AUSTRALIAN BAND POWERED BY ITS GLOBAL FOLLOWING
The average music fan might say “Who?” but mention the name “The Cat Empire” in a hostel anywhere in the world and you’re likely to get an enthusiastic response. The band may be Australian, but its influences and following are international. Now, after releasing their sixth album Rising With the Sun, the proudly independent Aussie act is touring Canada, one of many countries in which they’ve built up a loyal, passionate following. We talked to lead vocalist Felix Riebl about Montreal audiences, The Cat Empire’s rep as a travellers’ band, and writing a song that both commemorates the tragedy of the Bataclan nightclub and celebrates live music.
Q You guys started your Canadian tour in Baie-Saint-Paul. Is that because you have such a big, enthusiastic following in Quebec?
A Yeah. The band’s got a real scene there I suppose. For whatever reason, the music really resonates and we have a lot of fun with the crowds. For a band like us, the live experience is so much part of it, and whenever we find places where the crowd’s got that kind of intensity and joy it’s hard to pass up.
Q Are the Montreal crowds as enthusiastic as hometown crowds?
A I think there’s more enthusiasm overseas, which isn’t to say it isn’t great in Melbourne. But I think The Cat Empire is travel music. It’s great to be overseas, because there are no hometown expectations. You can just go places and kind of forget who you are. This band does well in that environment.
Q The band has a real reputation as being a favourite among travellers — people seeing the band while they travel, or making special pilgrimages to see The Cat Empire.
A Yeah, there are a lot of stories like that. You talk to people after the show and they’ll say “I’ve seen you 10 times” or something, to me that’s really amazing that people go out of their way to see the band or base their trip around it. I’m not sure what it is. The early, early days, there were a lot of stories of people burning a CD, and then we’d arrive — the first time we played in Montreal we’d had no radio or anything like that, yet we were playing to this tightly packed room of people who knew all the words to the songs, and that came from people who had travelled to Australia, I think. There’s still something about that spirit of travel that’s embraced by the audience who follow The Cat Empire, and in turn has informed some of the adventures we’ve had as well and even some of the songs.
Q You have a song on the new album called Bataclan. A situation like that, a terrorism attack, must be a touring band’s worst nightmare nowadays.
A The Bataclan one was a particularly sad one for me, because I knew the room so well, we’d played there quite a lot. But I also knew the context, because we’ve spent so much of our lives in that environment, playing live music to roomfuls of people. I hope that that song is a celebration of live music as much as it is a lament of a really terrible event. But you can’t think about it too much. It hasn’t really changed the way we approach touring or performing at all.
Q What you see as a touring band must be very different from the scaremongering we hear from certain politicians.
A It’s very different. We hear a lot of negativity on the news, and a lot of hysteria and a lot of glorified, sensationalist violence as well. Which is not to say that there aren’t real problems. But the world that we see is full of very lively people, doing the best they can and finding cause to celebrate. We’re in a very, very fortunate space, which is not to undervalue the fact that a lot of people are going through difficult times and there are big challenges facing all of our countries. But I’ve been fortunate enough to see the best of people most of the time.