Matt Long & Paul Long of Catfish

Matt Long:

My first question (without wanting to pry to much of course) is how are you (Matt Long) feeling? How are you feeling about getting back out touring again?

I’m doing ok all things considered! For those who don’t know I got diagnosed with bowel cancer in April of this year. Since then I have been on several rounds of chemotherapy and had an operation that has gone very well and I’m recovering from currently before I go back onto chemo again for another few months. Been a few minor setbacks but nothing terrible, just uncomfortable and painful. And some that are kind of gross and probably not appropriate to talk about in a public manner! But I’m fine with talking about the main experiences though. I’ve said during this whole experience that it’s not a secret and it should be something that people should be open to talking about. Help raise awareness of it and convince people to check out those symptoms that have been bugging them sooner rather than later like me. I have every confidence that I’m going to be fine and I’ve been keeping positive throughout this whole experience which honestly I think has been the main thing getting me through. That and surrounding myself with my close loved ones and have been supported immensely by them as well as our friends and fanbase. I am both looking forward to getting back out again after so long and a very disturbed year but also anxious about how I’m going to feel when doing so. Which is why we’re starting back up again slowly towards the end of the year and the beginning of the next. I wanted to stay away from our usual super busy gig schedule just to give both myself and Paul time to recover fully, as Paul has also had his own cancer journey that he’s still going through and recovering from. So it’s been a pretty bumpy ride for the band over the past few years! To say the least…

Could you please tell us about how Catfish was formed, who is in the band and what do they play?

9 years ago I was playing in several bands back in college at ACM (Academy Of Contemporary Music) and gigging a lot both with rock bands and blues bands that I was part of. But then just before the summer holidays all of those bands fell apart at the same time for various different reasons. Members moving away or the old favourite “musical differences” schtick. So I was all of a sudden deprived of gigs over the whole summer and beyond after gigging a lot before. So I went to Paul and asked whether he wanted to start something up like a blues covers band to get some gigs for fun and maybe even a little money, even just temporarily. So we did! We went to the jam night that we frequented regularly down in Worthing and recruited a drummer and a bassist that we enjoyed playing with. Dusty Bones on bass and Kevin Yates on drums. And we booked our first gig at our local pub. But we didn’t have a name! So we looked through our setlist and one of the songs we were covering at the time was ‘Catfish Blues’. So we thought “Catfish! That’ll do for now! We can think of something else later on”. After that gig we decided to record some of the covers for a CD so we can send that out to places and help us get gig. But in doing that the internet radio stations got hold of it and all of a sudden we were gaining a lot of popularity. So we were known to a lot of people as Catfish and it stuck. But the names grown on me now. It reminds me of our roots. Because here we are 9 years later and a lot has changed. We’re now an originals band with a few originals albums under our belt and we’re a lot more rocky than before as well as a couple of line up changes. Now we have Adam Pyke on the bass and Kev Hickman on the drums. And the band has just elevated to this level that we never expected it to go but so glad it did. We’ve gone around the world and gone places I never expected to go with what was originally a blues covers band but has grown into the most successful band I’ve ever been in. But I’m very happy that it exceeded my expectations and then some.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, equipment, effects?

My main guitar at the minute is my trusty PRS SC-245 McCarty. I got it secondhand off a friend of mine and the second I played it I knew it was coming home with me. It’s been my main guitar ever since. Fits me like a glove. Just this year I had a guitar custom built for me by the wonderful Jon Beason of Wood Spirit Guitars out in Washington, USA. A wonderful man with a lot of talent. We designed this beautiful guitar together and I wanted it to be different to my other usual guitars so it would tick different boxes. It’s a jazzmaster style guitar with a lot of sleek sexiness thrown in. It’s very cool, plays like a dream and has some interesting new sounds coming out of it so I’m looking forward to getting it out on the road. As far as amps go I’ve been using Mesa Boogie for the last majority of a decade. My favourite being a Mesa Boogie Mark V. It’s the Swiss Army knife of amps, it can do anything. Crystal cleans, soaring leads to heavy metal tones when I need them. I’ve used this on everything from metal to country and it’s never really given me any issues. As for pedals, I have a lot of them for me to list them all without going on for ages but I love me some pedals. I like having a wide range of tone at my feet. Creating soundscapes from ambient tones to huge crushing walls of sound. I respect people who prefer to just plug straight into an amp and that’s it, I’ve done that on occasion when it felt right. But I have a lot more fun when I can create weird and wonderful sounds and it sparks a lot of creativity for me rather than just being “stuck” on one sound. And it makes it more interesting for people listening too when these things come out of nowhere. One of my favourite things to see is when I have a particularly huge thick gnarly almost disgusting sound going on, to look up and see several stank face gurns looking back at me.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Billingshurst. Quiet, peaceful and boring thankfully!

How do you look after your voice/s?

I didn’t used to. I started singing out of necessity if anything. I never pictured myself a singer originally. But when I was putting together bands as a teen I couldn’t find singers that would fit or wanted to do it. So I just said “Well screw it! I’ll just do it myself”. So I found my voice and moulded it into what I like from different singers. And it suddenly unlocked my love for singing. But I didn’t know a thing about proper technique or maintaining a voice or anything like that. I’ve never had a vocal lesson or anything proper (even still to this day). And as time went on it started to get worn out very quickly. So I eventually figured out how I would warm up my own voice and maintain it from watching friends of mine and listening to what they do to warm up and maintain their voice and tried them out and kept what worked for me. So now I do some warm ups before every show as well as I now know what to keep away from during a show so that I can make it for the rest of the tour. A very handy thing to have that helps clear everything nicely to sing is Vocalzones. So I always carry a pack of them to gigs and pop one in whilst warming up. Works wonders!

