Meet Brisbane Pop Icon The BattleCat and His New Single ‘Home’ - INTERVIEW
Article by Darcy Goss
There’s an incredibly exciting new wave of glamour-pop music emerging within the Brisbane music scene and William Wright’s project ‘The BattleCat’ is one of the few new bands representative of this new and exciting sound.
Standing out from Brisbane’s traditional punky riffed scene, The BattleCat embodies hypnotic synths, dreamy vocals and silky guitars to create an engaging and extremely unique sound.
Matched with his stellar live performance and Michael Hutchence-esque stage presence, The BattleCat is cementing himself as one to watch in the industry.
His newest release ‘Home’ is the first single for the year and comes with a launch show as well as a promise of much more music to come.
From the get-go ‘Home’ feels like one big nostalgia trip, juxtaposing poignant and vulnerable lyrics with a poppy synth soundscape - the song is a nod to The BattleCat’s growing talent.
We were lucky enough to have a chat with Will about the project, his songwriting and recording process and his newest release…
Hey Will, happy release! How does it feel to finally have ‘Home’ out for everyone to hear? How’s the response been so far?
WILL: Thank you so much, it feels great to finally have it out. I’ve been sitting on this track for about a year and put a lot of effort into it with the help of Samuel Fudge, so it feels great to have such a positive response from everyone.
First things first, for anyone that doesn’t know ‘The BattleCat’ describe your project in four words…
WILL: Fun, dreamy, enigmatic and OTT (Over the Top)
And obviously we have to ask, how did the name come about?
WILL: So there’s this 80’s TV show called ‘He-Man’ and it used to be my Dad’s favourite TV show as a kid; he had all the toys and I remember going through them when we moved houses once. But Battlecat is the name of one of the characters from the show, and I think the name is cool and over the top, so I rolled with that.
Now, you’ve just released your brand new single ‘Home’ – talk to us a bit about that! How did it come about and what does the song mean to you?
WILL: ‘Home’ is a song about feeling lost, numb and busy with life. The song was written with producer Samuel Fudge whom I started working with back when we started our old band FIVŸ. We’d been working on it over Zoom during the lockdown period and ended up pushing the release back.
Around the time of the song being written someone very close to my heart had moved to the other side of the world and I didn’t know what to do with myself and it left me feeling lost. Writing this was almost a form of therapy and it gave me direction when I felt like I had none.
Following on from that – what’s your typical songwriting and recording process?
WILL: My songwriting process is always evolving and changing but most of the time it’s just me sitting at my computer coming up with a rough demo of the lyrics, melody and structure. Then I work with Samuel Fudge on fleshing out the production and making the track blossom. Our recording process if we don’t have access to the uni facilities is just in a bedroom or our little home studio. But the writing process of each track is never really done until it’s sent off for mastering.
You also worked alongside producer Samuel Fudge, what was that like?
WILL: Working alongside Sam is great! I don’t think I’ve met anyone who listens to more music than him, which is why I think he has such an understanding of making music. His approach to working and learning is something that I look up to and the effort he puts into the works that he’s apart of is something you don’t come by often.
This year is shaping up very well for The BattleCat, what else can fans expect for 2021?
WILL: I’ve got a single launch on the 11th of March at The Bearded Lady which will be super fun and I’ve got more singles and collaborations lined up to release throughout the year. I’ve also just been writing a load over the summer so there won’t be a shortage of music.
Awesome, thanks so much for chatting with us! To wrap it up let’s do a few rapid-fire Q’s:
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Best pop ballad to boogie to?
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Say It Right by Nelly Furtado
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Favourite Brissy venue?
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The Bearded Lady
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Favourite music publication…….
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Obviously Ungrained
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If you could tour with one artist right now who would it be?
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Sycco
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And while you’re at it, grab you headphones or turn your speakers up and dive into ‘Home’.
Listen to Home on Spotify. The BattleCat · Song · 2021.