Listen to the music of Siamese

Siamese are a quirky collective from outer space. Consisting of three cats, they decided to land on planet earth (more specifically, Moncton, New Brunswick) and have a look around. Heavily influenced by the music of earthlings such as Kraftwerk, they decided to start releasing their own music.

I made contact with these interstellar kitties a little while ago. Here's what they had to say....

1. Please tell us about the formation of Siamese. What inspired you to start this band?

Felix - Being astronauts can get kind of mundane; when we landed on Earth, we found that most humans like to be entertained, and we like making strange sounds ;)

Oliver- We also needed a job to try to save money to repair our spaceship to get home.

High Commander Mittens - I received word from the high kitty council that one of our exploration teams that had gone missing managed to get a transmission to us and that they were alive and well stranded on a planet called Earth controlled by a furless species called "humans", a silly name for a world if you ask me.

This team said that they were keeping busy by playing music for these weird aliens and that Earth amazingly had a cat population already! These earth cats were more primitive then us, they hadn't even mastered intergalactic
space travel yet??!!!??!! I traveled to this back water world to see this for myself.

2. How would you describe your music?

Felix - I get my inspiration from the sounds we encountered while traveling in space (comets, black holes)

Oliver - 3 kitties from outer space making music with gear lent to us by Kraftwerk (when they visited us years ago on Jakhob).

High Commander Mittens - Sublime melodic bliss, like all good cat music.

3. What recordings have you released so far? Do you have any plans for any upcoming recordings?

Oliver - So far we have released a recording titled "2600", and one titled "Black Cat".

Felix - I would like to try to make more Asian influenced music. I love their legends about animals, like Maneki Neko J

4. Do you enjoy performing live or would you rather spend time in the studio?

Felix - I like both. Each have their own sort of fun, on stage we get to communicate with the humans and in the studio we get to play with all kinds of gadgets!

Oliver - I prefer the studio slightly.

High Commander Mittens - It really doesn't matter as long as these Humans get the word that the Feline federation is calling the shots in this part of the universe. I mean really! It was us after all who named this galaxy "The Milky Way" Mmmmm Yummmy!

5. Please tell us a bit about your musical background. What other bands/projects have you all been involved in?

Felix - When we found out we were headed for Earth we decided to do some research on this planet. We found that the best thing about the planet was the music.

High Commander Mittens - Myself I've normally dwelled on harsher, louder forms of cat music that give praise to various dark cat gods and so forth so this is an interesting change.

6. Who are your influences?

Felix - Depeche Mode, The Postal Service

Oliver - The Cure, U2, Joy Division

High Commander Mittens - For this kind of thing I'm actually inspired by several Human artists
like Radiohead,Janes addiction, anything by Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/JESU), Skinny Puppy (hopefully there not affiliated with the cursed Canine republic!!!).

7. What's the Moncton music scene like at the moment?



Felix - Umm... Alright.



Oliver - Loud & Angry!

High Commander Mittens - From what I hear it's a lot more professional then years ago, bands play in proper clubs instead of rec centers. It may not have the same sentimental appeal as a bunch of earth kids throwing something together in a church basement but its better overall.

8. How do you think Siamese differs from other east coast bands?

Felix - He he, well, there aren't any other bands that have cats in them :D

Oliver - Or any from another planet =^_^=

High Commander Mittens - Were cats from space silly!

9. What do you think are the best and worst qualities of the east coast music scene?

Felix - A lot of humans don't seem to like to support one another, that can be kind of sad. But we have met some incredible humans with open minds and a love for music.

Oliver - Some humans don't like cats. While others love them! There is also a lot of fish here...

10. If Siamese could have a dream jam session with any band or artist, who would it be?

Felix - Playing shows with Gary Flanagan is fun, doing a show together would be great: Gary with cats!!!

Oliver - Sun Ra. He was from Saturn and made strange music that reminded him of his planet!

11. There seems to be a strong visual element to Siamese....you get up on stage wearing masks, you have cat fights, etc. What were your reasons for adopting such a visual style?

Felix - We're cats! We like to play!

Oliver - I have to try to keep High Commander Mittens from trying to take my guitar. He likes mine better.

High Commander Mittens - What do you mean masks?

12. You incorporate lots of electronic elements into your sound. Do you find yourselves naturally attracted to this kind of futuristic, electronic sound?

Felix - These sounds remind us of our home planet Jakhob.

Oliver - Our music is a direct imitation of sounds of everyday life on Jakhob.