I must admit, I’ve gone a bit off the rail, I had not one, not two, but three cups of tea today!
This is not really an interview, more like an elevator chat. Why? Well, first of all, talking to someone as down to earth and straightforward like Chris Catalyst is not your usual music interview; second... this actually happened in an elevator! You don’t believe me? Here are the pictures to prove it.
And now, meet Mr Chris Catalyst from Leeds’ next big thing Eureka Machines, who, I’d like to remind you, are playing a very special gig this Thursday at London’s Islington Academy...
Altsounds: How did this support come around?
Chris Catalyst: Well, I was playing with Sorry & The Sinatras anyway, on Wednesday, we played with Eureka Machines in York, and then they were staying at my house for a couple of nights. On the Friday the support band dropped down, and so they said “do you wanna come out and do an acoustic?”... Well, actually at first it was about Eureka Machines, but they couldn’t so I said I’d come out and do an acoustic thing, and here I am!
Altsounds: Is this the first time you have done acoustic?
Chris Catalyst: No no, I’ve been doing it for years, on and off, just a couple of my songs, a couple of covers, just a bit of a laugh really!
Altsounds: I’m gonna have a laugh tonight then?
Chris Catalyst: Yeah yeah! Well, that’s the point for me, you know! In the truest original sense of the support, I'm supposed to be a warm up act kind of thing, my job is to warm up the audience, and it’s good fun!
Altsounds: Eureka Machines’s only album, “Do or Die”, came out in 2008; did you expect it to go down that well with both critics and public?
Chris Catalyst: No! I hoped that it would! I mean, it went down quite well, it had some very nice reviews, quite a few, but we haven’t “broken through” to the next kind of level where you can basically make a living from it. The other bands I play in pays me enough to live out of that, but the other guys have to work day jobs, so the next step is to get to a point where they can also quit their day jobs.
Altsounds: You are already quite popular though, and I’ve seen your name in the likes of “Classic Rock” and even “The Sun” as one of the newcomers to keep an eye on, a potential “next big thing”...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, that was really good, it was nice and worked out really well, 73 billion people read that, but unfortunately it didn’t sort of translate into stellar deal. We didn’t expect it overnight, but the thing I’ve heard more and more about doing bands, is that you need that machinery behind you: the agent, and the press guy, and the label and all that sort of stuff, if you’re gonna make a real band like that, and unfortunately all those people are often a bit useless, so we end up doing everything ourselves, at least we know if we’re useless it is our fault!
Altsounds: So the difference is in what you have behind you?
Chris Catalyst: I think so. You know, people say nowadays with the internet you don’t need all that, but I think more than ever you need that, because the internet is great, but it does mean that unfortunately as a new band you’re kind of swimming in a sea of shit, whilst before it was different. It’s really easy to be in a band now, it never used to be that easy to be in a band, and this is why the good ones would generally break through, while right now there’s just loads and loads of bands, because everyone’s got MySpace, you don’t even need a website really. Now more than ever I think you need a website, because everybody’s got a MySpace, so it helps you distinguish yourself.
Altsounds: I hate when they send me only a link to a MySpace profile!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, and they sound shit! It’s important to me that people kind of... I use this analogy a lot: when my sister was younger, it was her who got me into music, she’s nine years older than me. She used to get fanzines at gigs she went to in the Eighties, like indie and rock fanzines, and they were a labour of love by those who put them together; someone had to borrow a typewriter and type it all out, stick it all together, then find a photocopier, and the people who wanted to do it were clearly so committed to it, because it was such hard work! And now as soon as someone gets a blog they’re all music critics. It’s the same for bands, it’s so easy to record now. Again, I remember being fifteen and starting a band, saving up for months and months, money to go in a studio for a weekend, and because we were so committed to it we’d do it; and then sitting and copying tapes, for hours and hours, and sending them out to all these labels, and they never gave a shit. But now it’s really easy, if you’ve got a computer you can make an album, which is great, and very handy, but it gets overcrowded with rubbish. I think it has to get worst before it gets better, but it will get better.
Altsounds: So, being your album is now almost two years old, do you have something else coming out?
