This past Tuesday night, Cat Ridgeway & The Tourists came to The Flat Iron in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Flat Iron — a small, 200-capacity venue — honestly doesn't see many notable acts. However, it's a great spot for shows as it allows for an intimate atmosphere.
Based out of Orlando, Cat Ridgeway is known for her soulful vocals and dynamic, energetic performances. She's just released her latest single, "Epilogue," off of her forthcoming album, Sprinter, due out in 2025.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Cat before the show about the single, the upcoming album, how she got into music, and more!
What is your go-to karaoke song?
Cat: I've only ever done the karaoke bar thing one time, and I think, if I remember right, I sang "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, which was just like, honestly, that was not the vibe. I would like to find a better one. I feel like a Paramore song would be a really fun time though. I don't know which one.
What was your favorite band when you first got into music?
Cat: My first favorite band... I think Tegan and Sarah was my first favorite band. It was around the era of The Con, and that sonic realm has always grabbed me. And I remember, actually, they had a guest appearance on CBC Radio Three, and Tegan did this podcast where she showed a bunch of the bands and stuff that she was into at the time, and it was literally someone gave me indie rock on its silver platter and was like, Hey, here's all the stuff you're going to love literally forever. And I still have it saved on an old iPod that's way out of issue, and I do regularly go back to it. Yeah, so that was my first favorite band, and then that band introduced me to the world.
Like a gateway drug.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm very grateful to them.
That kind of goes into my next question — tell me about your journey with creating music. How did you get started? What ignited that passion for you?
Cat: For sure. When I was in probably kindergarten, my brother started taking guitar lessons and I used to just sit in the corner and stalk him while he was taking the lessons. And I thought it was super cool, and I always thought my brother was the coolest. He's three years older than me.
Mine is, too!
Cat: Yeah. So you know what I'm talking about. And I was just like, oh man, I want to be cool like Mitch. So, I asked my parents if I could start taking guitar lessons. They were like, sure, I mean, if you want to. And at that time, my hands were physically too small to get all the way around the guitar neck, and I just couldn't physically play. So, I ended up taking drum lessons instead for about a year. And I only got diagnosed two years ago, but I have a ADHD and didn't know that as a kid, and neither did my parents. So my drum teacher was like, man, she's not practicing at all. And I would come in, though, and I'd know how to play the stuff, right, because I could just hear him play it and play it back. But my technique was just shit, and he could tell.
And, so, that started the journey though. My brother got me into it. And then from there he started getting into recording. So, we had a little eight track recording system in our house, and I'd come home every day in middle school, and high school, and just start laying down tracks and learning how to build a sound with different elements. I joined the school band when I was in fourth grade, and that also taught me a lot about arrangement. I went to a tiny, tiny Catholic school and our band was only probably 15 kids in total. So trying to have sections with different parts in the arrangement was almost impossible for us to cover all the ground. And so, when my band instructor realized how into music I was — he was incredible, shoutout to Brad Hudson! — He had me playing trumpet, trombone drums, piano, and singing. Between playing all these different instruments and they're all in different parts of the arrangement, playing with the school band, I learned how a baseline works, how a lead line works, how a counter melody works. And so it was like, oh, all these elements really do work together in different ways. So, I started just messing around with that, and my brother and I, it was so funny, we never really collaborated when we were both learning all the same stuff at the same time for ourselves, and now we're in the band together. So from there it was just starting to play out.
Who are your biggest musical influences?
