Boy Band 'Catfished' By Coldplay Fan

11 July 2014 | 3:39 pm | SPA Confidential

Tasmanian man had his friends worried for a second there

Launceston-based Coldplay fan Manuel Marley has told of his elaborate plan to “catfish” West Australian boy band Five-Part Harm'n'E after friends raised concerns over what they saw as “obsessive” behaviour with regard to the popular quintet.

“I just thought it'd be a funny way to kill a bit of time,” Marley said from his home last night.

“I've got a dedicated room that I use to troll the band, where I have a purpose-built computer that blocks non-Five-Part-related material from the internet, and it's full of posters and memorabilia … that's [bassist] Pietro's broken A-string framed on the wall there … I think that happened during an encore performance of You Stole My Heart, Quit Stealing My Lighters a couple of years ago, or it could have been their lesser-known but heavily favoured set-closer from their second EP back in 2005, Slow Walkers Are The Devil. I'm not too sure.

“Anyway, when one of my mates found my altar at my annual end-of-financial-year party, I had to come clean. Did I say 'altar'? Let me finish – altar of criticism. Anyway, they found it, so I told them I've been pretending to be a fan of the band to help them feel a little better about themselves,” he continued.

Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter

“Really, it's not like a normal 38-year-old man would voluntarily have this many T-shirts with post-adolescent boys all over them, right?”

This is not the first time Marley's friends have been given pause over his relationship with popular bands – he was previously sent to a three-week rehabilitation course after his landlord let himself in for a routine inspection only to find Marley had arranged his household furniture into an apartment-sized rendering of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin's face.

“That was a dark time for Manny,” long-time co-worker and friend Zoe Bauer told SPA Confidential, “so we were pretty relieved to hear that there was a reasonable explanation for his behaviour this time.”