About Catfish and the Bottlemen
Catfish and the Bottlemen are a British indie rock band formed in Llandudno, Conwy, Wales, in 2007. The band's debut album, The Balcony, reached number 10 in the UK Albums Chart and achieved Platinum status on 30 December 2016. The band have toured in South America, Japan, Europe, North America, and Australia performing a wide selection of festivals including Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Latitude, Falls Festival, Community Festival, Reading and Leeds, T in the Park, Governors Ball, All Points East, Bonnaroo, Splendour in the Grass, and TRNSMT. They won a Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act on 24 February 2016. On 27 May 2016, they released their second album, The Ride, which reached number 1 in the UK Albums Chart and has sold 300,000 units in the UK since its release. On 26 April 2019, they released their third album, The Balance, which reached number 2 in the UK Albums Chart. The band will be headlining the Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK in 2024.
Catfish and the Bottlemen, formerly known as "The Prestige", were founded in May 2007, when Ryan Evan "Van" McCann and Billy Bibby began playing guitar together at Bibby's parents home, a bed and breakfast in Llandudno, Wales. McCann's parents also ran a bed and breakfast in Llandudno. Van was a friend of Bibby's younger brother Stephen, which is how McCann and Bibby met. McCann and Bibby were joined by Benji Blakeway on bass as the third founding member of the band. Schoolmate Jon Barr followed shortly thereafter on drums. Bibby, who had been playing guitar since age 10, taught both McCann and Blakeway how to play. In an interview with Sound of Boston McCann noted his dislike for playing covers because of the way his music career began: "When I was a 15 year old and we first started a band, our job Monday to Friday was to play at clubs, playing Beatles covers and Oasis covers. We spent seven years writing our own songs, making our own albums, and people are like ‘play Kanye West!’ We’re like ‘no man, are you crazy?’"
They promoted themselves by playing in support slots to friends' bands, such as Northwich's The Shallow Call, and by playing in car parks after other artists' gigs, including bands such as Kasabian. Steve Lamacq first played an early demo on BBC Radio 6 Music in March 2009. During 2009, Catfish were runners up in the 'North Wales Battle of the Bands', run by Gareth Thomas, having been beaten to the post by another local band The Fides who later closed the Conwy River Festival.
Original drummer Jon Barr was replaced by Bob Hall in 2010. Hall was introduced to the band by North Wales-based producer Russ Hayes who was working with the band at the time.
McCann met future band member Johnny Bond at Ravenstonedale festival in 2011, when the latter was a member of the band Symphonic Pictures. Bond would later joined the band in 2014.
The band derives its name from McCann's first childhood musical memory: that of an Australian street busker in Sydney, playing beer bottles strung to a wire who goes by the name Catfish the Bottleman. He was called "Catfish" because of an unusually styled spiky beard he had when he first began playing in 2000. McCann was reunited with Catfish the Bottleman in January 2015 at the studios of Triple J radio in Sydney.
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