Cat: At this point in time? Because it has changed so much, but right now I'm extremely inspired by Mk.Gee. I really love what he's doing in terms of guitar tone and production. The marker for me of a top 10 favorite album of all time is if someone's made something that I can't compare to something else. It's just a singular thing. And his record Two Star & the Dream Police is that, I cannot compare that to anything. Also, in that same vein, Bon Iver is right up there with the record, 22, a million. I just adore it. Other really big influences at the moment — Big thief, Pine Grove Indigo, Sylan Esso... And I've been starting actually to kind of go into more of the singer-songwriter realm. I've been listening to some more John Prine recently just for lyricism and stuff like that, which has been really interesting. Not usually the kind of stuff I'm like, you know what? I want to listen to today, singer-songwriter country. But man, when it's done well, it's really done well. And John Prine did it, arguably, the best. And Kris Kristofferson too, with his passing, unfortunately. It made me want to go back and take the deep dive into his catalog. And I have some songwriter friends like Shawn Mullins and a couple other folks in that realm who had been friends with Kris and spoke so highly of him. It really makes me want to dive way deeper into his work than I have.
Yeah. So your music blends elements of different genres and styles. How do you approach that when you're writing and recording, you kind of set out to do that, or does it just kind of happen?
Cat: About 90% of it is it just happening, because I don't like to mess with the creative process if it feels like we're capturing lightning in a bottle. But also, I had a vision for this record and the song "What If" specifically, which we actually just sound-checked with, you might've caught part of it. But I wrote this little riff on a banjo, and I remember taking it into the studio and telling Mike, my co-producer, I was like, dude, this sounds like a bluegrass song, I do not want a bluegrass song on this record. No shade on Bluegrass, though, it's some of the most badass music out there. Talk about some cats playing music, bluegrass players know how to shred, but I didn't want that. But it didn't feel like it fit with the rest of what I was doing on this record. And he was like, alright, so let's not make bluegrass decisions. And so we did everything to push it out of that zone and really did end up being its own thing because we took it in unexpected ways. And I really do taking a hard left turn because it's like, well, what would the listener expect us to do? Let's do not that.
So what can you share about the creative process behind "Epilogue" that just came out?
Cat: Yeah, that one was weird. That song, I've never made a song like that before. Basically, my brother started off playing music and doing cover gigs, and I used to play on his breaks. And then it became us playing together over time. And one of the songs he used to cover was "Talk On Indolence" by The Avett Brothers, which I don't know if you're familiar with that song, but it starts off with this really rowdy stomp and holler really, really fast, stomp and holler vocal thing. And by the time you get into the song and the band kicks in, everyone's already just at a fever pitch. And we used to cover it as a band. And we had that in our set for over two years probably. And I loved the dynamic high that we would hit in the set list, having that song. And I was like, man, I don't want to have to play a cover to hit that same peak in the show, and I want to write a song that does the same thing. So I started writing these lyrics and I just started with more simple rhymes than I'm used to writing with, and then it just kind of spun out into this huge thing. And I showed it to Mike when we got in the studio, but I didn't have the melody or anything yet. I was just like, all I have is a lyric, which normally I write with melody first. And so that was really weird and kind of difficult for me to flip it in a one. And so that's the only song I have ever recorded remotely, completely remotely, where I took the lyric and I just made a really rough demo at my studio, and I sent it to Mike and he was like, no, no, no, this is good. This is good. Don't do it. Re-record it. And I was like, alright. And I trust Mike with my life, so I'm like, all right, do your worst. We had been talking about sixties psychedelic rock, seventies garage rock kind of stuff. And so he's like, I want to try to add some elements like that. And I was like, yeah, to me it's like Violent Femmes meets The Pixies or something. And he's like, yeah. So I showed him, what's the song, "Crackity Jones" by Pixies, which is very stomp and holler, or if you took it to a folk realm, it's right. And I was like, huh, this is cool with the banjo. And anyway, we just started pulling all of these elements from all these different places. So it was like, all right, let's take this Pixies drone note on the guitar. Let's take the stomp and holler rhythm from The Avett Brothers and this loud yelling thing from The Avett Brothers. And I know I want to play a drum solo on the banjo itself because the banjo is a drum, and I know I want this, I want it to go hard. And so we just started cherry picking all these elements and putting it together. And so, by the time Mike and I had gotten it to a certain place, then he sent it to his drummer in a third studio and he puts drums on it. And then they sent it back to me and I was like, whoa, what did we do? And it was literally, it was like all of us threw a different fruit into a blender, and then we were like, damn, that does taste good. A very weird process for me though. I've never worked like that before.
