The Caterwaul Festival has returned, bringing another dose of diverse, loud, noisy rock to the greater Minneapolis area. This year’s fest will take place between May 26 – 29, across two of the city’s most revered rock venues in Palmer’s Bar and Mortimer’s Bar.
This year’s line-up will feature the legendary Flipper, with Shannon Selberg of the Cows on vocals, closing out the festivities on Monday May 29. In addition, you get a veritable who’s who of the best bands laying down their truth in the underground, including Chat Pile, Cherubs, Child Bite, Couch Slut, Djunah, Multicult, Totimoshi, USA Nails, Vaz, and many more.
For the complete line-up and to buy tickets, click here.
Since the festival is right around the corner, we decided to pick the brains of the two people who helped make it happen: Rainer Fronz (Learning Curve Records) and Conan Neutron (Conan Neutron & The Secret Friends), and they dished the dirt on all things Caterwaul.
In addition, we have an interview with Flipper founding member Steve DePace, concerning their appearance at this year’s fest and their plans beyond the fest.
So read on.
Here is Steve DePace of Flipper talking about playing Caterwaul and plans for the future:
What made you decide to play Caterwaul this year?
Conan Neutron, the organizer of the festival, contacted me and asked if Flipper would like to perform this year. Conan lived in Oakland CA some years back and was pals with our guitar player, Ted Falconi.
How did you get Shannon to be your vocalist for this gig?
I explained to Conan that at the moment we did not have a singer or bass player. Conan suggested Shannon Selberg. Coincidentally, Keith Morris (Circle Jerks / OFF) had suggested Shannon to me as well. So, it seems it was meant to be. We also have Tony Ash (Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends) as our guest bass player for this gig.
Will he be the new vocalist going forward?
We are working with different people these days, both on vocals and bass. The next show we are doing after Caterwaul will be in Los Angeles at the Teragram Ballroom. Fletcher and Wyatt Shears (The Garden) will be with us on vocals and bass for that one. Flipper did a few LA shows with them and supported them on a tour last October when we had David Yow (Jesus Lizard) on vocals and Rachel Thoele (Frightwig), with us on bass.
Are there any bands you are looking forward to seeing at the fest?
Honestly, I want to take in as many bands as I can. I have been loving the samplings of various bands I’ve been hearing from the Caterwaul ads on Instagram. One band I need to see, of course, is Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends.
Are there any possible tour dates in the future?
Yes, we will be touring all next year for our 45th anniversary. We may be out before next year in the US. Working on plans now…
Here is Conan and Rainer talking all things Caterwaul.
The first year of the fest was a success. What lessons did you learn from it? And how did you apply them to the booking and preparation of this year’s fest?
Conan Neutron (CN): It was. We learned that the people want trucker hats with our logo on it! Comically under-ordered those. As boring as it sounds, pushing official communication for everything to a shared e-mail instead of all the various communication methods (FB message, IG message,Twitter, Text Message, Passenger Pigeon) allowed us to not have any unpleasant surprises this time. It isn’t a perfect process, but it makes life a lot easier and ensures that no single person is a single point of failure. Doesn’t stop bands from asking to be on through DM on the platform of their choice, of course. As recently as yesterday! C’mon.
Rainer Fronz (RF): Well, last year I remember thinking this is too many bands. Lesson learned. Then we booked this year and ended up with more bands. So that obviously worked out well for us. Conan and I also tried to do everything ourselves last year. This year we have more people helping us out with organization and running a few of the logistical things during the actual fest which will take some of the burden from us. Also, just pulling a large-scale event like this one time you learn a million things and the second time around everything just becomes a little bit easier, not a lot easier, but a little bit easier.
When did you start prepping for this year’s fest? Did it start right after last year’s fest, or did you take a little break?