Chris Catalyst: Yes, we’re recording at the moment and I hope we’ll have something out by the end of the year. It’s a new album and it sounds very good so far. We’re doing it more properly than the last one, the last one was just a bunch of demos that fell together and felt all right, so we kind of put it out, while with this one we’re putting our minds to it, made a bit of an effort. Even though we quite like the last one.
Altsounds: Are you going to do everything by yourselves again?
Chris Catalyst: No no, we did the drums like the last one at Cottage Grove Studios in Leeds, Jase Edwards is producing it, well, with a little bit of help from me, but it’s nice just to be the singer and the guitarist and the songwriter again. I mean, I’m still doing a lot with it, but it’s a lot more a band project, the last one kind of was mainly me and Wayne, the drummer, while this one I wanted it to be more of a band effort.
Altsounds: Are you going to look for a label this time?
Chris Catalyst: Well, we did have a label last time (Wrath Records), but it just happened to be the bass player’s label, and he’s still a favourite friend of ours, but I think we need to be looking for something better and further afield for this one, just to give it the kind of exposure which I think it hopefully deserves.
Altsounds: What kind of label are you looking for, are we talking majors?
Chris Catalyst: Part of me thinks we should just put it out all by ourselves again, because then again if we screw up we only have ourselves to blame, while if we do it with someone else, then they could just decide not to put it out as the band say, or not promote it. If we sell 2,000 copies again, and do it ourselves, then we can keep the cash, which is not going to be much, but is going to be enough to keep our band running and could be buying, you know, strings, and sticks, and stay in a hotel every now and then rather than on people’s floor. But if we could put it out with someone else and we still only sell 2,000 copies, we won’t see any money for it. I don’t really know what to do at the moment, we’ll suss it out.
Altsounds: Well, with all the downloading and that, surely you make more money off shows than record sales anyway!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, that’s what makes me wonder what the whole point is sometimes, but the point is that I do think that if you’re good at something, then you should be doing it as much as you can, and I sort of see my role in life to try and entertain people a bit, give them a bit of fun, and I like to think that I got really good at it now, and so it would be nice to give it as much exposure as possible. As you say, everyone downloads stuff for free, but you’re not gonna stop that.
Altsounds: If it makes you feel any better, I really wouldn’t feel good downloading from you, although I wouldn’t feel too guilty about ripping off Metallica... (laughs)
Chris Catalyst: I think people now start to realize it’s a bit different downloading from us or downloading, for example, a U2 album, or Metallica, or Kaiser Chiefs. But you know, the Kaiser Chiefs guys for example are good friends of mine, we both work incredibly hard at what we do, and really, they don’t deserve their album being ripped off anymore than we do. It's just that they happen to get paid quite a lot more than we do (laughs). I’d like to think that it’s different downloading our stuff, but really it’s not, it’s kind of exactly the same.
Altsounds: Personally, I tend to condone it, or at least put the blame on the artist, when an album has two good songs and ten fillers...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, I know what you mean! But I don’t think many bands actually do that, I think bands tend to try to put together the best album they possibly can, it’s just that sometimes they’re wrong (laughs).
Altsounds: They THINK it’s good! (laughs)
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, they THINK it’s cool, but actually... (laughs) I’m not talking about anyone specifically, but I do think that the bands who will come out the best are the ones who care the most, so I think the way to do it now is to do the best possible record that you can and put it in the best possible package that you can, and give people something really nice to have, that you can’t download...
You can’t download a beautiful picture sleeve with a wood carving by the bass player, or whatever it is. I think that’s what people want, you can do a very nice product.
Altsounds: Do you think the relationship with your fan base is important as well?
Chris Catalyst: Totally. I feel weird calling the people that come to see us “fans”, ‘cause it makes me feel like a bit of a twat to be honest! (laughs) We know a lot of them, and most are like mates, but again, I think if you turn up at your gigs pissed out of your face, and play twenty minutes and fall on the drum kit, then you deserve all the fans that you get, which isn’t gonna be that many. You may be in the tabloids and stuff, Pete Doherty has been doing that for the past two years, but he still plays to five hundred people with Babyshambles, which is not bad really for a guy that is always in the tabloids for bad things, he just sold out the Duchess in York which is a great venue, but it's not big.
