Catbells is an artist who introduced her project by releasing the single with a video for “Fade” on Youtube, expanded on that by launching an EP titled Wilderness, and has recently released a debut full album, Partly Cloudy, on vinyl, CD, and digital vai SQFT Records. Her work is introspective, but also expansive in terms of sound, honing in on the emotional potential of sounds and words to convey inner states. For that reason, it often conveys familiar feelings that are rarely said aloud and also captures nuances of mood that might otherwise be overlooked.
Catbells worked with Billy Mohler as producer on all of these releases, otherwise writing, composing, and recording all the tracks herself. Mohler is someone who helped her explore her emerging sound and, as a whole, this album covers a lot of musical ground while side-stepping any specific genre associations. Phrases like “Lo Fi” and “Dream Pop” are a start, but given the range of the sound worlds we find specific to each track, Catbells has plenty to choose from in terms of future directions. A big part of the inception of the project for Catbells has been creating a platform where she feels that she can be most herself without restrictions or second thoughts, and for that reason, in many ways, the anonymity with which she releases this music is the closest expression of her true personality. I spoke with Catbells via recorded interview about how she came to work with Billy Mohler, how she handles being so personal in her work, and how some of these songs developed for her.
Hannah Means-Shannon: I know that you worked with Billy as producer on this album and on the previous EP. How did you come to work with him? How did you record them, in separate sessions, or a concentrated period?
Catbells: Being in the Los Angeles area, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some really amazing bands coming out of this area, and one band, in particular, Pom-Poms, is a band that worked with Billy Mohler on their albums. I heard them and got in touch with Billy, and it just seemed like a really good fit for the laid-back recording style I was interested in. I’m not one to go into a studio and just play a whole record in a couple of days. For me, it’s a much slower process, and so I needed to find someone who would work at a slower pace.
The first three songs that we worked on were “Fade”, “Wilderness”, and “Wish”. Those three songs were really just acoustic demos at that point. I knew that I wanted them to maintain a very small and almost fragile feeling. I really feel that Billy helped bring that to fruition. Those three songs felt really right. It was more than I had actually expected for those songs. The first release was “Fade” as a video. I had made a cut-and-paste DIY video, which I’d never done before, and it was really amazing how people connected with the song.
That transitioned to me wanting to put that first group of songs out together as a little grouping, the Wilderness EP. Those were the first songs recorded in a particular style and it set almost a template in my mind about how the rest of these songs would eventually be recorded as they turned from acoustic demos into recordings.
On the other creative side of things, what forms do these songs take when they are at an early stage? Are you someone who makes voice memos or are there different ideas you gather for later? Or are you more focused on creating an entire song from beginning to end?
There are so many different ways that songs can come together for people, but for me, voice memos have definitely been something I’ve used a lot. I wish I was better at labeling things in there because everything says “untitled”, so when I want to find things, it’s difficult. But I might be on a walk, or in the shower, or driving, and I’ll usually try to grab my phone as quickly as possible to get that idea, even in a super-quick raw form, and record it.
Usually, it’s something like a vocal and melody section together, which seems to appear and stick in my head, like a song that gets stuck on repeat in my head, and that’s where I start working on it from before I even pick up a guitar. I sit with that idea a bit and replay it in my head, and sometimes before there are even chords under that idea and melody, the song is almost in completed form. Sometimes it’s better for me to pick up the guitar last, though there’s not a specific formula. There have definitely been times when I’ve sat down with a guitar and parts of a song, even large parts, have just come to me. But for the majority, it’s lyrics and a melody first, and then it evolves into instrumentation.
To talk about bigger thematic ideas, you really seem to go into an internal space with some of your lyrics, sketching out internal experiences. When you’re creating a song that’s very personal, do you have to disregard the fact that someone else will eventually hear it? There is, however, often a “you” or another person in your songs that makes them sound conversational.
Yes, it is really difficult for me to express outwardly how I feel. I do keep a lot of things bottled up inside and have dealt with what that can do to your overall feelings about life. Because that’s been such a challenge for me, being Catbells, putting on a mask, and being for the most part anonymous, has given me that feeling of a safe space to create and express without judgement, at least without judgement from those who know me well. I really have kept Catbells to myself as much as I can. I really haven’t even shared it with those who are close to me. It does still feel like a very personal and safer space to create.
When you put together the EP, Wilderness, was that a time when you could get an impression of public reaction to your music and what your audiences might connect with? Did that feel like a milestone on the way to the album?
Releasing the EP was definitely something that was cathartic in a lot of ways. Those three songs had, and still do have, a lot of significance for me. Having them out together in the universe was a big stepping-stone for me emotionally. It didn’t necessarily make me think further ahead, and I wasn’t putting the pressure of a full-length album on my shoulders. That’s part of why, later, songs came out one at a time. There hadn’t been any pressure when those first three songs were written and I didn’t want to add any for future songs.
I heard that you previously lived in New England and some of that atmosphere may still inspire or inform your work. Though my family tends to be more oriented to the outdoors, I have a lot of friends who have very little contact with the natural world. What do you think of the role of nature in your life and in modern life?
For me, creatively, I do think nature has given me a lot of inspiration. It might not show up in the songs so much lyrically in direct imagery, but as a person, in terms of who I am, I connect with being outside. I connect with trees, the earth, and their feelings. Moving from the East Coast to the West Coast, one of the most difficult things for me was the lack of the change of seasons. At first, I didn’t know that I could live without that. I desperately missed the leaves changing and the smells and the look of the light as things changed drastically back east.
Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the subtleties of changes in the seasons in Southern California. It’s not as drastic a change, it’s subtle, but it’s there. I’ve become more attuned to it. There’s something so inspiring, for me, to just be outside and be in nature. It’s harder to find now, but I do like the fact that out here you can go from the desert to the beach, to the mountains relatively easily. I will probably forever miss the smell of earth after rain in the woods, the sound of leaves crunching under your feet, the smell of winter coming. It’s such a specific smell. There are so many senses that tune into nostalgia and that’s part of the emotions I experience, which then go into the writing. It’s all somehow interconnected.
When you step back and look at all these songs together, are you happy with the sound that you’ve created at this time?
Yes, these songs definitely have a more true-to-myself sound than some things that I’ve been a part of or worked on in the past. It’s really the first time I’ve ever been myself, which may sound weird because I’m wearing a mask. But I’ve been able to be more like myself in the sound and in the recordings. When I’ve worked in a collaborative way in the past, I’ve kept more to myself, so it’s nice to have this platform now where I can create and be myself without any pressure.
With these songs, you are sharing a lot of emotions and reflections on relationships. I think it’s fair to say that there has been a lack of that in the music world from women, a lack of women speaking directly to their inner experience. Of course, in wider society, women are often discouraged from sharing their emotions and told they need to take up less space. On the other hand, none of this has to be strictly gendered, because we all feel pressure to hide our inner worlds.
It’s a struggle, I do think, because anytime you talk about who you are or things you’ve been through, you are opening yourself up for judgement. Especially in the art world, it can be very hurtful to express yourself, and then get feedback which adds to the problem you’re expressing. For me, that’s a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. I’ve struggled with that my whole life. I’ve always been told in a bad way that I’m over-emotional and over-sensitive. It was always something that I was ashamed of, but recently, I’m giving myself a little more grace to feel that way, that it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be over-emotional. With that comes a lot of empathy for others, other beings, animals, people, nature. I’m not really sure that that’s a bad thing.
I’m starting to realize that what was always perceived as negative in myself may not be. Maybe it’s okay that I’m not super-social. Maybe it’s okay that I’m more of an introvert. But because I was told that for so long, I started bottling my emotions in a way that was unhealthy. I’m still very closed off. It’s something I’m consistently trying to evolve to do, but the music has given me more of an outlet for doing that. If even one other person connects with it and feels something because of it, that’s really great.
One of the tracks, “Trying Not To Feel”, has a “you” or another person in the song, almost like writing a letter to someone. It exemplifies saying things that people would rarely say out loud to each other, but the way the vocals are delivered is so even and measured that it’s interesting. There’s a helpful sense of clarity. The tune and melody is pretty much lovely, enchanting, and meditative. The guitar solo is really dreamy.
“Trying Not To Feel” is a song that, like “Fade”, “Wilderness”, and “I Wish”, has a very personal component to it. It was harder for me to put it out into the universe because of that. I think some of that feeling to the vocals is like that numbness that can come when you’ve dealt with something over and over again and you’re just kind of at that point of numbness. That vocal delivery did have the intention of capturing that feeling of, “Yeah, everything’s fine. People keep telling me it’s okay, but it’s not, so I’m just going to keep going forward.” It’s going through the motions.
When we recorded it, we did try it one other way, but we both agreed that it didn’t feel right, so letting the song organically take shape is really the approach that worked best for it. There is that stream of consciousness to the lyrics, talking about how you’re feeling going through life. Billy did that guitar solo in one take. I love it, too. It’s a point in that song that I personally love.
One of my favorite songs on this album is “Ground Force”. I feel conflicted about liking it so much because it’s a little ambiguous. Sometimes heroic narratives can get a little tired or two-dimensional, but here it feels more like real life, where things are not so clear. But it reminded me of times in life where we need to set boundaries or bring a period of conflict to a close for our own sakes. I love the chorus on this song. I also like the acoustic strings and extra strings on it.
It’s not ground-breaking to equate love and war, and relationships and battles, but I think when I was writing that song, what I kept coming back to was the idea that words can be as destructive or dangerous, even harmful, as weapons. It’s so easy to overlook how much pain can be inflicted by someone’s words to another. At the end of the day, that’s really what ends up causing the most long-term damage, whether it’s mentally replaying what someone else has said to you over and over, or whether it’s what you didn’t say.
For that song, in the chorus, “Lay your words down instead of your weapons,” that’s almost more important that one is careful with what they say to another person in any relationship, whether it’s a friendship or something more. I definitely struggled with Billy on how to present this song because it could become so thematic, or it could even become so cliché. The moments that do have that kind of emotion, like with the strings, help lift things up in those areas, without overpowering the song. It keeps things simple.
The song “Leaves” also has its own sound-world that’s less sparse. It feels really full. Is this an expression of where you’ve come to, as a songwriter? It feels really warm and bright. It also has this feeling of motion and comes to a very interesting conclusion.
“Leaves” is definitely one where that feeling, that sense of motion, is something that Billy really brought to the song. The second that I heard the intro that he had thought up for it, I was immediately hooked and knew that the acoustic demo felt sub-par to what his vision was for the song. I was so grateful for his interesting take. The theme of seasons changing is such a broad-stroke idea but for someone who has grown up with a sense of seasons, like Fall, it’s such a strong feeling. It’s one that causes goosebumps, and all your hair stands on end, and you don’t even know why. It’s just that feeling. You don’t know what’s coming. There is that unknown. Production-wise, it’s definitely a direction I’d like to explore more. I’ll see where it goes.
