Every now and again, a band comes along that are so fresh, they rough up the music industry once again; Catfish & The Bottlemen are the band to watch in 2014 and we caught up with them for an interview.
Front-man Vann took time away from the studio to talk about the debut album, touring and Danny Welbeck..
Your currently recording your highly anticipated debut album, what can we expect?
Kathleen will be on it, we recorded a new song yesterday which sounds like Hendrix mixed by the Stones! were just gonna try and make something that’s really sharp, quick and simple, just an album full of catchy tunes that sounds a bit like early Strokes stuff.
Your known for touring extensively, with another huge tour in May, where is your favorite place to play?
Its a difficult one to say really because everywhere is different, but for me, Sheffield is like a second home to us. Sheffield have always been massive and really supportive with us, its a place were we really made our name.
You have a sound that takes you back to sort of old school indie rock, are you influenced by the likes of The Strokes?
I wouldn’t say The Strokes are an influence, I like the way they write songs with them being short and quite positive, they give off positive vibes like, its something we wanna do with our music.
Billy our guitarist loves old Elvis, he’s like the greatest hits man and I write lyrics, it works well; we just like to make positive music that makes you feel good, there is a lot of downbeat music around these days, we just wanna be different and make positive music that makes people feel good.
You played the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds last year, are you hoping to go back this year? next year?
We’d love to go back there, we just wait and see if our name pops up on the poster like, we just play the gigs. It was great playing the Introducing stage though, we only had 5 songs and I managed to snap 3 guitars at Leeds, its always the way when big opportunities come our way, we always catfish it up
Is that were the band name come from?
Nah the name come from Australia, I was there as a kid and one of the first bits of music I heard over there was this guy called Catfish and the Bottleman who used to use empty wine bottles as a drum kit sort of thing, it just stuck and we thought it was fitting to name the band.. we’ve heard he has heard of us over there now.
You’ve been hyped up by the likes of Zane Lowe, XFM and BBC Radio 6 Music, do you feel any extra pressure because of that?
Not really, we don’t really think of it like that, we just like to write and play songs, the band was set up to go on the road and tour. It is really cool to be championed by them though, we like that sort of responsibility in a way because we have to make sure everything is good and we cant just fall down by the waist side, it makes us really work hard.
The band have supported the likes of The 1975 and Little Comets, how does supporting bands compare to headlining gigs?
I love supporting bands personally, when your a support band your not expected to be good, people in a way dont want you to be good, they just want the headline band on. People aren’t there to see you, I love the feeling of having to win people over, its like your the underdog, headline gigs are easier.
So yeah, Twitter told us your a fan of Danny Welbeck..
Ah mate, he’s a football genius, I love him me! he’s definitely the next Andy Cole…
And David Moyes..
I try not to think about that, I like him, he plays positive football, like the other day when we were winning 2-0 he brought two strikers on, when Fergie was there and we were getting beat, he’d bring a right back or something on, what’s that about?
Well.. back to music, with the album being recorded and tour/festival dates a plenty in the summer, what’s the plan for the rest of the year?
We’re gonna finish the album, then tour in May before heading to the USA.. then come back to the UK and release the album, do another tour, then probably go back to the USA, then to Australia, I don’t know..
We started the band to tour to be honest, were not really a band into merchandise and all that, we would give our music away for free but it comes to a time when we need fags and steak pies.. we wanna give this album a bit of a blast and then get back recording for the 2nd album.
Excellent news! so finally, what other bands should be all be listening to? other than Catfish & The Bottlemen obviously..
Little Comets, they’re class! we’ve just been on tour with them, they have a song called Jennifer which is proper cool. There’s a band called Broken Hands to, they’re from Kent, they’re cool as well, so them two definitely.
Catch Catfish & The Bottlemen on tour this May, check out latest single ‘Kathleen’ below: