CATBITE Is Cute, Sassy, and Loud as Hell

The number 9.

Nine lives? Nine planets? Nine minus four equals five.
Nine sounds like “feline,” which, in turn, also kinda sounds like “Philly.”
Which all points to a cat — or more specifically, a Catbite.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Well, it will… once I introduce your next soniq overload.

Meet CATBITE.

CATBITE is a five-piece ska band from Philadelphia blending 2-Tone attitude, punk energy, and power-pop hooks into a sound that hits fast and sticks. Since forming in 2018, the band has carved out their lane with a style that feels both nostalgic and new — tight, melodic, and emotionally charged. The lineup — Brittany Luna (vocals), Tim Hildebrand (guitar), Chris Pires (drums), Ben Parry (bass), and Kayleigh Malloy (keyboards) — brings a mix of backgrounds and influences that fuel their dynamic, high-energy approach. From their scrappy self-titled debut to the sonically ambitious Doom Garden EP, CATBITE continues to evolve without losing the raw spirit that made them stand out in the first place. Fiercely fun and proudly DIY, they’re not here to revive ska — they’re here to rewrite the rules.

ORIGINS & ALCHEMY

SNQLX: Take us back — how did CATBITE first come together, and when did it start to feel like more than just a one-off project?

TIM: it started right after I quit my old ska band, the snails. Shortly after leaving the band (which I was in for 9 years) I had a huge ska hole in my heart, so Brit and I started doing 2 piece ska covers and posting them to Facebook. People who I had known in the ska scene for a long time took interest quickly, so we decided to team up with our og bass player Johnny and Chris and started writing songs and booked a show. After the first show we knew it was gonna be a real thing.

SNQLX: Brittany and Tim, your musical backgrounds are pretty different — jazz vocals and punk touring. What kind of tension or inspiration does that bring into the writing process?

TIM: I have a good ear for catchy stuff and have a strong knowledge of the ska genre, along with my love for simple punk songs and fun guitar riffs. I bring a lot of ideas to the table and then brit uses her love of pop and jazz and music theory to come up with amazing melodies and lyrics. It’s such a cool collaborative process that I’m really thankful for.

BRIT: I’m not sure it’s brought any tension but I think it’s allowed us to write really cool music because of my jazz training as well as Chris’ jazz training and Kayleigh’s Berklee training! We all think of music in different ways and I feel like it’s helped us to stay really creative when writing together!

SNQLX: Chris and Ben, you’ve been playing together for a while. What’s the glue that keeps your rhythm section so locked in?

BEN: That’s true, Chris and I have been playing together for over 10 years at this point. Longevity certainly helps with staying locked in, but I think the writing process contributes as well. When Catbite writes a song typically Tim and Brit come to us with demos that have pretty much completed melodies and chords, but with placeholder drum loops and no bass. So Chris and I write our parts from scratch, meaning we have to work together to flesh out the song, get the groove right, communicate about any rhythm or syncopation tricks we want to try, yada yada. A lot of times I’ll listen to the chord-melody demo, have an idea for a drum thing I’d like to hear, and then when we go through our first cold play-through, Chris has already had the same idea and we’re on the same page without even really having a discussion. Obviously staying locked in when we’re playing live is all about listening and reacting, but there’s a certain amount that’s just baked in.

CHRIS: I think having that natural rapport built in between Ben and I, as a result from playing together for so many years, a lot of the time reduces any sort of initial hesitations or complications during the creative process of writing our own individual parts for each song. It’s a very natural, almost instinctive, response we both have towards each other’s playing that really allows us the freedom to explore all opportunities, sonically speaking, without it ever feeling forced or shoehorned into a particular genre.

CATBITE showed up, turned it up.

THE PUNK ROCK MUSEUM, Las Vegas.

SOUND & GROWTH

SNQLX: That debut record was tracked fast and on a tight budget. What did that process teach you about how you wanted to sound as a band?

TIM: we just wanted to get some music out fast and we had a decent number of songs, looking back I wish we spent more time on it, but I think it still came out really good and established what catbite was all about. And it gave us a good foundation to grow on.

