up of Evie Rhodes (vocals/guitar), Joel O’Beirne (vocals/bass), Jack Purcell (guitar), Matthew Short (synth/vocals) and Ross Dixon (drums). They recently released an excellent single “Jennifer Said” which is taken from a forthcoming EP that we should see later this year. We had a lovely chat with the band over a Lone Star after their first showcase at SXSW.
IDOV – Have you been enjoying your first shows in the US?
Evie – Yeah, it’s been so good. Quite surreal. Like, we’re the first ones from Hartlepool to do anything like this. We’re really proud to be flying the flag for the area.
Joel – Yeah, it’s been good. New York rocked. The venues were amazing, the gigs were so good, the crowds were really fun. It was so easy to get around, and I feel like maybe our view is a bit sheltered, but either way, it was so much fun.
IDOV – It’s one of my favorite times of the year and thank you for being part of our first ever showcase. Which classic album cover art is your current mood?
Jack – Can we just say Abbey Road because we’ve been walking around a lot and there’s a lot of crosswalks. Not jaywalking though!
Ross – The Queen is Dead. Like we’re the robot, we’ve got the power in our hands.
Joel – We are collectively a really scary face band.
IDOV – How did how do you guys get together to form Marketplace?
Ross – It’s a long and arduous story. It was in college. Some of us knew each other and most didn’t. We met and we just said “oh, we just try to play some music.” Joel knew Jack and one of our guitarists pulled out so he got Jack to play.
Evie – And then Matty joined. He was our groupie!
Ross – We had a show in Bristol and he come. We were like “this guy’s pretty committed!”
Jack – It was in my little tiny Skoda Fabia and we’re cramped in the back at 70 degree angle for 6 hours
Evie – trying to get Joel’s stupid big bass amp in the car
IDOV – So you like you started with “Evergreen” in 2019 and you released five singles in five years. And then two EP’s in eight months. What changed?
Matty – We just thought we should lock in.
Ross – We got a manager. Yeah.
Evie – Oh, David has been with us for years. What happened was we finished uni, we had time, we had jobs, we had money,
Joel – Then after Covid, that’s when we just kicked it off and that’s when everyone just sort of locked in. That was when we gave David the chance of really stepping up into a proper managerial role and be more involved. I felt like we just sat on a lot of stuff then and then it came out straight out.
Ross – It was easier to sell a band if you have more stuff.
Jack – I feel like once we were on a roll we couldn’t stop.
Ross – When the first one was released we were already onto the second one.
IDOV – The title of the first EP almost seems to be poking fun at how long it took with an exclamation point at the end?
Ross – Yeah. That’s what it was. It was totally tongue in cheek as it took long enough!
IDOV – So Joel sang on the first three singles and then Evie took over. Why the change?
Evie – You went traveling, didn’t you?
Joel – I went traveling and I’m pretty lazy songwriter and Evie just cranks them out.
Jack – She’s a machine.
Joel – It takes me a while. I’m a tortured artist.
Evie – At the period when you went traveling and we were hitting our stride, we were working a lot and I was writing a lot more and feeling more confident in my writing. Because you weren’t there, we were working on songs and I would just try and and sing it. But the next EP that we’ve got goes back to our roots.
Joel – Like a lot of dual vocals. We’ve got some tracks that are completely different. Ultimately, we’re a pop band but there’s a ballad in there, some slower ones. It’s nice. It’s a new lane for us and we’re excited to explore that.
IDOV – One of your songs on the last EP was called “Ode to Monty”. Are you big fans of Gardeners World on a Friday evening?
Ross – Evie is a little bit.
Evie – We are now
Ross – We were doing a demo and my laptop was broke and we couldn’t use Logic. We used an 8-track. I was exporting and Evie started playing the chords and I was like “that’s really good!” I think we just named it, for lack of anything else, “Garden” on the track. And I mentioned to Evie if she could make it about Monty Don for a laugh. Me Mam was watching him on the Telly. And she said yeah sure. He’s a hunk!
Matty – He’s the sexiest man on TV with a trowel.
IDOV – which artists have inspired you in the past or for the new music you’ve been making?
Ross – I mean, the easiest answer, especially on the new EP, is The Beths. They’ve always been a huge inspiration for us. As a whole, sonically, it’s very much American and Australian influenced indie-pop that influence us but definitely The Beths in a major way.
Evie – I would say that now The Beths are very much my favorite band and I think it comes out in my writing. But I’ve only discovered them in the last 3-4 years from Jack’s recommendation. Before that, it was very much like Courtney Barnett and Wolf Alice. Growing up and seeing these women in bands, at a time when you weren’t really seeing that, it’s was a very formative time when I was like 14 and I want to do what they’re doing.
Ross – Me, Marty and Jack were jamming “I Got A Feeling” last night at the AirBnB
Evie – We always say that The Beatles are probably the only band we all have in common.
