Indie band from Sydney The Cat Nappers take a few moments out of their schedule to talk to us before they hit the stage at The Lair for round one of Emergenza Festival Australia. Don’t miss out on their live set of raw, original indie rock tunes next Thursday, April 10th at The Lair, and in the meantime, read all about their musical inspirations, and what they’re doing to prepare for The Lair.

WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NAME THE CAT NAPPERS?
After a day of rehearsing we went to Mad Mex to grab dinner. We sat there for longer than we had planned and found ourselves throwing some silly names around. Camila suggested "The Cat Nappers" and without much convincing the name stuck. The three of us love taking naps more than we care to admit and Phil and Camila have a bit of an obsession with cats.

WHO PLAYS WHAT IN THE BAND AND WHAT KEEPS YOU INSPIRED TO PLAY MUSIC TOGETHER AS A BAND?
The Cat Nappers are Camila on vocals and guitar, Matt on bass, and Phil on drums. Our initial reaction to this question was "Man, I don't know" but I think that playing music, and doing shows, maybe even touring one day with your two best friends is just too good an experience to pass up.

IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND IN THREE WORDS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
This is the sort of question that the majority of musicians hate because none of us ever know how to describe ourselves. The three words that usually follow a question like this - "We don't know".

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSICAL AND NON-MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS?
A few that we can all agree influence us are Grizzly Bear, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and Foals... We each find inspiration from so many different places that we could each write you an essay, but as I said before, we all love playing music so why not do it together?

WHERE HAVE YOU PLAYED BEFORE AND WHAT WOULD YOUR DREAM GIG BE?
Our first gig was at venue 505, we played on a Monday night called Brackets and Jam. We've played The Standard in Taylor Square and The Annandale. Apart from that, we've played a few smaller pub gigs in Sydney. A dream gig for us would be to tour with any of our favourite bands and play sold out shows at some of our favourite venues like the Enmore Theatre.

HOW ARE YOU PREPARING FOR THE SHOW AT THE LAIR?
We've been rehearsing and jamming with each other, as well as thinking about our set. However, recently we've been focusing on re-recording some of our tracks ourselves. We think if we can get it right ourselves it'd be a great learning experience. Going back to songs that we had recorded 6 months ago has been really refreshing because we've been given a chance to rethink our music and improve the tracks.

WITH OTHER BATTLE OF THE BANDS COMPETITIONS AROUND, WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE EMERGENZA?
We feel that the Emergenza band comp provides the opportunity for bands like us to play some really cool venues and really get our music out there. We like the way the competition works and we hope to be lucky enough to get to the final stages.

For more details on the show at The Lair @ The Metro Theatre in Sydney on April 10th, click here.