Altsounds: You turn up for his gigs not even knowing if they’re going to happen anyway...
Chris Catalyst: That’s the exact truth. I met Peter a couple of times, the first time he was great, the second time was after he got into the grip of all sort of things he shouldn’t have got into the grip of, and he was an ignorant fuckwit, but this is what happens to people when they get involved with hard drugs.
Altsounds: So, talking about sex drugs and rock’n’roll, what part of that lifestyle do you embrace?
Chris Catalyst: Well, today I must admit, I’ve gone a bit off the rail, I had not one, not two, but three cups of tea today! I’ve given up smoking, I don’t really drink that much anymore, I’m not taking drugs since ages, but my idea of rock’n’roll now is turning up and doing a really good gig. I turned thirty recently, and I can’t... especially with Eureka Machines, we’re going out, driving ourselves and sleeping on people’s floors, we’re setting up all our own gear without any crew, without anything like that, and so you can’t go out and get wrecked every night for three weeks and do a three week tour, playing every night, whilst driving yourselves and do everything yourselves and play good gigs. It’s impossible, and I’d rather just do good gigs really! That’s my idea of fun these days.
Altsounds: Talking of good gigs, you’re playing London at the end of this month...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, we’re playing London on April 29th, it’s just one show, not a tour. Hopefully we’ll have a single out in July from the new album and we’ll be doing a few dates around that, but we’ll be playing London at the end of the month, Thursday April 29th, which will be awesome. It’s got a good line up, it’s us, Shush, Night By Night and special guests.
Altsounds: Why just one gig?
Chris Catalyst: Because... To be honest, we need to play London, because we’ve got a lot of people that want to come and see us, industry types, so we have to do this gig, which is why we we're kind of hoping that people would turn up, fans and friends, to make us look good to the industry, agents and press that are coming to see us! (laughs). And it’s a really good line up!
Altsounds: Don’t know if you can answer this, but is there any “industry type” that you are particularly looking forward to see at that gig?
Chris Catalyst: To be honest with you, I hate doing all this sort of industry stuff, but we need to do it. There’s a bunch of agents coming, ‘cause it’s all well and good being a good band and playing a lot, and we built up a small, burgeoning fan base across the country, which is great, but like I said without the machinery behind you it’s incredibly hard to carry on to the next level. In the major cities around the country there are always fifty, sixty people that will come and see us, which is nice, but we want to make that 500-600. The way of doing that is to book a couple of decent tours, getting some decent festivals, getting some radio play, this is the main aim really for this London gig.
Altsounds: You’ve got some good friends in London to help!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah!
Altsounds: I mean, just look at what Rich did with that Dollar$ for Deadbeat$ gig...
Chris Catalyst: That was amazing! Was amazing to see just how music can bring people together to help out a friend.
Altsounds: There seem to be a very tight community around the UK’s punk rock scene...
Chris Catalyst: Totally! I think that’s brilliant!
Altsounds: Are you still having fun with all of this?
Chris Catalyst: Oh yeah! I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun, I’m certainly not doing it for the money. It’s fun. To be honest, we made a conscious decision at the end of last year, well, to be fair, I made it: we spent like a year and a half just playing anywhere with Eureka Machines, a year and a half just trying to build up a bit of a fan base, and we found with certain places we’d go back and it’d be great, a bit better every time, but then others... we’d be playing for like nine people in Mansfield, and it just gets soul destroying: you’re giving up your weekend and all your time to go playing for no money, to no people, and you think “Well, I like our group, and I think we’re pretty good”. So we made a conscious decision, not to get it down, but to concentrate on the good stuff really, if anything get it up, ‘cause there’s not much point going to Mansfield on a wet Tuesday night basically.
As much as we had a really nice curry there though, that was really nice! Everything was really nice, the people that were there (basically the sound guy and the bar staff) really liked us, but if there’s not a crowd there for it there’s not a lot of point doing it, so we decided to stop doing that. But the main thing is that the buzz in Eureka Machines is great, and we all like playing and showing it off a bit and having a laugh, and so even the nights like that are still fun!
Altsounds: Ok, time to let you go... Anything else you would like to tell our readers?
