Getting to Know… Catalysis | Interview 🎤

On the 79^th interview in the ‘Getting to Know’ series, The Musical Hype gets the scoop on Scottish metal collective, Catalysis.

“We want to maintain the groove but still bring filthy discordant riffage to the front and keep a little of our dark heart in the background.” That’s a pretty sick, kick ass characteristic if you ask me! That’s an excerpt from the opening question of the interview with metal collective Catalysis, who grace this the 79^th interview on The Musical Hype. The band is comprised of Col MacGregor (lead vocals), Drew Cochrane (lead guitar + vocals), Sean Ramson (rhythm guitar + vocals), Calum Rennie (drums), and Kenneth Valentine (bass).

After a slew of interviews, things slackened a bit, but we’re back baby! As always, our interviewees ‘bring the heat,’ providing superb insight regarding their music, background, goals, influences, and various projects.  One of my favorite quotes, besides the aforementioned: “…We want to make some heavy as shit music that is fun to play and has enough flair and interesting stuff to keep you listening.” Bring on the ‘heavy shit’… or something like that.  Anyways, rather than belabor things any further with rambling randomness, here is Getting to Know… Catalysis: Interview #79.

Starting things off right, for those who may not be familiar with Catalysis, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?  

Col MacGregor, lead vocals: We blend our balls out heavy groove metal with wee touches of melodic hooks and harmonies. We want to maintain the groove but still bring filthy discordant riffage to the front and keep a little of our dark heart in the background.

Terrific answer! Let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your Catalysis form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

Col: Drew [lead guitar] is, and has pretty much always been, responsible for our overall vision. He’s always got his eye on the bigger picture and is typically a step ahead of the rest of us. We all share an ambition and drive, but he’s the one driving the car.  So, when he took me, Col [vocals], on as the band’s bass player I think he had it in mind that he may need me to replace the band’s vocalist at some point. And, as it came to pass, that happened about a year later. I guess, early on as it is now, we want to make some heavy as shit music that is fun to play and has enough flair and interesting stuff to keep you listening.

Cool. Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Col: We’ve been on tour out in mainland Europe, and that was a crazy experience. That started out as one of our main goals, now we’ve done it I guess we want to do it again but bigger and better? We played a festival (Aggressive Music Fest) too while there and that was a juicy fruit to get a taste of. We’d definitely like to be involved in something like that again. We’ve done a music video, but we’ll do another and try and do it better. I guess we’re hoping to do what we’ve done but keep growing it. That’s pretty much what we’ve always done!

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

Col: Our influences vary quite a lot across the band. Sean [guitar] is into everything from Kreator and Bodom to mad Norwegian black metal, like the real church-burny stuff. Drew likes his Machine Head and Chimaira and is right into a lot of metalcore and whatnot. Phil Demmel is a massive influence for him, and his playing and he was totally thrilled to get him doing a guest solo on “Drowning in My Head” on our upcoming album.

Kenny [bass] likes a lot of the American new wave stuff like Lamb of God. Calum [drums] and I probably have the most eclectic tastes. Calum’s right into his doom and prog, bands like Woods of Ypres or Porcupine Tree, The Faceless. That kind of stuff. I like a lot of different things, from spoken word stuff like Scroobius Pip or Black Dog to death metal along the lines of Wolfheart or whatever.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

Col: Hah! On our tour last year, we were running well late for our last show in Belgium, we’d been held up in Germany by the police who were checking all our gear for drugs/guns/migrant workers or whatever. So, we were unsure if we’d even make it in time and we were so annoyed by the whole thing that we honestly thought about just not bothering.  When we turned up, the venue was what looked like a house in the middle of a suburban housing area. We were all like ‘what the actual… are we just here to play in someone’s living room!?’ That turned out to be half true, with the exception that the guy’s living room was a 150 cap fully rigged gig venue, complete with stage, bar, lights and complimentary drinks. Turned out to be one of the best gigs we ever played. Main support was a band called Abacination, I think. Check them out, they were bonkers.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special? 

Col: Again, reckon we’d all pick something different. For Drew, getting big Phil Demmel on “Drowning…” is un-toppable. As a band, I think “Transcend” off our first EP has always been our closer so that’s pretty special. Always goes down well. I suppose, when we encore, we usually do “Codeine” and as we only encore when headlining and having a good gig I guess that one rates high too.

We haven’t had much of a chance to play a lot of the new album live yet, what with the whole pandemic and whatnot, but there are a few on that that we really pushed ourselves outside our comfort zone. The whole album is pretty special, really.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

Col: Calum, our drummer, can say any word that you say to him backwards in a matter of seconds. It’s incredible. There are others, but none top that.

Wow! Closing this thing out, what Catalysis currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

Col: Our first full length album, Connection Lost, is out on July 24th, 2020 and we’re so excited to get it out there and let me people into where we are. You can grab bits of it on our YouTube or Facebook. Thanks for having us!

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

Photo Credits: Catalysis, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype