While you might now know Northcote local Cat Canteri for her work on the guitar, the versatile instrument wasn’t actually her first musical love.
A drummer in high school, Canteri didn’t find herself drawn to guitar until she was in her mid-teens and wanted to pursue songwriting.
“I really felt drawn to writing songs and being a songwriter, and guitar is the ultimate instrument to do that with,” she says. “Guitar playing is a bit more of a creative outlet [than drums].”
Her new album, Inner North, sees Canteri take on the role of storyteller as well as songwriter. Tracks ‘Fitzroy Bowl’ and, particularly, ‘Pentridge Wasteland’ offer much more than just solid lyricism. The latter discusses the confronting issue of child sexual assault, inspired by a former neighbour of Canteri’s who was convicted of such a crime.
“Occasionally when I’ve got it on my setlist at gigs I sit there and I go, ‘I don’t know if I really want to play this song,’ because it’s really intense, but the reason I continue to play it – and I don’t know if I will forever – but I feel that being onstage you’re in a position of power,” she says.
“Me speaking about it now enables anyone who’s younger than me, looking at me the same way I looked at people in my teens, to go ‘Oh, she’s speaking about these things and she’s noticing these things and they’re real, and it’s ok for me to speak about them, too.’”
As a kid growing up, Canteri wasn’t exposed to a great deal of contemporary music. Her parents preferred the sounds of classical and traditional Irish music, which meant it took Canteri a while to discover which genres she really liked and identified with.
“Whenever I heard something come on the radio occasionally that was like blues, or rockabilly, or outlaw country music, whenever I heard something like that I would go ‘Oh my god, what is that sound? I love this music; I don’t know what it is, but I love it.’”
Her first proper gig at age 14 was the Silverchair Diorama tour at the Palais Theatre, but her love for grassroots music continued to bloom when she discovered Mia Dyson and a string of other musicians in that vein.
“The people who I’ve always really looked up to as musicians, have always been local people and that’s because it’s really tangible and real. When the person you’re idolising is someone you can literally go and travel like two kilometres, and go to a pub with your mum so you can get let in,” – she pauses with a laugh – “when you can sit down and take it all in, you can just be like ‘Yeah, this is fucking incredible,’ and that’s really powerful.
“There were some amazing performances I saw when I was a teenager that changed my world. It was particularly great to have some amazing female songwriters and guitarists to look up to.”
This passion for live, local music is something Canteri still carries, and she takes joy in helping others find artists and musicians they can get around too.
“One of the things that I do a lot is have conversations with people who’ve never been to a local gig before. There’s all these people out there who want to go and experience the live music culture that we have in Melbourne, but literally don’t know where to start.
“Once you find one band that you really like, most likely people who play in that band will play in other bands in a similar vein, and it’ll explode for you. If you find one band that you’re like ‘I fucking love this,’ it’ll expand to at least three or four other bands, and then you’ll find other songwriters, and then it opens up your world.”
It’s one thing she loves about events like Melbourne Guitar Show; the fact that it brings people together.
“Melbourne has its own discreet music industry that thrives and works all on its own, and events like Melbourne Guitar Show and the Ultimate Drummers Weekend that they have in Melbourne as well, feeds into that. That’s also part of the broader musical, creative landscape.”