Chris Catalyst: Come to our gig on Thursday, the 29th of April, at Islington Academy in London, and wear your heart on your sleeve!
And now, meet Mr Chris Catalyst from Leeds’ next big thing Eureka Machines, who, I’d like to remind you, are playing a very special gig this Thursday at London’s Islington Academy...
Altsounds: How did this support come around?
Chris Catalyst: Well, I was playing with Sorry & The Sinatras anyway, on Wednesday, we played with Eureka Machines in York, and then they were staying at my house for a couple of nights. On the Friday the support band dropped down, and so they said “do you wanna come out and do an acoustic?”... Well, actually at first it was about Eureka Machines, but they couldn’t so I said I’d come out and do an acoustic thing, and here I am!
Altsounds: Is this the first time you have done acoustic?
Chris Catalyst: No no, I’ve been doing it for years, on and off, just a couple of my songs, a couple of covers, just a bit of a laugh really!
Altsounds: I’m gonna have a laugh tonight then?
Chris Catalyst: Yeah yeah! Well, that’s the point for me, you know! In the truest original sense of the support, I'm supposed to be a warm up act kind of thing, my job is to warm up the audience, and it’s good fun!
Altsounds: Eureka Machines’s only album, “Do or Die”, came out in 2008; did you expect it to go down that well with both critics and public?
Chris Catalyst: No! I hoped that it would! I mean, it went down quite well, it had some very nice reviews, quite a few, but we haven’t “broken through” to the next kind of level where you can basically make a living from it. The other bands I play in pays me enough to live out of that, but the other guys have to work day jobs, so the next step is to get to a point where they can also quit their day jobs.
Altsounds: You are already quite popular though, and I’ve seen your name in the likes of “Classic Rock” and even “The Sun” as one of the newcomers to keep an eye on, a potential “next big thing”...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, that was really good, it was nice and worked out really well, 73 billion people read that, but unfortunately it didn’t sort of translate into stellar deal. We didn’t expect it overnight, but the thing I’ve heard more and more about doing bands, is that you need that machinery behind you: the agent, and the press guy, and the label and all that sort of stuff, if you’re gonna make a real band like that, and unfortunately all those people are often a bit useless, so we end up doing everything ourselves, at least we know if we’re useless it is our fault!
Altsounds: So the difference is in what you have behind you?
Chris Catalyst: I think so. You know, people say nowadays with the internet you don’t need all that, but I think more than ever you need that, because the internet is great, but it does mean that unfortunately as a new band you’re kind of swimming in a sea of shit, whilst before it was different. It’s really easy to be in a band now, it never used to be that easy to be in a band, and this is why the good ones would generally break through, while right now there’s just loads and loads of bands, because everyone’s got MySpace, you don’t even need a website really. Now more than ever I think you need a website, because everybody’s got a MySpace, so it helps you distinguish yourself.
Altsounds: I hate when they send me only a link to a MySpace profile!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, and they sound shit! It’s important to me that people kind of... I use this analogy a lot: when my sister was younger, it was her who got me into music, she’s nine years older than me. She used to get fanzines at gigs she went to in the Eighties, like indie and rock fanzines, and they were a labour of love by those who put them together; someone had to borrow a typewriter and type it all out, stick it all together, then find a photocopier, and the people who wanted to do it were clearly so committed to it, because it was such hard work! And now as soon as someone gets a blog they’re all music critics. It’s the same for bands, it’s so easy to record now. Again, I remember being fifteen and starting a band, saving up for months and months, money to go in a studio for a weekend, and because we were so committed to it we’d do it; and then sitting and copying tapes, for hours and hours, and sending them out to all these labels, and they never gave a shit. But now it’s really easy, if you’ve got a computer you can make an album, which is great, and very handy, but it gets overcrowded with rubbish. I think it has to get worst before it gets better, but it will get better.
Altsounds: So, being your album is now almost two years old, do you have something else coming out?
Chris Catalyst: Yes, we’re recording at the moment and I hope we’ll have something out by the end of the year. It’s a new album and it sounds very good so far. We’re doing it more properly than the last one, the last one was just a bunch of demos that fell together and felt all right, so we kind of put it out, while with this one we’re putting our minds to it, made a bit of an effort. Even though we quite like the last one.
