Music Mondays had the chance to sit down with an extremely talented alternative creative by the name of Bloodcat. If you haven’t heard of them, don’t miss the train before it’s too late. Originating from St. Louis, Bloodcat is blending genres like no other along with having a matching vision for everything surrounding their original style.

6/10/22

Zomb: So first things first let’s get introduced, where are you from and how old are you? 

Bloodcat: I'm from St. Louis and I'm 22, so like older than all the hyperpop kids but younger than like your step dad who's a rapper on the side. 

Zomb: Love that, I have a feeling this conversation will be a good one. Tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in St. louis. What were some of your early experiences like? 

Bloodcat: I grew up in a house that was basically a front for a meth lab, and my parents were the only ones in the family down bad like that, so like my whole childhood is this weird mixture of memories that align with that lifestyle and memories that align with like a 'normal' upbringing. I can't really remember anything before age 12 very well because everything was so all over the place all the time. but in middle school i think i kind of came into my own a little, but then at the same time i was hanging out with people way older than me, always getting into trouble, and those are the experiences and life lessons that i think shaped at least a big part of me. I wasn't really involved in any music scene or anything until I was 18, before that it was always more of like a private journal or something I shared with friends or with strangers online. There was this one history teacher who would play my music videos in class when I was like 15 which was embarrassing but also weirdly cool. 

Zomb: Definitely know what you mean, those early days can truly shape up later experiences and teach some good lessons. So growing up was a bit up and down, who were some of your early musical influences growing up? Who did you listen to a lot when you were younger? 

Bloodcat: I will to this day stand by old Hollywood undead, dot dot curve, and like that whole era of myspace music and the original scenecore style. That was the first time I really felt like I found music that suited my personality, at least at the time. Before that I thought about music a lot but my taste was so limited bc i would move so frequently that it was hard to get into a niche and to be exposed to new and interesting things in real life. I don't think I make music that sounds like that, or I don't think my best music is music that does, but I know I can see how it influenced my style and even my personality. I went through this pretentious phase in early hs too where i would listen to la dispute and arctic monkeys and other tumblr bands like nonstop, and when I first started releasing music anywhere, 2014-2015 I very much aspired to be like them, poetic and thematically focused; and now I feel like even though I'm so far from that i can still see the way it influences me now, just in a more abstract way. but for me a lot of my influences can get in the way of who i really am or what i really have to say, when I get too caught up in them. It's really easy for me to do that, and it was only a few months ago that i really felt like i broke out of that and like now I have a place to come back to where I can remind myself "this is who Bloodcat is. this is where they're at right now." and letting my personality and what I know I need to say or make really shine thru as my biggest actual influence. For me almost everything is personality. I love personalities and the ways people differ from each other and so my weird relationship with early influences is like mediated by that fascination. 

Zomb: I really love this response, I’d definitely agree those early influences definitely leak into what you sound like today but don’t make up your sound ultimately. Definitely some really good classic groups in there for sure, that era of music is sentimental to many. When did you first start creating music? When did you actually start recording and writing songs?

Bloodcat: It's crazy right? bc for me i almost had to start out like "I think these people are really cool and i want to be like them" because I didn't really know who I was yet or what I even really cared about, just so that I could transcend that and kind of come into my own more and figure out what my heart sounds like. I think imitation is an important step at least for a lot of people starting out in anything creative, unless you're just like born knowing that you're a genius. First getting into music and releasing music were synonymous for me, I think because by the time I was connecting with that part of myself I already pretty much lived online. so it felt normal to me to just upload anything i came up with to YouTube. it was so bad, and some of it is still out there. Usually when I'm dating someone like a couple months in I'll start showing them that stuff for fun. I did have a couple of friends who were a few years older than me and who recognized that I might have some potential, but as much as those people mentored me, I also saw that they weren't living the dreams that they had for themselves. Just remarkably talented people who didn't take it anywhere. so at some point I had to deal with this internal struggle of "these people know more than me about almost every aspect of this thing, and this is important growth" but that it was also hard for me to look up to them and appreciate them because i knew i wanted to take things a step further. it was actually one of those dudes who took me to my first festival, and who set up a studio in his house for us to use and later on even just for me to use. I was about 13 then. and I'm not saying they weren't fulfilled; they might be but for me I knew this was /the/ thing and I have some creature in me who loves sharing stuff with the world.

Zomb: A lot of great lore there for Bloodcat, those roots are so important. It’s wild how looking back on times like that and how far you’ve come. What was recording like for you early on? What was that process like? When did you decide to put your first vocal track out to the world? 

