Search - Nightmare and The Cat :: Simple

Los Angeles-based rockers Nightmare and the Cat formed in 2010, but the musical powerhouses that lead the five-piece 22-year-old front man Django Stewart and 25-year-old guitarist Sam Stewart go way back, all the way back.

Growing up in England, Sam watched as his 6-year-old brother Django developed a fanatical love of James Brown. Django saw his older sibling pick up a guitar for the first time at age 12 and immediately master a Nirvana songbook. But while the two pursued parallel musical paths; Sam with Blondelle, Django with Midnight Squires,they didn't contemplate forming a band together until Sam rang up Django and asked his little brother to join him for a songwriting session in L.A. three years ago.

'I was just so f***ing happy when he said that,'; Django remembers. 'He came for 10 days and we wrote five songs'; Sam recalls, joking, 'it was probably our most prolific period.' The results were too good to ignore and their new band, their first truly joint effort, was born.

Named after a track the brothers adore by obscure artist Anthony Harwood, Nightmare and the Cat quickly grew to a five-piece as the pair recruited Sam's girlfriend Claire Acey, an accomplished singer and multi-instrumentalist and Spike Phillips, the drummer from Midnight Squires (Scott Henson, another Squires album, joined after the group's bassist Julie Mitchell relocated to Chicago). Sam says their original sonic plan was simple: 'We wanted it to be a mixture of Jeff Buckley vocals and the Pixies' music.'

So when the time came to follow up their debut self-titled EP with their first full-length album, Simple, they headed for uncharted territory. They convinced producer Eric Valentine, who'd made one of their favorite albums (Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf) to record 'Blackbird Smile' for them as a favor and charmed him into doing the full LP. Then they got to work putting their gorgeously dramatic, atmospheric anthems to tape.

Sam calls grand opener 'Simple' the album's 'defining track' because 'it sets the tone for the whole record and everything it's about.' (As listeners will soon find out, Nightmare and the Cat's music is anything but simple.) 'It's about relationships within your family, how people are trying to hide stuff but it always comes out in the end.' Sam explains. 'Goodbye'; is the group's version of a classic pop song inspired by '60s girl groups like The Ronettes and The Crystals. Django says every time he sings the track's chorus 'I've said goodbye so many times the words have lost all meaning / but I won't say it again if you keep me here believing.' 'I find a new meaning for it.'

'Mae' shows off a folkier vibe more akin to the music Sam was making on his own before Nightmare and the Cat started up. 'It's got that old shuffle beat and acoustic finger-picking' Sam says, plus 'a very Fleetwood Mac-influenced chorus with the harmonies.' The stompy sing-along 'Alvarado' is sort of love letter to Echo Park, where the brothers have lived. Django sang the melody into his phone and shot it over to Sam, who mimicked the line on guitar, Hendrix-style. 'It's about opening your eyes to L.A., but the lyrics are kind of bittersweet' Django explains. 'We do that a lot in our music.'