A Conversation With Puddycat!
Over the weekend I had the opportunity to sit down and catch up with the Purchase band, Puddycat, comprised of lead guitarist Noah “Holly” Bancroft, Aurele “Aj” Henry on bass, Smokey Joe on the kit, and Matthew O’leary on vocals and rhythm guitar. Puddycat is just one of the many bands to come out of SUNY Purchase’s eccentric music scene, making a name for themselves and other emerging bands north of New York City. Here’s what the band had to share during our conversation on life, music, and their creativity…
Pictured, from left to right, Holly Bancroft, Aurele Henry, Smokey Joe, and Matthew O’Leary, A.K.A. Puddycat.
Who is Puddycat?
Matt: Puddycat isn't a tangible thing.
Joe: I mean we're touchable.
Holly: Yeah, you could touch us.
Matt: I feel like Puddycat represents our homie shit.
Joe: There was never a conversation about ‘let's start a band’, we just started jamming together and one day we had an album full of songs.
Holly: Yeah, I feel like me joining Puddycat also has coincided with my friendship with you guys, it hasn’t been about getting to play shows, just like... getting to see my friends.
Aj: Yeah, you joined the band like an hour after you became our friend, it was crazy.
Matt: it just works.
When and where did Puddycat meet, and how did each member join the band?
Matt: Well, [Joe, Aj, and I] went to school together, we all already knew each other.
Joe: We weren't like really friends until junior year.
Matt: Joe knew I was writing some songs, then he started drumming on some songs, then Aj started playing bass on some songs. Then a few months in we all sort of realized that it was sort of a band.
Joe: Like, “are we in a band?” I guess.
Holly, what was the story of you joining?
Holly: I was walking around [purchase] I saw these guys sitting outside of the hub and they said, “in 20 minutes do you wanna come join us to eat” and I said fuck it I'll join. We had a meal together; a very nice lavish meal, and they were talking about how they were gonna be practicing –and I had actually wanted to join Puddycat before coming to school, I bet they could use a guitarist. My plan coming to purchase was to join a band at the start of it– and I was like “oh I have this room mic that you could use to practice” and eventually [Matt] was just like “you wanna bring your guitar.”
Matt: And then we played through the set with improv, and we were just like “oh this is good.”
Holly: There was a show that we played, I had to learn all those songs in that week.
Aj: Yeah, that was impressive.
Holly: It was fun.
Holly, laying down his tracks for the new album in SUNY Purchase’s recording studio.
Where did the name Puddycat come from?
Matt: Grandpa Aurey.
Aj: He says that all the time... I don’t know. Every time he sees a cat, he calls it puddy cat, and he likes looney toons a lot... Grandpa Aurele.
What's the creative process for Puddycat?
Matt: As for right now it's just, I’ll demo a song and everyone else will kind of like hop on it and write their parts, but stuff usually changes. After we’ve played it a few times usually some things will change, and then we’ll record it, and that’s the song.
Matt singing his heart out.
What's the inspiration for Puddycat, musical or nonmusical?
Matt: Lately I've been mainly inspired by all my friends who make music, and listening to their stuff makes me want to make music more.
Which friends?
Matt: You got Mallard Westcott, Mildly Allergic is awesome, Car Becomes Airplane... not all these people are even friends just like purchase bands. Oh! Warm Wishes! Warm Wishes is a big one. Warm Wishes, the way they go about making music has really inspired me a lot.
Holly: They put kindness in our hearts.
Listen to all the artists mentioned above and more in Puddycat’s specially curated playlist here:
Who are each of your top three artists?
Aj: Elliot Smith, Radiohead, and Wu Tang... which is a crazy combo.
Holly: Alex G, Don Caballero, and Brave Little Abacus.
Matt: For me I'd say Car Seat Headrest, Warm Wishes, Mildly Allergic.
Joe: I'd probably say –not all time, right now– Jon Bellion, and I listen to a lot of Mom Jeans... so much Mom Jeans.