Altsounds: Are you going to do everything by yourselves again?
Chris Catalyst: No no, we did the drums like the last one at Cottage Grove Studios in Leeds, Jase Edwards is producing it, well, with a little bit of help from me, but it’s nice just to be the singer and the guitarist and the songwriter again. I mean, I’m still doing a lot with it, but it’s a lot more a band project, the last one kind of was mainly me and Wayne, the drummer, while this one I wanted it to be more of a band effort.
Altsounds: Are you going to look for a label this time?
Chris Catalyst: Well, we did have a label last time (Wrath Records), but it just happened to be the bass player’s label, and he’s still a favourite friend of ours, but I think we need to be looking for something better and further afield for this one, just to give it the kind of exposure which I think it hopefully deserves.
Altsounds: What kind of label are you looking for, are we talking majors?
Chris Catalyst: Part of me thinks we should just put it out all by ourselves again, because then again if we screw up we only have ourselves to blame, while if we do it with someone else, then they could just decide not to put it out as the band say, or not promote it. If we sell 2,000 copies again, and do it ourselves, then we can keep the cash, which is not going to be much, but is going to be enough to keep our band running and could be buying, you know, strings, and sticks, and stay in a hotel every now and then rather than on people’s floor. But if we could put it out with someone else and we still only sell 2,000 copies, we won’t see any money for it. I don’t really know what to do at the moment, we’ll suss it out.
Altsounds: Well, with all the downloading and that, surely you make more money off shows than record sales anyway!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, that’s what makes me wonder what the whole point is sometimes, but the point is that I do think that if you’re good at something, then you should be doing it as much as you can, and I sort of see my role in life to try and entertain people a bit, give them a bit of fun, and I like to think that I got really good at it now, and so it would be nice to give it as much exposure as possible. As you say, everyone downloads stuff for free, but you’re not gonna stop that.
Altsounds: If it makes you feel any better, I really wouldn’t feel good downloading from you, although I wouldn’t feel too guilty about ripping off Metallica... (laughs)
Chris Catalyst: I think people now start to realize it’s a bit different downloading from us or downloading, for example, a U2 album, or Metallica, or Kaiser Chiefs. But you know, the Kaiser Chiefs guys for example are good friends of mine, we both work incredibly hard at what we do, and really, they don’t deserve their album being ripped off anymore than we do. It's just that they happen to get paid quite a lot more than we do (laughs). I’d like to think that it’s different downloading our stuff, but really it’s not, it’s kind of exactly the same.
Altsounds: Personally, I tend to condone it, or at least put the blame on the artist, when an album has two good songs and ten fillers...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, I know what you mean! But I don’t think many bands actually do that, I think bands tend to try to put together the best album they possibly can, it’s just that sometimes they’re wrong (laughs).
Altsounds: They THINK it’s good! (laughs)
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, they THINK it’s cool, but actually... (laughs) I’m not talking about anyone specifically, but I do think that the bands who will come out the best are the ones who care the most, so I think the way to do it now is to do the best possible record that you can and put it in the best possible package that you can, and give people something really nice to have, that you can’t download...
You can’t download a beautiful picture sleeve with a wood carving by the bass player, or whatever it is. I think that’s what people want, you can do a very nice product.
Altsounds: Do you think the relationship with your fan base is important as well?
Chris Catalyst: Totally. I feel weird calling the people that come to see us “fans”, ‘cause it makes me feel like a bit of a twat to be honest! (laughs) We know a lot of them, and most are like mates, but again, I think if you turn up at your gigs pissed out of your face, and play twenty minutes and fall on the drum kit, then you deserve all the fans that you get, which isn’t gonna be that many. You may be in the tabloids and stuff, Pete Doherty has been doing that for the past two years, but he still plays to five hundred people with Babyshambles, which is not bad really for a guy that is always in the tabloids for bad things, he just sold out the Duchess in York which is a great venue, but it's not big.
Altsounds: You turn up for his gigs not even knowing if they’re going to happen anyway...
