Interview: Fantastic Cat's Anthony D'Amato talks 'indie supergroup,' switching instruments, Adam Duritz

The indie folk/rock band Fantastic Cat definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously.

From their truth-stretching band bio to the cheeky slogan on their top-selling T-shirt to the giant cat heads appearing on their album covers, the self-dubbed “supergroup” started as a fun little project and has grown into something more.

“We were all very busy solo artists, with our own projects, and we made this band when we had a little downtime,” Anthony D’Amato said earlier this month from New York, “and we thought it was the kind of thing where maybe we would play one show here or there, put out this little EP or a record that we made for fun, just as a break from our regular lives. And now this has completely taken over…”

Fantastic Cat will be making its Pittsburgh debut when their quick Midwest tour begins here Aug. 21, with a show at Club Cafe on the South Side.

Drawing praise from publications like Rolling Stone and earning a pair of appearances on “CBS’ Saturday Morning,” Fantastic Cat is comprised of D’Amato, Don DiLego, Brian Dunne and Mike Montali (who also fronts Hollis Brown). The attitude within the band is quite different from their solo projects, and that’s totally intentional.

“That was really important to us because I think especially for Brian and Don and myself, coming from being solo artists where the project is just your name, you can be really precious about stuff sometimes,” D’Amato said. “You can feel like you have to take things very seriously and you have to hold it very tightly because it’s your name and everything is riding on it. And then you start a fun side project like this, and it’s an opportunity to do all the things that you were maybe too sensible to do with your solo project.

“… And we’ve realized that people really can tell when you’re being loose and having fun with it. And that means they’re able to be loose and have fun with it in the audience and they want to bring their friends next time and those friends want to bring their friends next time. There’s something infectious about letting it go a little bit and just having fun.”

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While the band may be lighthearted with their image, they take the music seriously, with a pair of albums: 2022’s “The Very Best of Fantastic Cat” and this summer’s “Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat.”

“When we’re in the studio, we’re having fun and we’re trying stuff, but we are holding ourselves to a very high standard,” he said. “And we have four different songwriters in the band who have four very different strong opinions about how things should sound and how things should be produced and mixed. And we’re all used to being in charge of our own projects.

“So it’s been this interesting challenge in the studio of navigating that balance of how do we make something that has all of our fingerprints on it and also passes the test for all of us. I think the end result is everything that everyone has brought in has gotten better for the four of us being involved in it, but it’s also really pushed us outside of where I think we might normally be comfortable as songwriters and pushed us to try other things and experiment a little bit more. And that’s been a really rewarding thing that I don’t think any of us (expected.)”

For the first album, recorded at DiLego’s studio in the Poconos, each songwriter brought a few songs with them. But, recognizing they were becoming “a real band,” their second album became a more collaborative effort. By necessity, the band members collectively tackled guitars, bass and drums, with the instrument swapping now becoming a signature of their live shows.

”And we are not drummers by any stretch of the imagination, but we figured out how to make it work in the studio and then when it was time to start playing live, it was just a an act of necessity. And then that’s become the thing that people really respond to so strongly,” he said. “After doing that for a year on the road, we kind of figured out like OK, this is the kind of song that Don is primed to play drums on; this is the kind of song that Anthony can muddle his way through on the drums. In some ways it’s forced a simplicity onto us in some regards. That’s actually been, I think, really refreshing too.”

And to be clear, D’Amato said there are no big drum solos in his repertoire.

”I keep it very simple, and people will come out after the show. They’ll say to me, ‘Man, oh god, I love the way, the drums on that song, how you kept all the kick and the snare and the high-hat, they’re never hitting at the same time. It’s very Ringo (Starr), and I’m just like, ‘Sure!’” he said with a laugh. “That was totally intentional. … I’m just trying to survive up there.”

Aside from all the instrumental swaps, the new album also features an appearance from Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz on their single, “So Glad You Made It.” Montali’s band had toured with Counting Crows before, and the pair struck up a friendship.

“Mike originally sang those ‘la la la’ parts, and he was like, … I just hear Adam’s voice on that, so he sent it to him, and Adam was so quick to jump on board,” D’Amato said. “And then we had this idea of like, well, maybe we could film a little teaser for social media to show that Adam’s in the song and he came back and he’s like I’ll do a music video if you want. And a bunch of the stuff in the video was his idea. So he was just so supportive, and it means the world to us.”

According to their origin story, the band’s name originated with a waitress at an East Village bar. (“That is one of the true parts of the bio,” D’Amato said.)

“We were just talking about how every band name is kind of stupid until it’s the name of a band you like. It’s a group of grown men who get together and say, we’re the Beatles or whatever. And you’re like, OK. But then when it’s a band that you love, it’s great,” he said. “You can’t think of them being named anything else. So we said rather than sit here and kick these ideas back and forth and argue over something we’re never going to agree on, when the waitress comes back with our drinks, let’s just ask her, if we were a band, what would we be called? And we just agreed that whatever she says, we go with.

“And (Fantastic Cat) was the first thing out of her mouth. She didn’t even think about it. I have no idea how she came up with it. I have no idea who she is or where she is now, but she absolutely changed the trajectory of this entire project.”

After that, D’Amato’s wife, who is an illustrator and artist, made the cat heads that became the artwork for their first EP. And then came the aforementioned cat masks worn for media photos and album art.

“And everything just spiraled from there,” he said.

With a name like Fantastic Cat, it’s worth mentioning that DiLego has multiple cats and Dunn owns one, while D’Amato and Montali are both allergic. “When we go out to Don’s studio and record, Mike and I have to load up on the Claritin,” D’Amato said.

And cat jokes and puns are definitely purr, errr, par for the course.

“I feel like the MO for this band was generally just trying to make each other laugh. And if we’re in the van kicking around a stupid idea … if it makes us laugh, we’ve decided to just roll with it and see what happens, no matter how stupid it seems. Because generally, we talk about it as kind of like the George Costanza approach of do the opposite of everything you would do in your solo career. Something where you’re like, this is too ridiculous. We can’t do this. In Fantastic Cat, we absolutely have to do that.”