#INTERVIEW : SCENE FEST presents PartyCat
Partycat returned to SCENE fest for a second year, bringing their high energy and interactive performance for fans to enjoy. Founded in 2009 by Steve Sapienza, Partycat has had a number of changes to their lineup throughout the years. Currently the band consists of front man Joshua Cottreau, Mike Buchta on bass, Mike Zancai on the drums, as well as Steve Sapienza and Patty Kosak on the guitar. Our SCENE correspondent, Stephanie Puccinelli had the pleasure of sitting down with Sapienza and Zancai during SCENE fest to discuss their thoughts on the festival, as well as how they go the Xtra mile for their music.
How do you think you’re performance went this year compared to last year?
Sapienza: Last year was a little bit different cause we played in an indoor venue, we played at L3 last year and it was more intimate. Where as this year it was on a bigger scale so…it was a little bit different, it was less intimate this year.
Zancai: it was still received well, I was happy from the stage, seeing everybody like getting into it. It was pretty awesome.
With all that being said, do you prefer to play at more intimate or larger venues?
S: I do like intimate shows… personally
Z: I like being on the stage, but I like when there is no barrier. Like when there’s not four feet between the gate and the stage, so we can then interact with the fans. Even though I’m sitting behind the drums, I still like to see Josh, our front man get in there and get into everyone’s face but. Its kind of difficult to do that when you’re four feet away from them, you know?
If you had to pick ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD where would you wanna play?
S: Japan!
Z: Yeah Japan! Somewhere where we haven’t been and we know the music scene is just insane out there
So its just been announced that you will be playing Warped Tour on the Lemon Stage, as opposed to the Ernie ball stage. How do you feel about that?
Z: Yup, we were kind of excited to, uh you know “Win” the battle of the bands because we worked for it. Cause like we had our numbers up there and we were pretty confident about it but…
S: We were asked to play the lemon stage
Z: it was pretty flattering to be asked to play through via email as opposed to having to like compete with friends of our, like we have other friends of ours that are touring in other bands that are competing for the same slot that we were, I mean there’s multiple slots.
S: We just opened another opportunity for another band, you know like we won it last year and obviously we wanna do anything we can to play, so we got asked and its nice that it’s a guarantee and than also we feel its kind of cool that open that up for another band that has never got the chance to play warped yet and now has a better chance of getting that spot… So yeah its awesome!
How does Partycat go the XTRA mile?
Z:We all work construction jobs and right after work sometimes we go straight from work to the jam space for rehearsal…
S: there are a million bands out there that want to make it big and its like out of those million people only ten of them will go the Xtra mile right? No matter how hard a band thinks they work there is always another bigger band that has worked harder than you for what they got, so you can never stop working. so we kind of have that work ethic. no matter if it working, touring, or anything we do. There has been times were we have done two shows in one night and after one show multiple of us went straight to work right after without sleep.
Z: In Toronto, Canadian Music Week, this past year. We played parts and labor then went over to Sneaky Dees and played that, packed up all of our gear, these guys slept for like literally… they didn’t even sleep, they drove straight to work took a nap in the car and than started working. We do everything we can and have to do, to go the Xtra mile.
Would you like to say anything to your fans?
S: Well I would like to say we have some plans to continue touring in August, we are going to do some Ontario dates and there may be some American dates and that. and then also there might be some additional east coast Canadian tour dates and then I think after that, fans can get excited about us settling down and starting to work on putting out a new album. In the fall we will start, there should be a new album out hopefully by next summer and then we will see what comes from that.
Check out their latest video Mistress from their album 9 Lives
[Interview by: Stephanie Puccinelli]