On September 25th, the Toronto-based band Cootie Catcher played Toscadura for the second night of the POP Montreal festival. This was their first time playing POP Montreal, and coincidentally, my first time seeing a POP show. The band’s sound is a blend of electronic and acoustic styles, containing lots of glitchy beats and samples—all coming together with a fusion of honest lyrics and funky vocals. Their latest album, Shy at First, came out in March of this year and has gotten its fair share of plays on CKUT by now (at least by me). I was fortunate enough to catch up with the band after the show and ask them a few questions about what makes Cootie Catcher, Cootie Catcher. Where did they come from and where are they going?
 
The band is composed of Sophia Chavez (vocals, synth, DJ controller), Anita Fowl (vocals, bass), Nolan Jakupovski (vocals, guitar), and Joseph Shemoun (drums).
 
 
How did the band start, and how did you first establish yourselves as a group?
 
Sophia: Well, it was first Anita and Nolan’s project. They’re a couple, and they started during COVID. They had their own project, then once they started wanting to do live shows, they asked me to play synth. And then Joseph joined the band like a year or two after. We had a drummer before, Brendon.
 
What were your hopes when starting your band? Did you have an idea for where you wanted to go with it?
 
Anita: Hopes at the start?
 
Nolan: It was just for fun, there was no… If you look at the first two songs, they’re really silly and they’re pretty dumb.
 
Anita: Like the 1234?
 
Sophia: No, no, they’re not silly.
 
Anita: They’re a little silly.
 
Joseph: This is the Timbit song […]?
 
I love that song! (Check it out: Pellet – Cootie Catcher)
 
Nolan: Yeah, we didn’t envision being an actual band, I guess.
 
Anita: My hope was that I just wanted to learn […] how to play an instrument better, or at all. And I knew the best way to learn was just by doing it. So I, knowing Nolan, was like, let’s play music together, and it would force me to play. So yeah, that was my hope… To learn how to play.
 
That’s very cool, very inspiring. Do you guys have any musical inspirations? Or what are you listening to right now?
 
Nolan: So many, let’s do one each.
 
Anita: It’s hard to choose.
 
Nolan: Two or three each.
 
Anita: Yeah, one is a lot of pressure.
 
Sophia: Well, I think for me and Anita, [we] both [like] Frankie Cosmos, but I don’t know. I think vocally… I don’t really listen to them, but like, The Cranberries? ‘Cause someone just told me I sound like her, and then I realized I do once [I listened] back. I like their vocals.
 
Nolan: They are really good.
 
Sophia: Yeah, they’re super good.
 
Anita: I was telling Nolan, if I ever got asked [about] influences, the default answer I always want to say is The Velvet Underground. Because I feel like every band that I like, if they get asked this question, they always say The Velvet Underground. So I feel like it always stems from them.
 
Joseph: One of the best in the world.
 
I actually had this idea for a radio show with my friend where we’d just play bands inspired by The Velvet Underground. I feel like there’s so much inspiration there.
 
Anita: Yeah, I feel like they kinda were the blueprint for being, I don’t know, like doing your own thing? I don’t know how else to explain it.
 
Nolan: Yeah, I agree with Velvet Underground and like, Bob Dylan? They’re like chill-inducing.
 
Joseph: Chill-Inducing…
 
Nolan: I think if you’re specifically talking about the sound of this band, it’s probably more inspired by like, Everything but the Girl, and like, bands that mould the acoustic and electric at the same time and do it actually live. Not just like, in a studio or something. Even like Ivy, or something like that.
 
Joseph: I guess my general music inspirations are like, a lot of CAN, like krautrock. I love that shit from the early 70s, or like, Black Sabbath. I feel like I get a lot of my drumming inspiration from Sabbath and Bill Ward. I love that guy. I don’t know, The Beatles? Probably the best band to exist, probably ever.
 
It’s controversial…
 
Joseph: I don’t know, is it though? Some of the best songwriters of our time are The Beatles. I would say like, Lennon, McCartney, come on. Velvet Underground is up there, Neil Young is like my personal inspiration. I love Neil Young. He writes beautiful songs.
 
