Riding Shotgun With Catfish Haven
If you're not familiar with Catfish Haven, you obviously haven't been reading your music blogs. These fellers call the Windy City home these days, but the sounds they make owe as much to Chicago as they do to climes a little further south. Gritty rock'n'roll is the name of the game, and Catfish Haven are pretty darned good at what they're doing. Below you'll find insight into Catfish Haven, provided by the good man of the bass Miguel Castillo. See how Catfish Haven practice what they preach ("Too Hungover to Headbang"), travel light, and won't be too fussy when you buy them a drink. Once you're done reading, you might just want to pick up a ticket to their Black Cat show (September 19th, with Magnolia Electric Co. and Shearwater - $12).
Touring is:
Fun as hell. We love going from city to city seeing old friends and meeting new people. It's like total freedom; you don't have to deal with all the responsibilities from back home. You just
have to show up, rock out, and then get drunk.
Our first gig was:
At this little bar called Phyllis' Musical Inn. We packed the joint but that's not saying much 'cause it's tiny but it was a good first show and we had fun.
Our favorite venue to play is:
In Chicago it would probably be the Empty Bottle.. outside of Chicago I would say Grand Palace Records in Murfreesboro, TN.
Hygiene on a tour is:
Optional...we're not a a fuckin' pretty boy band. We're filthy Americans playing dirty rock and roll. Even our name is filthy...you can't be all clean and spotless when your band is called Catfish Haven.
Our favorite thing about touring is:
Getting to see the world and party with old friends and new friends and getting to play our music for new people. Every show is a challenge where we gotta get up on stage and play our hearts out and try to win over the jaded masses. But that's what we love. We're always down to give it all we got and you can take it or leave it, but at least at the end of the night we know we did our job and there's no regrets.
And the least favorite:
That for some reason in like every city other than Chicago and New York the bars close super earlier. It really puts a damper on trying to have an afterparty.
City with the best audiences:
Chicago of course. Outside of Chicago I would say Murfreesboro/Nashville area in Tennessee.
The tour bus/van smells like:
Roses.
Laundry is: a) washed regularly, b) washed irregularly, c) we go shopping a lot:
None of the above. We travel light. We wear like the same clothes every day.
Who controls the music in the touring vehicle? And what do you like to listen to while tooling around on tour?
We all pick music. Mostly we just put the iPod on random play and let it DJ for us. We listen to everything from Sam Cooke to the Misfits to David Bowie to R Kelly. There's like thousands of songs on our iPod.
Your new favorite watering hole after being on tour? And/or the best place to get greasy, hangover-curing food?
We like going to this Mexican food place called Lazos in Chicago. We really like eating Chilaquiles when we're hungover.
Most amusing memory from your current or most recent tour?
It wasn't necessarily amusing to me but I've been super sleep deprived on this tour, and when we were in Montreal we went to go get food after drinking at this bar and I guess I went into my own booth and went to
sleep while everyone was eating. The waitress made some joke like "what does this guy want to order? a pillow?" They had to trick me into waking up by saying that we had to pick up our backup singers at the airport(which wasn't true). I wasn't even that drunk... I was just delirious from lack of sleep. Also I walked into a pole on the way out of the restaurant. I don't remember any of this but this is what I was told the next day by my band.
Favorite tour activity (other than the gigs themselves):
I mean we like to go do tourist stuff if time allows...we like drinking...
sometimes we play chess...
Are there any bands you've played with that you'd like to tour with again? And/or bands that you have yet to tour with that you'd like to?
We'd love to tour with Pink Mountaintops again but basically every band we've toured with has been cool so I'd totally tour with them all again... there's a bunch of bands I would like to tour with...my
dream tour would be with the Rolling Stones...
Please name the city you wouldn't ever play in again?
We have fun pretty much every city we go to.... and we almost never turn down a show so I don't know if there is a city that I wouldn't play again...
Or, if not a
particular city, which venue makes your skin crawl?
Off hand I can't think of any venues that made our skin crawl. It takes a lot to scare us off.
Apart from the obvious cd, what's the merch item of yours you think people should shell out for?
The only other merch we have is T-shirts... BUT we're in the process of making black light posters so when those are ready people should totally buy them...
What's the best souvenier you've picked up on your touring?
I don't really know...we never go shopping... all the money we make usually goes into the gas tank or to feed us...we're men of few possessions.
Have you been to the top of the Washington Monument?
No but we were at the bottom of it. We went all over D.C. and saw all the historical stuff, it was pretty fun.
You've recently had an unfortunate hacking incident. Any special message you'd like to issue to all the hackers out there?
It was lame, these people in England hacked onto our Myspace account and our email
account and they were doing it to promote online gambling and crap like that. I mean if you're gonna hack us at least draw mustaches and
devil horns on our pictures don't just try to spam people about online poker...
What's your favorite thing that's been written about the band thus far?
Our CMJ review for our Please Come Back EP was awesome. It's nice when people understand what we're doing but you can't get caught up in the reviews you just gotta do what you do the way you want to do it, and as long as you're happy then that's what matters.
Ever been "too hungover to headbang?"
Many times...I'm the one that actually came up with that song title at band practice after a night of drinking.
What would you like people to be saying about Catfish Haven in 50 years?
That we did what we did with honesty and raw emotion and that we made some good music that was free of the bullshit.
Please recite a line of poetry:
"There once was a man from Nantucket"
And finally, it's BigYawn's round. What's your poison?
Alcohol.
More Catfish Haven details can be found at the following addresses: www.catfishhaven.com, www.myspace.com/catfishhaven.
picture by myspace