CHRIS: I personally would love to someday go back and remix/remaster the first record. While we’re all very proud of it, it was recorded with such haste since we didn’t really have any expectations that it would reach as many folks ears as it eventually would. I think, while we absolutely began to develop the sound of the band on the first record, we learned to take our time, particularly in the mixing process, with an emphasis on a lot more attention to detail overall.

SNQLX: With Nice One, the production stepped up, but so did the songwriting. What did having more time and space allow you to explore?

TIM: We focused a lot more on full band collaboration with this album. It was written entirely during Covid lockdowns so we had a lot of time (only a couple months, but way more than the first record) to focus on the arrangements and how we wanted the songs to sound. Also this was the first time we had a producer who could help with ideas and he took a lot of time in the studio trying different approaches that we wouldn’t have originally thought about.

SNQLX: Doom Garden brings in collaborators like Sarah Tudzin, Patrick Stump, and Zayna from Sweet Pill. How did those voices influence the way you approached this EP?

TIM: we wrote all the songs before we figured out who would be guest singing on the record. We had basic ideas of who we wanted and the vibe. But we wanted to really have fun and explore some different sounds and vibes based on how we were feeling and how we feel about the world.

BEN: I think to a certain extent knowing there would be some extremely talented people involved with this release gave us a lot of motivation to write the hell out of these songs. In the writing and pre-production phase we knew there was going to be space for features and next-level production, and we knew we were going to be going after some big names to bring the songs to their final forms. It’d be tough to get top talent like Sarah, Zayna, and Patrick Stump if we’re bringing them a half-assed product to work on.

VISUALS & VIBE

SNQLX: From album covers to music videos, CATBITE’s visual world has evolved a lot. What role does aesthetic play in how you present the band?

TIM: aesthetic in a band is actually not asinine. And that’s something I’ve learned from my previous bands, not only do you have to sound good, you have to look good and have good and interesting videos and art and merch, etc. it’s a whole brand, and we want everything about this band to be a representation of us and our sound.

KAYLEIGH: I like playing dress up. It’s like putting on a superhero costume. It gets your head in the game.

BEN: To begin with we’re by and large pretty flashy people. But also like 95% of our interaction with the listeners happens as we’re playing live. Performing onstage has a huge visual component where we get to express ourselves in real time, and I think a lot of our thought and energy about the aesthetic of the band go into making that as entertaining and captivating as possible.

SNQLX: The Doom Garden era feels a little more surreal, maybe even horror-tinged. Was that a conscious shift, or just where the vibe naturally landed?

KAYLEIGH: idk. Feels natural somehow. If you were only listening to the albums and sequencing might come as a surprise, but being on the road for the last three years and hearing how the live shows go, I think the Catbite sound has just been gradually developing. Also Sarah is magic. And Tim wanted me to do a synth solo.

BRIT: I think for Doom Garden, the songwriting maybe feels horror-tinged because of how I was feeling while writing the lyrics. Most of the songs are about self introspection and coming to terms with a lot of hard realizations about myself and how I view myself in present day and situations growing up that have led me to who I am and how they’ve affected me.

SNQLX: If you each had to describe CATBITE’s visual identity in three words, what would they be?

KAYLEIGH: gay as fuck

BEN: Youngish hot weirdos

BRIT: cute n sassy

SCENE & COMMUNITY

SNQLX: You’ve played everything from DIY benefits to major fests like Riot Fest and Supernova. What’s been a standout show or scene where you felt truly part of something?

KAYLEIGH: Supernova is magical. The ska shows are always my favorite. People come to dance. Plus there’s usually a higher percentage of transgender people who come up to me and tell me I’m doing something good just by existing, and that’s fulfilling.

BEN: For as much effort as we put into playing with mixed bills and looping other genres into our sound, the inclusivity and enthusiasm of the ska scene is unmatched no matter where we go.

CHRIS: Being a part of the burlesque scene is a special experience and one that uniquely parallels the welcoming inclusivity of the ska scene. A bunch of weirdos, queerdos, and misfits expressing themselves to the fullest and finding their own pocket of humans to celebrate and be celebrated by. I was the band leader/drummer for The Striptease Orchestra, a band that backed one of Philadelphia longest running burlesque troupes, The Peek-A-Boo Revue.