IDOV – If you could only listen to one record, what would it be?
Ross – Abbey Road
Joel – Modern Baseball – You’re Gonna Miss It All
Matt – Self-titled Lynrd Skynrd.
Evie – Mine is Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths.
Jack – King Gizzard – Nonogon Infinity
IDOV – What lessons have you learned since Evergreen that you’ve applied to the newer EPs?
Ross – You can record at home very efficiently. Like, we did everything in his bedroom except drums only cause we dont have an interface with enough inputs. It’s easier to sometimes work apart than together cause you’ve just got to get on with it and make do. That was all together in Manchester. Your friend recorded it
Evie – We’ve been in studios a few times and it’s so expensive. That was one of the reasons we were only releasing a song a year. We also didn’t have the time and just learned how to record at home.
Ross – For the last EP, I was sitting googling how to mike an amp, how to mike an acoustic guitar and I was like “I’ll be fine. As long as it’s not peaking, you got it!”
Joel – As long as its in the green, its got to be in the green and you’re good
IDOV – Hartlepool doesn’t have much of a reputation for music, except for Sneaker PImps. But now there seems to be a lot of artists from the area.Yourselves obviously but also DAWKS, Michael Gallagher and Labyrinthe Oceans.
Ross – James Leonard Hewitson as well. He’s the biggest slept on artist in the North East
Evie -He was playing Reading and Leeds when he’s was 16 and he;s just great
Ross – His album Only The Noise Will Save Me is so good. you should buy it on vinyl and its such a great pop album.
IDOV – So why are there so many great artists suddenly coming out of Hartlepool?
Ross – The Studio Hartlepool. It’s a recording studio but its also a gig venue
Evie – It’s where we played some of our earliest gigs.
Joel – It’s charity run as well and, I feel like a few years ago, it wasn’t getting the TLC it needed and there were a lot of different people going in. Now it seems like there’s been a really solid change and everyone is putting so much love into it. They’re putting on some really great shows and nurturing a lot of really good young bands. Jack does a thing called We Make Sound where he works with a load of young kids.
Jack – Yeah, we do workshops with kids where we get them in bands and there’s a studio upstairs.
Joel – So there’s just a lot coming out now which is nice cause when we were in our teens there was bands like Plaza who were massive, Leopard Rays, James Leonard Hewitson, Palo Alto and they just kind of stopped
Evie – They were a bit older than us when we started but there’s a lot of new bands coming out which is really nice to see.
Joel – It’s flourishing which is great.
Matty – Saying that, one of our venues did get knocked down the other week. The Clippy Club.
Evie – It wasn’t a big venue, it was a social club. We played there in college and I remember going to watch the World Cup there.
Ross – We did some good shows there when we were in college, Me and Matty were in a college band together and we absolutely rocked that place!
Photo Credit – Kate Atkinson
IDOV – I had planned to ask you what your dream venue would be to play but, having just played The Hilton in Downtown Austin, what would be next on the list?
Jack – Red Rocks
Matty – Doing a Tiny Desk would be amazing
Ross – Audiotree as well
Joel – I always really wanted to play The Church in Leeds but that’s not there anymore so I’d probably say Red Rocks as well
IDOV – What would go on your signature pizza and what would it be called?
Matty – Can I go first? For the toppings I want are Anduille sausage, thinly sliced red chilies and basil and that’s it. Obviously cheese and tomato base. “Matty’s slice”
Ross – I would get one with like every topping that I ever wanted on it and it’s called “The One With Everything”. It’s like a Friends episode
Joel – Pepperoni, pineapple, shoestring onions, Mushrooms, caramelized onions as well and probably some blue cheese or something stinky. I’d call it the “keeps Me Out of Trouble”
Evie – You know you get a Hotshot Parmo? Well I’d like one but like pizza. So you’ve got pepperoni, chilis, jalapeños. I don’t like white-based pizzas so it has to be tomato based. I’d call it “The Storm Rider”
David – For me, Domino’s did that sun-dried tomatoes and garlic with some red onions, chorizo
Matty – It’s just your Domino’s order. Do you want cookies on the side?
IDOV – Last question. I know you have a new EP coming out this year but what else is planned?
Matty – Going on tour when we get back. We’ve got a little tour in York and Newcastle. We’ve got some festivals. We got Stockton Calling. Gathering Sounds. Hopefully gonna head out on tour again at the end of the year to tour the UK and stuff like that. And hopefully try and go into Europe. That’s the hope. That would be lovely. There’s no plans for that yet but we would love that. And a million dollars. If you know anyone that wants to give us a million dollars, that would work!
You can find out more about Marketplace and get tickets for their upcoming tour and festivals by visiting their website. Also, follow them on Instagram and TikTok for all the latest news and new music releases.