CN: We definitely took a little break, my recollection is that we started spinning up the fun machine in August or so. We opened up submissions in early September and closed them in October. Went over all of them for a month or two and then added the ones we could say yes to with the bands we had already intended to ask. It was exhausting! We announced the lineup inJanuary, which was largely because nobody pays attention to anything in that space between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Might as well send a press release to your cat. I personally don’t like it when there is no avenue to playing a thing unless you know the right people. I get why other events don’t do it… It saps your will to live to go through that much music and say “no” so much. Everybody deserves a response. No response is way worse than “no” or “not this time” in my book. Giving a damn is hard work though.
RF: We did take a break after last year’s Caterwaul. It was quite a weekend. We initially had some plans and ideas in place after the weekend. But then we took some time off to work on other projects and recover. We really stated focusing on the fest again in September. Each of us we are doing little tasks in the meantime leading up to September, mainly boring things like business end things, vendor scouting, venue ideas etc. Not the glamorous part of having crippling anxiety during a four-day 50 band music festival with 300 people attending each day.
Do you think the success of the first fest enabled you to go bigger this time? Did it help in getting a whole bunch of new bands to play (along with getting some returning bands)? Did you have to turn any bands away?
CN: We had to turn away something like 100 bands? And we had a solid two dozen on the waitlist and were able to place… four? The response was astonishing and it has everything to do with it being a real thing that people could attend, enjoy, and talk about with their friends later. Almost every band from last year wanted to play again this year, and of course if we do that we can’t have anybody new play and it just becomes a closed circle. So we tried to strike a good balance. We booked 55 bands this year! I forget what the count was last year, but this year is more. Almost too many. I did work it out that it was $2.50 per band though, even at the non-early bird, 4-day pass price. Anybody that thinks that isn’t a good value needs their head examined. Book your own festival! We had some pretty incredible “near misses” too. No, I will not talk about those. Near misses one year often become possible the next year.
RF: We opened the fest up to submissions this year along with the few bands we asked to come back. We had a ton of great applications but unfortunately, we only have so much space and time. We had to turn away a ton a great bands that applied to play. After being on the end of so many rejection letters in the past for festivals for bands I’ve worked with, I really sympathized with the rejections. It was difficult to send those letters. I wish everyone could play. There just isn’t enough time and space.
Getting Flipper to play was a big get for this year’s fest. How did that come about?
CN: We asked them. They said yes. That’s the succinct “cool guy” answer. Mike Watt was out of commission with an injury. They wanted to do it, we wanted them to do it. Shannon Selberg is one of rock’s great front people (if you ask me) and is a fan. We matchmakered it. I am biased, but Tony Ash is one of rock’s greatest bass players too, and while Mike Watt, Rachel Theole, and Krist Novoselic are huge shoes to fill, I assure you that attendees are in for a treat.
RF: We like to have something unique to close the festival, something that fans of underground weird off beat music will want to see. We usually come up with a list of dream acts and start feeling them out. What sort of connections we have to them, gauge their interest. Then see if we can make it happen. This year it was Flipper with Shannon. The Flipper with Shannon Selberg collaboration really brings a lot of things together and makes an extremely unique experience to Caterwaul. Flipper is a historic punk/noise band, totally epic, and Shannon Selberg is one of the greatest front men ever. It is a win-win for a final act to Caterwaul year two.
Is it ok to call it a “noise rock” fest? Or is that too limiting a descriptor for the type of bands playing it?
CN: Whether I agree or not, that’s what people seem to call it. I find it limiting and reductive, but I suppose if you compared it to a Reggae fest or something it makes sense.
RF: We like to think of the fest of more genres open than just a “noise rock” festival. Sure, the bands are noisy, but there is punk, goth, industrial, shoegaze. I guess maybe noise rock is the 2020 way to say alternative. Either way you want to call it, Caterwaul has a big umbrella, and we try to have a lot of unique artists under it, and will strive to expand our “nature” and “label” as long as we exist.
So, can I assume this is now going to be an annual event each year?
CN: I mean, you are free to assume anything you want. We like doing it, and people seem to like playing it and going to it. Let the good times roll!
RF: That is the plan. The community remains strong and supportive, and the desire is there, so we will continue to create and event to bring musicians and fans together to collaborate and exchange ideas and share their passion.