What is your favorite show that Puddycat has played?
Aj: First stark show.
Matt: That one was really fun, but I think my favorite we’ve ever done, it was on the 15th of September, it was our first college show. We played with There Are No Tigers, Bird Week, and Mallard Westcott, we opened. I think that’s the best crowd we’ve ever gotten, and probably the best sounding show we’ve ever done.
Aj: And it felt really good.
Joe: I broke my stick dude, right off the bat.
Puddycat fans crowd surfing during the bands debut at SUNY Purchase.
Where can I find Puddycat when not playing music?
Holly: Out and about.
Joe: At Benny’s Brown Bag! I work there like every day of the week for the most part, as much as I can. It's like I'm there or I'm home practicing that’s basically it.
Matt: SUNY Purchase, me and Noah be around every day... Moo Moos Creamery –
Aj: Not anymore... yeah fuck Moo Moos Creamery! put that in.
Matt: Yeah, we just be hanging around our normal spots.
Aj: I’ll also be at Benny’s, starting this week, I'm excited.
Smokey Joe, jamming out, sporting his Benny’s Brown Bag T-shirt.
What is Puddycat’s pre-concert routine?
Smokey Joe: Me smoking weed for sure. For me to play a show I'm most comfortable when I'm stoned out of my mind. If I'm going into it totally sober, I feel like weird.
Aj: I'm the opposite. I feel like when I'm playing totally high, I get anxious.
Matt: Yeah, I usually don’t like smoking before the show, I feel like if there's a good amount of people in the room, especially a good amount of people that I don’t know, that is like my ideal concert setting.
Holly: I feel like being too high messes with my technical abilities.
Matt: Yeah definitely.
Holly: I don’t like to be fucked up when I'm playing live y’know
Joe: It's weird for me I'll spend most of my time practicing while being high– even in school we’ll always have like a wax pen or something. And I would just go and smoke that before going to band class or before practicing. It’s weird, it’s like the more high I get, the more in tune I am with the sticks in my hand, and I’ll notice all the little intricacies of what’s happening, so it just gets me more in tune.
Aj: Your flow...
Joe: Yeah.
And the post-concert routine?
Joe: Drinking like lots of cold water.
Matt: I feel like if were opening, definitely watching the other bands play, seeing their set, also having fun at their set. Love to dance around.
Holly: Hype them up.
Matt: Yeah, but after that just kinda hanging out with friends.
Holly: Slumpin’.
Matt: Yeah, I'm usually pretty tired
Holly: There's something serene about – I think it was the first or second show I played with you guys– walking all the way from The Stood, with my ear buds in, to the music building. It’s like late at night, passersby, they don’t know what you just did.
Matt: Yeah, it’s a weird feeling.
Aj: Yeah, it is.
Tell me about your history at Stark Vintage.
Matt: Stark Vintage hosted the first ever Puddycat show.
Joe: How’d you meet stark?
Aj: Yeah, I also don’t know.
Matt: Well, I met stark just from going into his shop, and he said he did shows in the past. And I asked him “what if we did a show?” and he was ok with the idea, and he let us do three shows. The good ole days.
Puddycat setting up for their first show at Stark Vintage in Peekskill, New York.
What is Joe saying in the intro to your song, New Jeans? What's that about?
Joe: I don’t even know what was going on, Aj kinda pulled that from the archives of his voice memos. I think I was just talking about– I was just bothered that day, like with the way I was playing, and it didn’t even Matter what I was doing, if it sounded good to them. it just sounded weird to me; I was in a weird spot.
Matt and Holly in dresses performing at their purchase debut.
Can you talk about the wardrobe choices of Puddycat?
Matt: Yeah, shout out to Mora for running the free store. Like two nights before our show, we just walked up in there, got a bunch of random clothes and walked out. I definitely like dressing up on stage, it's fun.
Holly: I like playing with gender norms on stage, ‘cause you know, gender is performance... we’re performing, why not put on some eyeliner y’know. Do something different on stage.
