Blackbeard's Tea Party

Fun-loving anarchic pirates Blackbeard’s Tea Party formed in York in 2009. The original line-up was Paul Young (lead vocals, melodeon), Laura Barber (fiddle), Liam Hardy (cajon), Dave Boston (djembe), Martin Coumbe (guitar) and Tim Yates (bass). 
 The members met through York’s folk scene. The band began by busking, with Young and Barber playing traditional instrumentals, and the rest of the band improvising the backline. 
 Their first EP Heavens to Betsy included traditional songs in addition to instrumentals, but otherwise captured the acoustic sound of their busking. After a number of folk festival performances they released their first full-length album Tomorrow We'll Be Sober in 2011. Shortly after the release, Young left the band and was replaced by Stuart Giddens. 
 Two more albums and an EP followed - Whip Jamboree (2013), Reprobates (2016) and Leviathan! (2018) - as well as a number of high profile folk festival appearances. The band increasingly added more rock elements to their sound: most notably, two drum-kits replaced hand percussion.
 In 2020 Yates and Coumbe left the band and were replaced by Ben Trott (guitar) and Patrick Lester-Rourke (bass). Blackbeard's Tea Party released their fourth album Kick the Curb in 2022, and Liam Hardy left the band at the end of 2022. 
 The band are known for high-octane live shows, punky interpretations of traditional songs (especially sea shanties), tongue-in-cheek visuals and stage-craft, and pumping folk instrumentals.