Learning about the history and subculture of burlesque was extremely similar to learning about the history of both ska and punk. In one way or another, we’re all standing on the shoulders of the legends who paved the way for those that came after, and they should all be treated with the respect and reverence they deserve for being the pioneers of those subcultures.

SNQLX: Ska always seems to return with a purpose. What do you think this current wave is about — and how do you see yourselves within it?

KAYLEIGH: Sometimes ska stands for something on purpose. Sometimes it doesn’t. But music is inherently political just because kind of everything is. Excuse Me Miss doesn’t seem political, but it is. It’s an anxious romantic song about a woman sung by a woman. Die in Denver is secretly about a lesbian t4t romance. Call Your Bluff is a pretty vague song about challenging authority and power that seeks to demean you, so it could be about anything, but the meaning comes from who’s singing it and who they are singing it to. Example, everytime I play that song i’m telling transphobes to fuck off by showing that me and my people are greater bad asses than these spineless weirdos could ever be.

SNQLX: You’ve covered Operation Ivy, played genre-blurring bills, and leaned into alter-egos like Catfite and Catlite. What does the musical community mean to you right now?

KAYLEIGH: Umm… musical community means… a good time. Being on the road can be very stressful but whenever I’m around people that I enjoy, especially if it’s people who I don’t see that often, I try my best to take it in and savor the moment and hope that I remember it for decades.

BEN: I think in a time where we’re seeing so many seeds of division being sown, any kind of community that focuses on inclusion, acceptance, and positivity is a boon.

BRIT: The musical community is important for keeping morale high in times of complete desperation and sadness like we currently are feeling. But I think it’s also extremely important because it is an outlet for getting information out to like minded folks who care about each other and to show that community will be there for you when you feel like you have no one.

Photos by Sotomayor Photo

FUTURE & INTENTIONS

SNQLX: Is Doom Garden a one-off statement or the beginning of a new sonic direction?

KAYLEIGH: idk lol. I don’t think that Catbite is ever going to make Nice One part two, but I also don’t see us just becoming a prog rock band or something. Maybe tho. Ask Ben.

BEN: Doom Garden is just the next step in Catbite being damn Catbite. I don’t think we’ll go into a new cycle saying “Ok this time we’re just really gonna fuck with the sound”. There isn’t usually that much intention behind what happens with this band; we just do whatever feels natural.

SNQLX: What kind of creative experiments — musical or otherwise — are you curious to try that fans might not expect?

KAYLEIGH: I’d love to force us to do contrapuntal harmony someday but I doubt that will ever happen.

BRIT: I’ve always had the dream of having a full orchestra that plays with us for live shows.

SNQLX: What does success look like for CATBITE right now — and has that definition changed since the early days?

TIM: success is continuing to grow as a band and people, and have people continue to come out to our shows, and for it to always be fun and interesting to be a part of this band with these people (my best friends)

KAYLEIGH: Success looks like us not having to quit touring due to irreconcilable financial strain. So far we haven’t had to quit, that’s pretty fucking successful for an american ska band.

BEN: I think success is kind of a moving target, and it’s easier to see success in hindsight. We can have big and small goals and benchmarks we’re trying to achieve, whether that’s reaching X number of monthly listeners or landing a deal with Y or whatever. But right now -like Kayleigh said -as long as we can say Catbite is still going that seems like a form of success.

Success is being able to do what we’re doing right now. It’s getting to see the country and the world. Meeting new people and experiencing more than just what we know at home. It’s a privilege to be able to do this and my wish is for more people to experience other communities so we can all have a little more empathy towards each other. — Brit

Catbite isn’t just a ska band. They’re a flash of color in a grayscale world: loud, alive, and unwavering in their joy. They’ll make you dance, sure, but they’ll also make you feel something deeper if you’re really listening.

Through DIY hustle, community care, and genre-defying flair, they’ve built more than a band. They’ve built a world, a world where queerness is celebrated, weirdness is welcome, and the music cuts through the noise with a grin and a growl.

Success? It’s not fame or numbers. It’s playing the next show. It’s being able to keep doing this — together. And in a music landscape constantly chasing the next big thing, Catbite proves that what really matters is having something real, something honest, and something worth screaming along to.

So go ahead — press play. Dance a little. Rage a little. And let Catbite bite back.