Newcastle’s fastest rising art rock outfit Cat Ryan are gearing up for an incredible festival summer with slots at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, Y Not, Truck Festival and local all-dayer Last Train Home having been confirmed so far. They have also just released their latest banger, ‘Like This’, time for us to ask the band some questions!
Who are Cat Ryan and what inspires you to make music?
We are an Indie/Art-Gaze band who formed in Newcastle in 2018 at university, although before this I (Mary-Anne) began writing and releasing music as a solo artist under the same name. I’d describe our sound as quite upbeat and happy, giving off summery vibes, as people often tell me. When it comes to inspiration, listening to a load of enjoyable music of all sorts is often a kick starter for wanting to make new music. Genre-wise, I initially took a lot of my inspiration from bands like Vampire Weekend, Hippo Campus or the likes of Viola beach who all have that very angular melodic sound. Then over the years, through various other musical influence and my own development as a songwriter, the music style has just evolved into a sound that’s even more unique to Cat Ryan.
What do you enjoy most about being an artist?
Getting time to sit down, write music and then coming up with something really catchy. It just gives you a really good feeling and brings a lot of excitement and hope for the band. Alongside that, this year, having applied to some very competitive UK festival slots and then actually being selected based off merit just brought such a great feeling, and again, it makes us very excited for the future.
What do you think makes you stand out from the crowd?
I think our clean, angular sound. I always continue to try to write catchy melodies because I think that’s what we’ve been consistent in doing and what makes a lot of our music enjoyable. I’d also say our ability to make songs that are all quite individual, rather than having one very general sound and just replicating it.
What are you most looking forward to in regards to the upcoming year?
Definitely festival season! We’re so excited to have been shortlisted down from almost 2000 artists to just 3 picked for the main stage at Y NOT festival next month. When we heard the news we couldn’t believe it and then later finding out we’d be on the same stage as the likes of Royal Blood and Kasabian was so cool.
Where / on what stage do you hope to be this time next year?
It’d be extremely competitive, but playing one of the small stages at Glasto would be amazing. But just getting to play the main stage at Y NOT this year is more than we’d ever thought we’d be doing at this point to be honest.
What is ‘Like This’ about?
The song explores the pain of heartbreak and disappointment when you fancy a girl but they just turn out be straight, although I kept it quite vague in terms of who it’s about because I was scared of outing myself aha. I wrote it back in my school days when I was still quite young and probably naïve so it’s definitely aged a bit lyrically but I wanted to release it as it was and not try to change things. It’s just an emblem of that time.
Regarding music releases, what can we expect from Cat Ryan in the upcoming year?
Our first EP as a band will be coming out towards the end of summer, so we’re very excited about that. It’s gonna consist of 5 songs + a special short track that we’re gonna throw in for the fun!
One tip for other artists such as yourselves?
Keep writing as much music as possible because even if some is rubbish, you’re more likely to end up with at least a few good ones. It’s probably quite an obvious one but also, saving your money by recording at home wherever you can. I don’t think it’s always worth spending a load of money on recording one/two songs in the studio when you could work with a remote producer and get a few songs mixed for a similar price. The quality is still be very decent, it’s just more about getting your music out there. We’re hoping to save more by doing this and further down the line, release a studio album when we’ve got more fans to share it with!
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