Anjee Sorge
Cats on Leashes (from left) Jeri Casper, Tim Spinler, and Dar Ward.
Bassist Dar Ward’s cats, Kylo and Ted, don’t get along. They hiss and claw at each other at my feet when I sit down at Ward’s home to talk with the members of Madison punk band Cats on Leashes.
Drummer Tim Spinler doesn’t have cats — he’s allergic.
“Cats and sneezes,” he puns.
Frontperson Jeri Casper (also an Isthmus staff member) has one cat. She shows me a picture of Ollie, a dapper orange fluffball in a bowtie. He likes to sneak licks of soap — which leads to a discussion over whether he has pica.
The band members get along better than the felines.
Cats on Leashes — which performs next on December 7 at The Mode in Waterloo — revives the sound of ’90s grunge and riot-grrl music, in the vein of Bikini Kill and Hole, or the modern follow-ups Sleater-Kinney and Screaming Females. Casper is a rebel with a beautiful voice.
Cats on Leashes’ first and only album to date, 2017’s Give to Get Got, has just one song about felines. “Shitty Kitty” is about the end result of giving cats a saucer of milk. Don’t let the silly premise fool you — it’s still an uproarious punk song that slows for a melodic break as the band repeats “LACTOSE. INTOLERANT. CAT.”
“We had a silly argument over whether we should call it ‘Shitty Kitty,’ or ‘Lactose Intolerant Cat,’” says Ward.
“I guess the shitting was implied,” adds Casper.
Other songs on the album are compelling and serious. “Fix” has an overwhelming, ethereal heaviness reminiscent of a slow, angsty track from The Breeders, as Casper croons “you cannot fix me / I cannot fix you.” On the hard-driving track “Insidious Cuddle Demander,” you get the sense that they’re talking about more than cats demanding cuddles; it’s a broader comment on relationships. Indeed, Cats on Leashes’ trademark style seems to combine cheeky wordplay with the issues that plague many of us — relationships, self-image, depression, social expectations. On “Alligator Handjob,” Casper delivers us this excellent quip: “I feel like a wart on the dick of life / Like I brought a gun to a Nic Cage fight.”
The band has been around for five years, when Casper and Spinler re-formed out of their defunct project The Type. Ward, who also plays in the Pixies tribute band Crackity Jones, True Name and a slew of other Madison bands, was added to the lineup about a year after the band formed.
This year, Cats on Leashes picked up an award from the Madison Area Music Association. They were voted “Performer of the Year” in the hard rock/punk category. Perhaps there was some foreshadowing to their win.
“Ironically, the person on stage that won right before us had a cat on a leash,” says Spinler.
As we wrap up the interview and get ready to leave the house, Ward hooks Ted up to a purple leash — to take him on a walk around the block.
