For a decade and a half the Cat Empire have built a reputation as arguably one of the most influential bands of their generation. A new album, Rising With The Sun recently hit #1 and showcased the group in the middle of a new creative peak. As a live act, the Cat Empire are continuing their exemplary form with sell out shows around the country.

It’s not just at home where the Cat Empire are turning heads either. If you look at the stats, the Cat Empire are currently the second biggest Australian live drawcard treading the boards overseas. (AC/DC still hold top spot).

Rising With The Sun was recorded at the Way of the Eagle’s studio with producer Jan Skubiszewsku (Steal The Light/Two Shoes). It was the same studio the Cat Empire used to record Steal the Light.

“We used to go overseas to do our recordings,” explains songwriter/percussionist/frontman Felix Riebl. “For the new album and Steal the Light, being in a suburb in Melbourne kept us to a space where we could be really creative and enjoy the local camaraderie.

“We kept every thing fresh. The songs were being born as they were being recorded. We were confident, because we had a sound from our previous record that we were really happy with. [So] that was our starting point. That sound was the world we wanted to live in, and then it was just a matter of going back to that physical space and coming up with new songs.”

The band had  ideas floating around before they entered the studio: but nothing was cast in stone. Rehearsals were eschewed in favour of spontaneity.

“The spontaneous side of our music is the thing people are drawn to,” explains co-frontman and songwriter Harry James Angus. “We started each day with all the musicians finding their seat, and we’d get a sound and play. Something would sound good and we’d develop a song out of it. Me and Felix both brought ideas we’d already developed to the table but they were able to be borne out in the band in a very spontaneous way.

“Some songs we started from scratch,” adds Felix, “and some were very particular songs that I’d written beforehand and wanted to keep the simplicity in there. It’s a bit of a mixture.”

Alongside the single Wolves, highlights include You Are My Song, Daggers Dawn and Eagle.

“A song like ‘Wolves’,” continues Felix, “I had an idea for that. But I’d imagined it being quite different. I’d written the words and the chords, but it turned into a song we really just played very openly for a long time. We recorded quite a lot of us just playing a certain kind of rhythm and then cut the song out of that. It took on a really new life.

“Rising With the Sun” is a song that I very distinctly remember writing about a time in summer,” adds Felix. “It was a renaissance summer that I had a couple of years back in Sydney staying at this beach house, near Bronte Beach, and I remember spending time with some really good, old, friends, who I hadn’t seen for a while. It was kind of a wild summer.

“We’d go down to this really green kind of jungle area before you get down to the beach. We’d do that most nights we were there, with a portable stereo. We were listening to a lot of Columbian music at the time. That really got into my head, so the sunrise is there, the jungle is there … I can place that song to a certain location.

“The song ‘Bulls’ came directly from a dream. I woke up at the very edge of sleep. Almost, just  before I woke up, there was a guy in there showing me a rhythm. It’s very distinct. That song came straight from there. I think we run the risk of sounding pretentious to say that songs come in dreams, but sometimes they really quite literally just appear like that. That’s a real gift.

“Some songs still hold a very strong meaning for me and a place. Then there’s a whole other kind of spell of songs where I still don’t quite understand them but they ring true in some way. That’s very appealing to me and I think important as a subject in the Cat Empire. I’ve always wanted to avoid the band being too specific about things. I wanted to keep that mysterious nature to the songs.”

The new material feels custom built for  festivals. “You can play it on a big stage,” Felix admits. “The choruses are ones people can sing. The rhythms really work. People move to them.”

“We’re a band who has this great live reputation,” says Harry, “and we are a band who has a reputation for improvising. There’s always been this real challenge of basically packaging up songs that will go for 15 minutes on stage into something for an album. I feel like we’ve gotten better at that. We’ve managed to distil that feeling into a palatable song length.

“I think there’s a lot of celebration on the new album,” concludes Felix, “in terms of ‘celebrating’ what the Cat Empire is, and what it means to people to come to the shows and be a part of that. I don’t want to make grand statements about whether it’s our best album or not,… It doesn’t really matter. It’s true to what the band is and what’s kept people coming back to our shows for quite a long time. That’s something that’s really great.”

The Cat Empire’s Rising With The Sun is out now. For tour dates click here http://thecatempire.com/tour-dates.html