Australia’s hardest working band, The Cat Empire, is hitting Alberta this month touring behind its Live On Earth album. Famous for the dynamic intensity that they bring to their live shows, the six-piece successfully and beautifully harnesses disparate and eclectic musical elements from various genres of music. Mixing elements of Reggae, Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Funk and Pop with straight-up Hip Hop and Rock vocals, The Cat Empire delivers an infectious and unforgettable performance each and every time they hit the stage.
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine caught up with vocalist/percussionist Felix Riebel on the phone from Melbourne, where the band was preparing for the tour. You can tell the band is dedicated to touring when they leave to a much colder climate.
“We took some time off last year and we haven’t been to Canada in over a year. We are going to be making an album next year so we thought it was time to get back for a bit of a reconnaissance and promote our live album, which we made on our time off. We listened to all the recordings from around the world and it is a good album, we thought it deserved to be toured and Canada is a great place to play for us,” he explained.
“There is a similarity between the audiences in Australia and Canada, they seem to be a really spirited crowd. I am not sure what it is, I think because both countries have real travelers. As a band we have attracted people who want music to take with you on some kind of a journey. Canadians and Australians share that same wanderlust, they love to go places and experience their music. We enjoy playing Canada or we wouldn’t leave Australian summer to go do a Canadian winter tour. We always have good crowds and shows there. It is all music anyway. There are cultural familiarities and differences but with music you don’t really worry about that and just focus on playing.”
Since its inception in 2001, The Cat Empire has focused on being a world music project. From travelling with large bands to sideshow tents to huge rock festivals and small dance clubs. The experience has taken them all over the world. Worldwide exposure is the focus of their current album.
“It is the way it turned out, really. We are moving around so much as a band and went through different periods in development from album to album and tour to tour. We would just record shows. It captures the nature of what we are doing, we are moving around so much and different songs work on different nights. It seemed like the best kind of album we could make. We have some songs in a concert hall playing with an orchestra, some in a really small bar in New York, and some from an outdoor festival stage on New Year’s Eve in Australia. It is a really diverse group of places but it works, I think. It feels like a show albeit one that skips around the world.”
The group has often recorded and played live with a number of guest musicians.
“As a band we have always been music first and foremost. Few of us actually knew each other that well before we started playing together and once we started something clicked. The musicians are really talented and there are so many influences in their music, so we have played with an enormous amount of people. Our first overseas festival we played from 3 to 6 in the morning for 21 nights in a row. A lot of the performers in these shows would not only come down and check out the gig but play with us. At some points we would have between 10 and 15 people on stage depending on how wild it got. We have had eastern European violinists, comedians improvising spoken word stuff, Scottish bagpipers, and sword swallowers. There was this pandemonium that we learned to adapt to, the idea that the more chaotic it was the more we enjoyed ourselves. We learned to do that quite well. So it gets reminiscent of what it once was, we will invite local musicians to play with us or go out on tour with us. The last tour we played with a flamenco quartet and a string quartet because it made the shows interesting for us. You have to find ways to make it fresh I suppose.”
The Cat Empire plays the Starlite Room in Edmonton November 20th and MacEwan Hall November 21st. With over 750 live shows in their career, you can expect an incredible experience.
“The band is playing well at the moment. We had some time off and are pretty relaxed. Touring the live album means we will be playing some older songs that never made it on to studio albums, some that was main stage for us, and some we are working on for the new album. They are going to get the best of what we’ve done with a bit of humour as well. It is going to be a fresh tour and we are looking forward to coming.”
