Joe Whitehill is a second-year Trevs student who studies History and releases music under the stage name Cafe Magrana.

Where did the name Café Magrana come from? 

Café Magrana was a restaurant in Majorca that I went to as a kid, and it has always stuck with me since. Magrana means pomegranate, and the café part is self-explanatory.

Give me a quick run-through of your most recent album. What is the name, the intentions, the songs, etc?

The most recent album is called Dispatches, it’s a sort of audio diary of my 2024 and the changes that come with leaving home and starting uni. A few of my favourite tracks are ‘Chinese Takeaway,’ about getting Chinese food and being in love, ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ (not the one by the Beatles), and ‘It’s Not On,’ the main lyrical hook of which was written by my Dad in the early ‘80s.

What inspired you to get into music? How did that transpire into writing and producing? 

I’ve always loved music thanks to the influence of my parents and their undying commitment to BBC Radio 6 Music. I’ve played guitar since I was 13, and writing music seemed like the logical progression once I’d figured out a couple of chords. As soon as I started writing, releasing it was the only path to take, since I had my sights set on riches and fame. I booted up the Voice Memos app and started putting tracks up on Bandcamp without a second thought. 

What role has Trevs played, if any, in your music? I see a lot of Trevs footage in your music video Dirty Dogs 

Trevs has inspired tonnes of moments in songs since coming to uni. If you go through the lyrics and pick out every partial Trevs reference, it would take you hours.

Image: Joe Whitehill

What is your songwriting process?

My songwriting process is entirely unrefined and involves sitting with a guitar for a few hours a day, fiddling. I aim to write 3 or 4 songs a week that are as high-quality as possible, but this number changes a lot based on how much time I get to play. 

Were there any songs that didn’t make the cut in your most recent album? Would you ever release them? 

There were absolutely loads, some that were terrible, some that didn’t fit in, and a lot that I just forgot about. These will likely stay unreleased, but a few feature as B-sides to the singles that came out before the album

Tell me about the importance of politics in music to you. Is music inherently political? Do you prefer to leave politics “out of it”? 

Politics is immensely important to me in music. I was raised on Onsind and The Clash, so my listening taste has always been political, and my output has mimicked that. Every couple of weeks, I’ll sit down after seeing a news story with the intention of writing a political song. I used to write loads of political tunes: ‘Love Crisps, Hate Racism,’ ‘Bald and Evil,’ and more recently ‘Can’t Sail Away.’ I still do nowadays, but I try and put a bit more nuance into them. 

I was raised on Onsind and The Clash, so my listening taste has always been political, and my output has mimicked that.

Has your uni experience so far at Durham been a good inspiration for your songwriting? Explain.

Durham is very stagnant, so it pushes you to focus on the minutiae when writing. There’s not much scope for grand love stories, so talking about kisses outside of Klute and lost jackets seems much more appropriate

Image: Joe Whitehill

What are you doing when you’re not writing, practising or performing? 

Not much, occasionally doing seminar reading or playing volleyball. If not, I’ll be lying down and drinking woke (wine and Coke). 

Would you say you write love songs? Is that an important part of what Café Magrana is? 

I almost exclusively write love songs. Once you get to a stage where you can effectively demonstrate your emotions in a song, it becomes a bit pointless to write about anything that isn’t love. These songs are often sad and angry, but at their core, they’re still love songs. I think it was the same for Elliott Smith, Daniel Johnston, and Lennon; I think they realised they only needed love songs after a while.

Once you get to a stage where you can effectively demonstrate your emotions in a song, it becomes a bit pointless to write about anything that isn’t love.

Do you plan to release any new music soon? 

Hopefully, next summer, there will be a shiny new release, maybe under a new moniker and hopefully properly recorded instead of another bedroom release. There will also be this year’s Christmas song to follow on from last year’s ‘Rah Christmas 2024.’ 

Is the F-block toilet actually haunted? 

It certainly is. Those ghosts are the spirits of freaky F-block residents who will live on forever. You can hear them wail every evening from F1 landing.

Cafe Magrana Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7M7DIji4UfJhv8Vt7oV9Gh?si=kEcgdKR5Rmq9ASGWV_N4rQ

Cafe Magrana Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/cafe-magrana/1679221880

Image: Joe Whitehill