Dead Cat Bounce write and perform original music in a variety of styles.
Let’s meet the band. Up front on lead vocals and guitar is James Walmsley. Prior to joining Dead Cat Bounce, billed as being Ireland’s favourite comedy rock super-group, Walmsley was in a ‘sleaze funk’ band called Captain Seaweed And The Shag Nasties. “I saw them play and it was kinda like the music from porn,” recalls drummer Demian Fox, whose past is in death metal bands. “But I never really fit into it that well because I have a big mop of ginger hair, like Ronald McDonald, and I wear a lot of leopard print, so I never really fit into that world,” he says on the phone from Adelaide Fringe. Keyboard player Mick Cullinan is “the least rocky” of the group, says Fox, being more of an “electro kid”. And bass player Shane O’Brien? “He didn’t used to be able to play the bass,” says Fox. “We made him learn it. He had such a great moustache, we just assumed he’d be able to pick it up, because he just looked like a bass player,” he says.
Having known each other for around a decade, this motley crew formed as a band two years ago. Since then, they have performed at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Kilkenny Cat Laughs, London’s Big Joke Festival, the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Bulmer’s International Comedy Festival and the Sydney Comedy Festival, where they won the Time Out Jury Prize. They return to Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year with their show Caged Heat.
Dead Cat Bounce write and perform original music in a variety of styles. “It’s definitely musical comedy but I think we’re the only people doing it as big and as brash and as rockin’ as we do,” explains Fox. “It’s a full band, we go loud, the music is great and it goes across all styles from hip hop to pop and all sorts of rock,” he says.
But what they really like is the ‘70s and ‘80s style “swagger-rock” like Motley Crue, Poison, et al. “That kind of big stadium over-blown stuff, because that was hilarious unintentionally. We just love it,” he says. “They got to do all the really fun things, like really overblown solos and smoke machines and tight pants and pyrotechnics and things like that, so we push things as far as we like, which is great.”
Earnest rock theatrics are complemented with comedy coming from both the lyrics and the on-stage band interactions. “It’s like a rock gig,” says Fox of a typical Dead Cat Bounce show, “but there’s obviously messing about in between. We’re not small characters at all so there’s lots of stuff that goes on in between but it’s basically a rock gig.”
Not sure if they’re a legitimate band or a comedy band, he does admit that this can cause confusion for others. “We might be on the radio playing a song, and this has happened a few times, and people will say, ‘Wow, you could be a real band’ and we take a little bit of offence at that because we kind of think we are a real band. Or people might say ‘do you ever think about writing real songs?’ and we’re kind of wondering what they mean by that? Is it just the same music but with less consideration put into the lyrics so they’re not funny?”
There are benefits to not being a ‘real’ band though, says Fox. “Motley Crue could never do a boy band number but we can!”
Dead Cat Bounce perform Caged Heat at The Famous Spiegeltent from March 31 – April 24. It’s at 9.45pm Tuesday – Saturday and 8.45pm on Sundays. Tickets are $22 – $29.50 and available through Ticketmaster online, 1300 660 013, theartscentre.com.au, 1300 182 183 and at the door.