Where will you be touring in 2023/2024?

We’re taking it slowly going back into it whilst I’m recovering and carrying on with chemo. We’re not looking to get back to full on long tours until midway through spring 2024 at the very least. We have a few things here and there before then to ease us back into it gently. But we have some stuff lined up for later in 2024 in both the UK and Europe. So here’s hoping nothing else happens in the meantime!

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

A) Even if only one person in that room leaves there having loved the show, then it was worth it.

B) I hope to have given a pure representation of what I do to anyone who doesn’t know me. That they know that I give whatever I can give at the time for a show no matter what’s going on.

What kind of music/artists do you like listening to? Do you have any recommendations?

I listen to a lot of different genres. But my main three would be Blues, Rock and Metal. So some big ones for me for blues are BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa, Keb Mo, Larkin Poe, Philip Sayce, Tedeschi Trucks Band. Some of those guy can get pretty rocky but are seated in the blues. In the rock and metal vein one of my favourite bands is Alter Bridge who have been a big inspiration to me. But also bands and people like Devin Townsend, Gov’t Mule, Rival Sons, Shinedown, The Winery Dogs. One album I’ve been listening to a lot lately is Kaleo – A/B. I’d recommend that for sure.

Do you have any plans for any new Catfish music releases?

We are still trying to work on our next originals album. And we have been for years! But lots of things got in the way. Covid pandemic, heart attack, 2 cancers, busy touring schedule, a lot of writers block etc. I remember doing an interview at the end of 2022 saying “The album should be out at the very least in 2023! For sure!” And yet here we are at the end of 2023 after a turbulent year too scared to say anything about when it’ll be out for fear of jinxing ourselves again into something else going wrong… But anyway! We have some things recorded for the next album whenever it may be. We have also managed to put together an EP of songs that we play but wouldn’t have been on any album at any point. Some of the covers that we do as well as a couple of originals that we felt wouldn’t quite work in the context of an album. There’s also an updated version of our cover of So Many Roads on there. As we play that one a lot differently to how it was originally recorded back in 2014 so we wanted to re-record it as a little reminder of how far we’ve come along since then. I still have some work to do on some of the recordings for that and I have to wait until I’m fit and mended enough to do extensive recording which I feel will be better after I have had a couple of gigs under my belt to get me back to strength again. But yes, that will be coming out soon as an interim between now and the next album.

What makes Catfish happy and what makes you unhappy?

What makes us happy is playing in new places to new people as well as returning to our favourite places and seeing some familiar faces. We love seeing new countries and experiencing different cultures. We also love that we’ve made lasting friendships and relationships through music as well. A lot of our close friends we probably wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for the band.

What makes us unhappy is life threatening illnesses! All these cancers and heart attacks and concussions and other things, they’ve been incredibly annoying! Obviously scary and sad and all that but if anything it’s just a drag and it’s getting in the way of a lot of stuff. Both professionally and in our personal lives. So I can’t wait until this levels out and we’re all in good shape for a while, that’s for sure.

Paul Long: 

Could you please tell us about how Catfish was formed, who is in the band and what do they play?

Paul: The band formed in 2014 when Matt was between bands at music college, just to have a bit of fun playing blues covers in pubs. We got together with a drummer and bass player Matt had done some jams with at Worthing. Over the next couple of years we started writing original material for the band and the gigs started to be all over the country. Bassist Adam Pyke joined us in 2017 and drummer Kev Hickman at the end of 2019. Their ability has pushed the band to a greater level and we now tour regularly around the UK and Europe.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, equipment, effects?

Paul: I used to tour with Hammond Organ and Leslie, plus a Nord piano. Since my heart attack in 2020 I’ve had to slim this right down on the road to a Nord Stage 3, but use the Hammond and Leslie speaker in the studio.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Paul: A small village called Wisborough Green in West Sussex: peaceful, retreat, pub, dog walk.

How do you look after your voice/s?

Paul: No alcohol, no food too soon to going on stage, warming up, vocalzones.

Where will you be touring in 2023/2024?

Paul: The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, UK

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

Paul: Communication with the audience, it has to be a shared experience. That we have given it everything we had.

What kind of music/artists do you like listening to? Do you have any recommendations?

Paul: Gov’t Mule, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Elton John, Genesis. Lots of new blues and roots music to feature on my radio show.

Do you have any plans for any new Catfish music releases?

Paul: Things have been tough this last couple of years with band illness, and so the next studio album has been much delayed, but we have five tracks part-recorded, with more to be done in the new year. Before the album comes out we need to finish an EP we are working on, with three of the covers that we play live and two new originals. This should be out in the first quarter of 2024.

What makes Catfish happy and what makes you unhappy?

Paul: Happy – playing to a packed house and visiting new places. Unhappy – sometimes the time it takes to drive to new places.

Photo Supplied By Artist

For more information and tour dates visit the band’s official website here: https://www.catfishband.com/