Alright, so Sprinter is coming out next Spring! What can you share about the album, if anything?
Cat: (11:03):
Yeah. Well, I mean, we're going to be sharing pretty much the whole thing tonight on stage and I'm very excited about it. This is the first record I have coming out via CEN and Sony's The Orchard. So we have legitimate distribution behind it this go around, which I'm extremely excited about. And this is also the first record where I have a proper team in place to help me with everything. Because up until this point, I've done everything myself, literally everything, from tour management to booking, to designing merch, to driving the van, doing rehearsals, the artwork for everything, web design, ads, the whole nine yards.
That's exhausting, I'm sure.
Oh man. It's so much to keep up with, but it's good to know every aspect of the business because then when you do bring other people in to help you, you know what their role is and if they're hitting the mark or not, which is, I'm very lucky to say, Everybody I've worked with, I've picked firsthand and they're all doing an incredible job. I'm so lucky to be working with this crew. But yeah, that being said, it's been extremely crazy and getting to this point, I'm really excited, though. It does feel like things are paying off, but as far as the record goes, sharing things about the record, working with Mike (Tall Tall Trees), he's based out of Asheville, you may have heard of him. He is a brilliant musician and an even better person, and I just enjoyed the hell out of working with him. And his network of musicians that he called on was also just nuts. One of my favorite bands in high school that my brother showed me actually was Why?, and his drummer, Josiah Wolf, is also the drummer of Why?, and he's playing on half the record. The other half of the record is the drummer from Ween, Claude Coleman Jr., which is just the coolest. I love 90s alternative rock so much. And Adam Schatz, who plays saxophone with Japanese Breakfast and Sylvan Esso is also on one of the tracks. So, to be able to dip into that — not just have someone understand my influences in the studio, but then have them call on some of the players from those influences to play on the record directly — it was absolutely nuts and very, very exciting and really, really cool. It felt like we achieved something that I always had in my head, but I never thought we'd actually get there and we surpassed the goal.
You must be really excited!
Cat: Yeah. I am extremely pumped, and it's definitely a sonic shift for me, but it's the kind of stuff that I feel like I finally sound more in line with the music that made me want to make music in the first place. And it feels a lot more authentic to me, and I cannot really tell. It's connecting with people when we play it live in a way that my previous work didn't seem to do. And that is also just a really beautiful experience to get to hear people's stories and the ways they're connecting to the record already. So, I'm pumped to see how that changes when the record comes out and people have more time to sit with the lyrics. But yeah, very, very excited to put it out.
My last question is the easiest or the toughest question. Depends on how you look at it. Hype yourself up! Why should people check you out?
Cat: Oh, God. That's hard. That's hard for me. I'm on team hard here. Hype myself up...
You're just meeting someone and you're like, yeah, I play music. And they're like, okay, why should I listen to you?
I mean, I think our stage show is something that's very special. And I also think there's a lot going on lyrically, melodically, and genre-wise, there's a sprinkle of something for everyone in what we're doing, I think. But yeah, it's just a super energetic show. And we've got vocals for days in this band, and a lot of rhythmic stuff going on as well that's a lot of fun. And also, we have a bari sax in the band. Come on, dude. That's so cool. And I also do a little drum solo on banjo. Sometimes I'll jump behind the kit too myself. You never know what you're going to get at a show, really, and I think that's pretty cool.
Awesome.
Cat: Thank you. And my bandmates are unbelievable musicians. As a songwriter, my goal is just to write something that they can take to new heights, and by God they do it. It's just insane to see what they do. And that makes the show really special to see what they bring to the table that I built. My analogy as a songwriter is always like, I built the table and they dress it, and they make it look really nice.
