Welcome to Orlando Weekly's "Band of the Week." Every week, we highlight one of our favorite local bands. This week, we're pleased to bring you Cat Company.
Cat Company is playing Henao Contemporary Center on March 24 with Traveling Infinity, Gold Steps, and Orion.
Just the facts:
When did the band form?
Cat Company, as an idea, started to come about around the later part of 2015 with only our guitarist/songwriter Lawrence Brown. The band then consisted of just our instrumental members through all of 2017 as we worked through the writing and recording process, and searched for a vocalist. We finally formed a full lineup in the winter of 2018, shortly before our debut.
Who's in the band?
Cat Company is a five-piece progressive rock band formed through the combined efforts of songwriter/guitarist Lawrence Brown, producer/guitarist Sean Dolich, drummer Ian Keith, visual artist/bassist Ryan Martinez, and Jay Christian as our singer/frontman.
Currently available releases:
Currently, we have a self-titled, five-track EP available on almost every music streaming platform/store on the internet including Tidal, Youtube, Google/Apple Music, and Spotify. Our main outlet for purchasing music and merchandise is catcompany.bandcamp.com.
Websites:
We utilize all of the major forms of social media but you can keep up with us best through our Instagram and our website, catcompany.bandcamp.com for the latest on merch, event tickets, and of course, new music.
Describe your sound in five words:
Certified Funky Fresh Progressive Rock
Five questions:
What has been your most memorable show so far?
That's a tough one, haha. We've played only a handful of shows but our most recent one where we opened for local heroes Makari on their tour with Softspoken probably takes the cake. We got to play in a venue we had never been in before - and loved it! The crowd was huge and the response was excellent, and it was probably our most solid performance yet
Which local band is your favorite one to play a show with?
We haven't really gotten too comfortable with some of the locals just yet, but we've played plenty of shows with our friends in Makari and those guys really know how to bring the party out. If they're on the bill, just know it's always a blast. Letters to Part is another band from around here who we are looking to play plenty more events with in the near future. They bring a level of musicianship that not too many other bands from around here can harness. A close runner-up would be the guys in DYNE SIDE from Miami who bring an incredible energy that is totally unmatched by any other band we've played with.
What description gets used for your band that you would most
like to correct people on? Why?
There is a little joke that we sound just like the Sacramento-based progressive rock band, Dance Gavin Dance. While we do appreciate the comparison and we did take some influence from them in forming our sound, we'd love to get people more on board with our J-Rock-influenced sound, which should be much more apparent in our new music, or at least have more people take notice of the fact that we're also very much inspired by other acts such as Closure in Moscow, Taking Back Sunday, and The Fall of Troy to name a few. We're all big fans of DGD's earlier works, but so many bands are emerging with such an obvious sign that they've been influenced by that one band, that we'd like to stand out from the crowd just a bit more.
What’s your favorite thing about being an Orlando band? What's your least favorite? Why?
Our most and least favorite thing about being an Orlando band is the crowd. The audence can be a very sharp, double-edged blade. On one hand, we can get large crowds of people out to our shows and every single time, we leave knowing we gave the audience a hell of an experience and they're likely coming back again the next time we play. But it can also be a crazy struggle to get people out unless there's a big headliner on the bill, and while the scene we appeal to is already small in our town, some of those groups of people tend to be very cliquey about the bands they support or even the other people in the crowd. We have so many people who listen to tons of similar bands or come out to our shows because our friends are on the bills, but they always miss out on the openers or leave right after their buddies play.
Any big news to share?
At the moment we're being very, very quiet, but know there is a ton of new material on the way and we're more than confident that it is what is going to set the bar much higher not only for our emerging genre, but for a lot of local bands around us. New music and new merchandise should be around the corner shortly as well!
