Catfish & the Bottlemen
Garage rock and post-punk quartet from Llandudno, with rock'n'roll and indie pop influences.
Catfish and the Bottlemen are a four piece band from Llandudno in Wales. They play attacking, melodic, anthemic, guitar fuelled garage rock songs fizzing with lust, hope, anger and a furious desire to exist.
In just a few frenzied years of existence, Catfish and the Bottlemen, (singer and guitarist Van McCann, lead guitarist Johnny Bond, bassist Benji Blakeway and drummer Bob Hall) have headlined hundreds and hundreds of gigs to increasingly wild and dedicated audiences, been championed by BBC Radio One, MTV and XFM, churned out a series of classic singles and have released an utterly thrilling debut album that positively burns with emotion and ambition.
“I don’t think rock and roll has ever gone away,” says Van. “I just don’t think there’s been a band to believe in. Nobody’s really gone for it and put their whole lives on the line. We got kicked out of school for it, lost girlfriends for it, went on the dole for it, been broke and starving and done everything for it. If you’ve got to go for it, you’ve got to go for it.”
Van McCann talks a good fight. He is proud of being a test tube baby, the IVF child of “free-minded Liverpuddlian parents” who spent his early years travelling around Australia. It was here the young McCann saw a strange busker. “My first memory of music is being sat outside a café watching a guy play a washing line with bottles on it. He was called Catfish the Bottleman. So I thought it was apt to name the band after him. I really wish I hadn’t. Try telling a drunk guy that name for the fifteenth time.”
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