In Defense of Ska Ep. 25: Catbite (Tim Hildebrand, Brit Luna, Chris Pires)

Philadelphia 4-piece ska band Catbite have only been together a couple of years, but for a lot of people—and I’m one of them—they are one the top new bands currently in the genre. This is largely due to how incredible their debut 2019 album turned out. The band seemingly came out the gate, fully formed, with a unique approach to ska that incorporated power-pop, soul, and garage-rock elements, with amazing songwriting, killer musicianship, and fantastic vocals.

But now a couple of years later, Catbite has finally released their sophomore full-length, Nice One. It is absolutely a better album, both in terms of songwriting and production value, and that’s saying a lot. The record will release on Bad Time Records on August 6th. You can pre-order it right now. 

On this episode, we chat with Catbite about their new album. But we also get the full story on how they found Mannequin Pussy’s stolen van, we learn about Tim Hildebrand’s old band, The Snails, and how the Future Islands guys basically forced them to stop using the name (Not cool dudes!). And of course, we dig into the two alternative versions of Catbite’s debut album: The hardcore version (Catfite), and the Yee-Haw version (Catlite). But unfortunately, they wouldn’t tell us which style they’re going to do next! 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.