Sophia: I think we all have personal inspirations, but […] none of us really listen to the same kind of music. We’re talking like The Beatles…
 
You guys have a lot of electronic samples and like, glitches in your songs… What inspires that, and how do you write them into your songs?
 
Nolan: A lot of them are not even really taken from anything; it’s just kind of like, our friends and stuff like that. Stuff that is taken, I wouldn’t even know how to credit it. Like a YouTube video with like, ten views?
 
Sophia: Well, Nolan is like the main songwriter and writes all the beats and stuff.
 
Nolan: I wouldn’t say I’m the main songwriter…
 
Sophia: Well, like the producer, no, but like obviously I manipulate the shit, but he gives me the samples, and it’s just whatever we think is funny or cool.
 
Anita: It’s literally whatever is like an earworm for Nolan.
 
Do you guys start with that? Or do you guys start your songwriting and add the electronic elements to it? What’s that process like?
 
Nolan: Normally, we’ll start with chords or guitar things, to be honest. And then I’ll kind of make a beat around it, and then we kind of work on it together from there.
 
That’s super awesome! What was your favourite show you guys have ever played?
 
Anita: Oh my gosh, I don’t know, there’s been quite a few! Awee!
 
Joseph: I like the one we played outside, at Dundas West.
 
Sophia: Which is so funny ’cause it’s so Toronto, haha. But it was really nice playing outside, that one was fun.
 
Joseph: Yeah, that one was really fun. I smoked a cigarette on stage. That was fun.
 
Anita: I don’t know why all I can think about is Lobster Fest.
 
Sophia and Joseph: Yeah, Lobster Fest was really good, actually.
 
Anita: It was this festival in Ohio, called Lobster Fest, and it was a bunch of university students, for some reason. It was just so awesome, they had a Lobster mascot and we […] made him crowd surf during our set.
 
Sophia: We told him, “we’re not playing till you get up on this stage”.
 
Anita: Yeah, we literally said we’re not playing this song until the lobster gets up here, and it was just like, you can’t really top [that]. Like a mascot period always cracks me up, and just a lobster is amazing, so yeah.
 
Nolan: Yeah, and every time we’re in Montreal, I don’t know, we’ve always had really good shows in Montreal.
 
Sophia: Montreal is super good.
 
Anita: Yeah, something’s in the air here. I feel like we always sound the best here.
 
It’s a really awesome city for music, for sure. It really fosters an environment for musicians. How many times have you guys been here?
 
Nolan: Like, how many times has Cootie Catcher played here?
 
Sophia: Like four or five.
 
Nolan: Yeah, four or five.
 
Sick, can’t get enough. Just a couple of final questions for you guys before I let you go to bed, since it’s almost midnight. What do you think inspires your lyricism?
 
Anita: I don’t have a journal, so this is what happens. I don’t know…
 
Nolan: I like taking words from books.
 
Anita: Oh yeah, you do that. Hmm, I’m trying to think of something else.. I like rhymes?
 
That’s awesome, do you guys all write? Or do you all write separately? How does it work?
 
Sophia: Whoever’s singing is normally whoever wrote it, and yeah, all the topics are super different, so that’s the reason, haha.
 
Anita: Like we don’t sit together to write. Like if Sophia’s singing a song, she’ll just write it herself.
 
Sophia: Haha, yeah, like personally, I write a lot about my love life, but that’s very different from what they’re (Anita and Nolan) writing about because they have different qualms.
 
Anita: I feel like we all have our own little narratives, I guess?
 
That’s super super cool! Well, thank you guys so much for meeting with me, and I’m wishing you every success with Cootie Catcher going forward! You guys rock.
 
 
There’s something about talking to young, interesting bands from Canada that makes me weirdly patriotic… I think it’s because the Canadian music industry can feel so small sometimes compared to the industry in the USA. But, there is so much going on here, and so many talented people; it’s very inspiring. If you ever find yourself in Toronto, or when Cootie Catcher comes back to this amazing city, be sure to get out and see them!