In their first interview as a trio, we find out why Eats Everything and Catz ‘N Dogz have joined forces, learn about their plan to collaborate with KiNK and discuss the impact of the tragic death of Martin Dawson.
Catz Eats Dogz (L-R: Dan, Voitek, Greg)
Despite an obvious sonic kinship, there has never been any official ceremony to marry Bristolian Dan Pearce, aka Eats Everything, to Polish counterparts Catz ‘N Dogz, aka Grzegorz ‘Greg’ Demiañczuk and Wojciech ‘Voitek’ Tarañczuk. In the latter part of 2013, though, two years after the duo launched Pearce into the wider world off the back of his breakthrough ‘Entrance Song’, they’ve formally hooked up and are set to start touring and releasing as Catz Eats Dogz.
In musical terms it seems like the perfect coming together given each camp’s focus on fun as much as function, on big bold bass and off-kilter sampling. And what’s more, this interview proves they also seem more than comfortable with each other on a personal level: the conversation is often halted by laughter, school boy gags and gentle accent mocking, but is also subtly infused with the mutual respect that’s surely required to conjure up big EPs like Stinky Lollipop, the group’s first release.
As the trio plan for more releases, and a series of tour dates together, we attempted to prise them apart and pose them a serious question or two.
Attack: So you’ve often brushed with each other in the past, why make it official and do Catz Eats Dogs?
Voitek: It was kind of natural we started to work on music together. We did the first track off the first EP after a really long back-to-back session at Watergate. We played upstairs the whole Friday night, then went to Warsaw together and straight after that gig on the Monday we made ‘Evil Tram’.
Eats Everything: I just sit and say ‘penis’ into the mic.
V: That’s actually true.
EE: Nah, we all do different things and we’re good at different things. What we found is that when we work together we take a few more risks. When you’re on your own I find it hard to be risky, I try to conform to me. When there’s two or three of you to bounce off, you can be weirder and bounce off each other, which I think worked really well.
Is there a limit to the weirdness?
V: One of the tracks we made the next day was fucking weird. We were gonna put it out but we realised, no. Talking about weirdness – it’s a weird way of production, but there are still boundaries because we make things in a tool-y way. The tracks we did are very playful but still have a beginning and end. When you listen to ‘Evil Tram’ there is some weird things going on: the kicks don’t come in the proper place; the vocals are weird. We just chopped them in and somehow it worked.
EE: It’s all a fluke basically.
I just sit and say 'penis' into the mic.
How many have you done?
EE: We’ve done three, but I want to do loads, ’cause it’s really good fun.
V: Yeah, it really is.
EE: They are just a pair of idiots but it’s gone really well. We worked for three days and did three records, which is a pretty good work rate. One of them was complete shit, to be fair, but the other two were great. That’s a 66% hit ratio, which is not bad is it?
[Laughter]
Do all three have to agree on a track before completion, or is it a case of majority rule?
EE: Tough one. Normally Voitek goes ‘no’ and everyone gets scared.
V: Why does everyone think I’m the scary one?
It's all a fluke basically.
Is it because you are the oldest and wisest?
EE: Actually I’m the oldest, but definitely not the wisest.
Greg: He’s the tallest.
V: I think I just make good decisions.
Like deciding to tour together as Catz Eats Dogs? Tell us about that…
V: We’re gonna have a small tour in February. We’re doing a concept called Catz Eats KiNK from Wednesday to Sunday, every day in a different club, all night long back to back, then KiNK will play live for one hour. Every time we meet we exchange records and sometimes we literally play the same records. It’s not that we discover the same obvious records, they can be really old-school, but somehow we find them at the same time.
How does KiNK fit into this?
V: He produces even weirder music than we do.
EE: Ha ha, yeah!
G: And he likes the old-school sound. He was releasing on Pets and he’s remixed for us. The next one is coming soon from him and his live show is one of the best on the planet.
Have you thought about playing live together as a threesome?
EE: They do it already, I don’t ever want to.
V: Oh that would be too much; everyone would want to press things at the same time.
EE: And as often as possible! The deck would be on 78 RPM instead of 45. It wouldn’t be good.