Hi, I'm Josh, an artist/songwriter and I'm on the team here at Atomic Disc. Myself and the rest of our crew get to see so many creative projects come through the laboratory and it's inspiring for us to play some part in helping artists realize their dream of producing a record. In the spirit of spreading knowledge we thought it would be interesting to start interviewing some of them. This week's featured artist interview is Canadian band, Danger Cat.
If you're not hip to the burgeoning music scene in New Brunswick, Canada I'm happy to introduce you to one of Moncton, NB's own. In just a short year and a half Danger Cat have recorded two fantastic EPs and garnered a nomination for a Prix MNB Award. Danger Cat's music breathes new life into rock, a genre long accused of being deceased ( i.e. "rock is dead"). Rock is ALIVE and it can never die as long as bands like Danger Cat carry on the torch.
I got to interview the up-and-coming band after putting together their CDs here at the Atomic Disc Laboratory and they have some great insights about what it's like to be an independent band in New Brunswick:
JS: We've been spinning the Danger Cat EP! Awesome record. Do you have any tour plans?
DC: Right now we've just finished up a brand new EP and have been planning the launch. For the time being the east coast of Canada will be seeing some shows. We're getting all our networking in order for those important gigs in Toronto/Montreal. We're still a self managing band on the grind with almost no talent agencies to work with in Moncton. Yet we are still determined to play our music to the world.
JS: It's been said for many years that "rock is dead." What do you think about that?
DC: Rock is not dead, it's just devised into so many sub genres. Almost everything has a touch of rock. Some artists are just making an effort not to duplicate a song or a chord progression, which is really hard to pull off now 'a days. With that all creativity put into finding a new sound comes a new style. Still Rock!
JS: What's happening in the Moncton, New Brunswick music scene?
DC: Being the only bilingual province in Canada we've got a thriving francophone music scene. Since all of us are french Acadians we get the opportunity to participate in a lot of the festivals, promoting our heritage. This makes the market in favor to the Acadian bands, but for all the right reasons. Seeing that we sing in english and not necessarily about our home land puts us in a weird, but cool position. All that being said Moncton still has a variety of punk, metal, rockabilly, country, pop, DJ's and singer/songwriters. Anyone here can play a song on the guitar, just walk into any of our infamous kitchen parties!
JS: Tell us about your songwriting process? Is it a group thing or a single effort?
DC: It comes from all angles. Sometimes it's just a guitar hook, a bass line, simple chords progression and other times Nic or me(Oliver) have a full song written and the rest of the band just joins in. We give everything a shot and work to see if it makes a decent song. Some make the cut others don't. We play/write what we would like to listen to, which is good loud rock!
JS: In Canada it seems like there is some amazing support for independent artists and we noticed your nomination for a Prix MNB Award. Can you tell us more about this honor?
DC: The Canadian music scene is on a good rise. Everybody wants everybody to do good and we all try to help each other. This coming from a band that is constantly being supported and promoted word of mouth by other bands. As for Music New Brunswick Awards, each province has a ceremony of its own. This stuff also helps the scene. But it's funny, we didn't even expect to get nominations. We're still just a one and a half year old band with an EP that has eight songs, now we kinda consider it an album. We're stoked to be part of the MNBA and to go rock out in front of new faces.
Check out Danger Cat:
Website: www.dangercat.ca
Bandcamp: http://danger-cat.bandcamp.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/band.dangercat
Nice interview Josh . . . will be keeping my eyes (and ears) on the lookout for Danger Cat :)