Chris Catalyst: That’s the exact truth. I met Peter a couple of times, the first time he was great, the second time was after he got into the grip of all sort of things he shouldn’t have got into the grip of, and he was an ignorant fuckwit, but this is what happens to people when they get involved with hard drugs.
Altsounds: So, talking about sex drugs and rock’n’roll, what part of that lifestyle do you embrace?
Chris Catalyst: Well, today I must admit, I’ve gone a bit off the rail, I had not one, not two, but three cups of tea today! I’ve given up smoking, I don’t really drink that much anymore, I’m not taking drugs since ages, but my idea of rock’n’roll now is turning up and doing a really good gig. I turned thirty recently, and I can’t... especially with Eureka Machines, we’re going out, driving ourselves and sleeping on people’s floors, we’re setting up all our own gear without any crew, without anything like that, and so you can’t go out and get wrecked every night for three weeks and do a three week tour, playing every night, whilst driving yourselves and do everything yourselves and play good gigs. It’s impossible, and I’d rather just do good gigs really! That’s my idea of fun these days.
Altsounds: Talking of good gigs, you’re playing London at the end of this month...
Chris Catalyst: Yeah, we’re playing London on April 29th, it’s just one show, not a tour. Hopefully we’ll have a single out in July from the new album and we’ll be doing a few dates around that, but we’ll be playing London at the end of the month, Thursday April 29th, which will be awesome. It’s got a good line up, it’s us, Shush, Night By Night and special guests.
Altsounds: Why just one gig?
Chris Catalyst: Because... To be honest, we need to play London, because we’ve got a lot of people that want to come and see us, industry types, so we have to do this gig, which is why we we're kind of hoping that people would turn up, fans and friends, to make us look good to the industry, agents and press that are coming to see us! (laughs). And it’s a really good line up!
Altsounds: Don’t know if you can answer this, but is there any “industry type” that you are particularly looking forward to see at that gig?
Chris Catalyst: To be honest with you, I hate doing all this sort of industry stuff, but we need to do it. There’s a bunch of agents coming, ‘cause it’s all well and good being a good band and playing a lot, and we built up a small, burgeoning fan base across the country, which is great, but like I said without the machinery behind you it’s incredibly hard to carry on to the next level. In the major cities around the country there are always fifty, sixty people that will come and see us, which is nice, but we want to make that 500-600. The way of doing that is to book a couple of decent tours, getting some decent festivals, getting some radio play, this is the main aim really for this London gig.
Altsounds: You’ve got some good friends in London to help!
Chris Catalyst: Yeah!
Altsounds: I mean, just look at what Rich did with that Dollar$ for Deadbeat$ gig...
Chris Catalyst: That was amazing! Was amazing to see just how music can bring people together to help out a friend.
Altsounds: There seem to be a very tight community around the UK’s punk rock scene...
Chris Catalyst: Totally! I think that’s brilliant!
Altsounds: Are you still having fun with all of this?
Chris Catalyst: Oh yeah! I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun, I’m certainly not doing it for the money. It’s fun. To be honest, we made a conscious decision at the end of last year, well, to be fair, I made it: we spent like a year and a half just playing anywhere with Eureka Machines, a year and a half just trying to build up a bit of a fan base, and we found with certain places we’d go back and it’d be great, a bit better every time, but then others... we’d be playing for like nine people in Mansfield, and it just gets soul destroying: you’re giving up your weekend and all your time to go playing for no money, to no people, and you think “Well, I like our group, and I think we’re pretty good”. So we made a conscious decision, not to get it down, but to concentrate on the good stuff really, if anything get it up, ‘cause there’s not much point going to Mansfield on a wet Tuesday night basically.
As much as we had a really nice curry there though, that was really nice! Everything was really nice, the people that were there (basically the sound guy and the bar staff) really liked us, but if there’s not a crowd there for it there’s not a lot of point doing it, so we decided to stop doing that. But the main thing is that the buzz in Eureka Machines is great, and we all like playing and showing it off a bit and having a laugh, and so even the nights like that are still fun!
Altsounds: Ok, time to let you go... Anything else you would like to tell our readers?
Chris Catalyst: Come to our gig on Thursday, the 29th of April, at Islington Academy in London, and wear your heart on your sleeve!