Matt: You were so twee at the last show.
Holly: I was so twee; I was wearing a red dress with jeans underneath.
Matt: Juno style.
What makes Puddycat smile?
Aj: We love a good wholesome moment.
Joe: I'm intrigued with humans as a whole. People are very interesting, and like sweet, people do silly little things all the time because it's just what they wanna do, it's cute.
Holly: It's cool to see how other people love, how other people find their joy, and you just find joy from that.
Can you talk about life in northern Westchester?
Aj: It's a lot quieter.
Matt: In our later teen years, we would kinda just drive around our hometown and hangout every day, I think every day senior year [Joe, Aj, and I] were together just hanging out, and we got really close our senior year hanging out every day.
Aj: I mean it's not like we had shit to do half the time, we would just like sit together in a car and either talk or not talk at all for a while ...listen to music.
Joe: Yeah, music was a constant always, no Matter where we’re going or what we're doing, always listening to music or showing each other new music and stuff.
Matt: It's a more secluded lifestyle.
Aj: Which I kinda like.
And Holly can you talk about where you grew up?
Holly: I grew up in the upper Hudson Valley, Dutchess County. The music around me was the Red Hook D.I.Y. scene, which is where that band, Car Becomes Airplane, comes from. And I spent a lot of time at home mostly, I didn’t go out too much, I was mostly walking around in the woods or practicing my guitar. Pretty quiet place.
What is the body and the blood of Puddycat?
Aj: Grabba is our body.
Matt: I think that my basement was the body, and we were all the blood.
Holly: I'd say the blood is black coffee.
Joe: For me the blood is tea, I love tea.
Holly: The blood’s a caffeinated drink.
Joe: The body is weed probably... yeah, the body is just weed. The body is weed, and the blood is tea, those are things ill ingest every day.
Matt and Smokey Joe practicing in Matt’s basement.
What's one moment you were like “This is Puddycat.”?
Joe: Honestly for me it was a little known Puddycat show, The Gratitude Festival, right before Stark Vintage. The Gratitude Festival is like a bunch of students from Putnam Valley would get together and play some music, do poems, whatever. You'd get the stage for a few minutes, and Matts fucking crazy ass decided to do ‘Beach Life-In-Death’ by Car Seat Headrest, that’s like 12 minutes long. We had the longest set of anybody ‘cause everyone else is doing one song. We get 8 minutes in, and Mr. Odell shoots me this look that’s like ‘what the fuck are you guys doing up here right now’. And for me that was the moment. We were doing stuff different enough to kinda claim our own sound and be like “This is Puddycat.” We’ve curated a song and were showing it to people, and it feels good.
What can we expect from Puddycat in the next year?
Matt: Well, definitely an album, we're recording for an album right now. It's definitely closer to the finish line than we imagined, because we have just a lot of stuff laying around. But other than that, just the same old shit, playing shows...
Joe: New merch.
Matt: Yeah, maybe some new merch.
Holly: I think if we practice enough, we’ll get into Carnegie Hall, guaranteed, end of the year. December 31st.
Everyone/thing Puddycat wants to say thank you to?
Aj: Micheal Stark.
Joe: Gotta thank Mr. Odell.
Aj: Yeah 1000%.
Matt: Yeah, Micheal Stark, Mr. Odell.
Joe: [Mr. Odell] Fathered me through high school and just taught me how to play drums, and then just set us up in the most beautiful way. He stuck us all in a room together and was essentially just like “go.”
Aj: Definitely one of the biggest supporters we had at the time.
Is there anything else Puddycat wants us to know?
Matt: The first album is coming out soon... very soon. Hopefully by the end of this year, if not then, early next year.
Joe: It'll just be better.
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A Conversation With Puddycat!
(@iamnotpuddycat)
https://spotify.link/AqZ62JXi5Db
Written/Photos by: Benjamin Joseph
(@frenchkissvomit)
