Interview: Catfish & The Bottlemen..

The Beautiful Decay EP - Great success so far.

Big thanks to Catfish for taking the time to answer a few questions and let us know what happens in there little world....

RB Thanks for doing the interview,  Catfish & The Bottlemen how did you come up with the name?

Not a problem mate.... The name is a long story really, as a kid i used to go to australia for months at a time to see some of my family and stuff and in this hotel we used to stay in a busker used to sit outside every morning playing empty beer bottles with spoons. i used to sit off every day and watch him whilst me mum and dad would get ready and stuff. His name was "Catfish the Bottleman" so it just sort of stuck all the way up until now when i was thinking we need something original and that just came back to me and it stuck.

RB You seem to have done a lot of touring this year, Where was the best venue and who would you say had the best crowd?

Yeah we've not stopped this year its been quality, haha thats a tough one... my favourite venue i reckon is Telfords Warehouse in Chester they always look after us there and i used to go watch the band who got me into music TheTIME there when i was younger so there's probably something to do with that involved, Theres just a great vibe there everytime we play always packed for us and that. But saying that my favourite gig last year was when we got the chance to play Snowbombing in Austria, We played on this stage which was set out to be like a Narnia vibe and we had a huge lion behind our Drum kit, we'd been walking round Austria for a few days giving flyers and demos out trying to get as many people involved as we could and when we came to do the gig the place was rammed and they were going mental so mental infact that the band on after us were getting our name chanted back at them because they wanted us back on haha! that was epic seen as though we'd never been or known anyone in Austria hahaha

RB How would you describe your musical style and how would you come up with songs/ideas for lyrics?

Our sound is Explosive!!! We get that question alot and thats the only thing i can think of explosive it just explodes on stage, thats what we try and go for anyway!

In terms of lyrics thats my favourite part about being in a band, they come to me naturally but they're mostly about woman & people i've met touring and stuff like that but i like trying to paint a picture in other peoples heads but not in a way its so obvious that they know what i'm talking about if you get me? so that they have to make their own mind up and hopefully can relate to it in their own way.

RB Your EP " The Beautiful Decay" has had a good reaction, How are you going to build on that success?

Yeah it went down really well and i was quite nervous about it because with past EP's and Demo's etc i've never been properly really proud of our work we were just kids when we started and as soon as we found the sound we're playing with now everything just got mental! So it was the first EP i'd had the chance to make that i was truly proud of and i'm glad people got it as much as they did because it meant a lot. We're going to build on it with writing tunes that make the stuff on that EP look bad haha and if you've heard that EP its not easy... But since then we've written about 7/8 songs that are up their but theres about 5 that i think are going to wipe the floor with that EP we've just took a step up in every way since last year so what i'm trying to say really is we're going to blow our last year selves out the water haha

RB Any planned tours for 2011, Any news on venues/locations?

Yeah we've got Big Plans for 2011 and we've got a big tour on the go for March... we're currently finalising dates and venues but once we've confirmed i'll let you know.... and if anyones got any floors for us too sleep on let us know haha

RB Are you planning on doing a album any time soon, Would it be in the same style as your other songs or would you try different sounds and ideas?

We've been asked a lot about the album but i've not warmed to the idea much yet, we're still young and we're still picking up methods of writing and stories and guitar sounds stuff like that so i don't want to rush it.... I want our debut album to leave a mark on the music industry not some throw away lets try again next year type thing i want people to love it till its time to pass it on to their grandkids! so we're going to take it easy with the album thing and just keep touring the world because thats what we love doing! The albums finished in terms of songs but we've still got some ground work to do.

RB Lovely seaside resort of Llandudno, Would you say you have much of a following in your home town and also, Do any of you speak fluent welsh?

hahahaha no we don't speak welsh at all... Yeah we've got a great following at home but the only problem is there is not one venue around here for bands to play its shocking so we've taken things into our own hands and we rent this cellar out and set a stage up and that and we just stick a few flyers about that the council rip down every time but enough people get talking about it and they come down and we just have a massive gorilla party in this basement! the last time we played there the place was a 80capacity and we had 100+ in and there were 40+ people queuing out the door who weren't allowed in. it was a good night and people still talk about it so its good to leave a mark.

RB You seem to do gigs mainly in the north, Would you ever think of going down south?

Yeah definitely... we'd love to get down that way, we've done a load in the south this past year like but we play in the north a lot because thats we're people demand us to come and play as soon as the good old south comes a-nocking we're more than up for it!

RB Thanks for doing this interview, It is appreciated, Keep up the good work and I will be coming to a fair few shows in 2011 I hope!

No worries mate thanks very much for your time. See you in the new year mate! X