Sarpa Salpa frontman Marcus helping to raise funds for Northampton businesses during coronavirus crisis

The frontman of Northampton indie band Sarpa Salpa is helping to raise money for businesses which have been forced to close during the current coronavirus lockdown.

Singer and guitarist Marcus Marooth is broadcasting weekly live sessions and has picked five businesses to support.

He said: “I work for a small café which is much loved by its regular customers and I saw the first hand effect it had on the owner who was anxious and stressed of what was to come for her business and the economy.

“I’d also wanted to do live streams as it would help me with the ‘cold turkey’ from gigging so I thought why not try and help.”

Marcus is raising money for the Magic Bean Emporium Café at Northampton’s railway station, The Garibaldi Hotel and The Lamplighter pubs, Magee Street Bakery and Esquires music venue in Bedford.

In recent years, Sarpa Salpa have gigged extensively across the UK, picking up airplay by national and regional stations along the way.

Marcus is joined in Sarpa Salpa by George Neath, Ethan Whitby, Charlie Doe and Meg Amirghiasvand.

With numerous singles under their belt, the band released their debut EP Say Something at the start of this year.

Marcus added: “The coronavirus outbreak has completely changed the music industry and we will be experiencing a very strange year.

“I think gigs will be rescheduled and hopefully everyone will want to go out and enjoy themselves again ‘post corona’.

“Artists are going to be writing a lot during this time, so I’d expect some new music from your favourite bands.

“Gigging is where money is made in the music industry due to the low pay outs on streaming services so this has obviously affected us very hard.

“It’s been surreal to have this amount of time to just write.

“We have about 10 songs on the go at the moment and are trying to see this all positively.”

Marcus is broadcasting on Monday nights at 7pm via is his personal and band’s Facebook and Instagram profiles.

As well as playing Sarpa tracks, he has performed Beatles sets and aims to have a different theme each week.

He added: “I’ll be performing every Monday for the foreseeable future until I can try and rally up enough money to really help these businesses.

“To date I have raised £230 and don’t really have a goal or a cap, I just want to raise as much as I can to help.”

People can tune in at facebook.com/SarpaSalpaMusic and donate here.