Bloodcat: Really really early on I was recording with my webcam mic and playing youtube type beats in the background, getting into rap battles at the bus stop, that kind of thing. and then when my friend had his studio set up we would record with this gold colored like $40 peavey mic, and we would mix on an actual mixing board that was at least older than me. Then in high school I started wanting, and needing, to do things more and more independently, so when I was 15 and I got my first apartment. I would record with a garageband mic I found and mix in garageband on my 2010 ebay imac. I took the same setup to my next place, where I was basically living on my homie's back porch and somehow also living my best life. Then I got one of those blue snowball mics, started mixing in audition, started producing some more, and just stuck with that until about 5 months ago when I finally got a real setup. The first time I released a song online was when I was 10 and it was this super corny song about nightmares. I've never really had a process. I'm always kind of making things so what ends up online is just what happens to make it that far. when i was living in orlando there was this night where i was just completely wasted and was racing my friend to his parents house in my gf's mom's car to beat him to the last xan, and we ended up coming up producing, writing, and recording what i'm pretty sure was the best song ever, but his computer crashed or something and it was gone in the morning. no matter what kind of gear is involved or who's involved the process is always just throwing stuff together and if it works it works.

Zomb: Yup I know exactly how it goes, everyone’s process is different early on but what gets you to today is the real essence of everything. So basic setups early on much like other artists, you released music a lot in your early teens, at what point did you decide to take music seriously? When did you decide to take it from a hobby to something more?

Bloodcat: I don't know if it was ever really a hobby. There were times where it wasn't the main thing I was focused on, but whenever I was focused on it it was the only thing I cared about. I get really really into things sometimes. I think I decided to start taking it more seriously though when it started getting on strangers' nerves. I remember one time I almost got suspended and almost lost thousands in scholarships because I made this music video where other girls I went to school with were dancing and twerking and stuff. or like Local Old People started commenting on my old videos and songs but then that was paired with this younger majority who saw that i was, at the very least, really bold and a little entertaining to keep up with, and people naturally gravitate towards that when it's right in front of them because they don't see it every day. I used to perform in drag shows just to promote my music.

Zomb: Pivoting moments like that are everything, Bloodcat was a rockstar at heart. I know what you mean about being super passionate about certain things and bouncing around a lot, I'm sure many people can relate. Once you started taking it seriously, when did you release your first official track under “Bloodcat” and what is the inspiration behind your artist name? 

Bloodcat: Bloodcat was born in March of last year; it's really really new when you think about it that way but i feel like in some ways Bloodcat is the culmination of everything I've ever made, like who i am right now in this moment is who i really needed to be. i used to make much darker music, when i was into coke, this really dark pop rap type of thing that was very sensual and mature. and i think I've realized since then that I'm quite a bit bubblier than that inside, and so bloodcat becomes a symbol of that kind of, the name was just picked from a list i made of ideas bc it was the coolest sounding one. It has a kind of power to it, like it's short enough to be bold and short/easy enough that there are definitely other things associated with the name, so I get to be bold and say /i'm/ /the/ bloodcat. i do get along with the other bloodcats that I've met actually but u know what i mean. 

Zomb: Bloodcat the name has been something I’ve truly associated with your sound since day one. There’s definitely only one Bloodcat, tell us a little bit about your creative process these days. How long does it take for you to create and release a song? 

Bloodcat: I think the name really does fit well with my sound or style or personality. Usually these days I'll come up with a melody or a freestyle just randomly and make a mental note to come back to it, then those start stacking up and by the time I'm at the mic I feel like I have something to say. sometimes it's a vibe or a mood though or a certain kind of energy that i'll want to capture in a song, like with fuggie+ wiggle it out was the weirdest one. i was in the middle of an intense acid trip and i kept thinking about /the wiggle/ and what it is, like what kind of music makes you want to wiggle, what a wiggle is when it hits in someone's vocals, what it might mean to find ur wiggle, and i ended up making that whole song about it. and then at night the trip got scary, and playing or singing that song is what got me through it and kept the scary parts of the trip from getting overwhelming. so it really is different all the time. Usually whatever I'm releasing is what I finished a couple months ago or a month ago at least, because I'm really trying to only release the best so I have to sit with it for a while and see what I think of it later on or what other people think. but in the end i think i trust myself there more than anyone. 

Zomb: It’s actually so crazy how wide your range goes but yet is still so centered around an original sound. Everyone’s process is different and yours is definitely special. What would you say influences your music the most in the present day? 

Bloodcat: Thank you bro, honestly my biggest inspirations are probably the people that I'm friends with and the people I've had the pleasure of working on things with because of the whole iron sharpens iron thing. and like a lot of times most of my inspiration or influence comes from that chemistry, but not a lot of external influences are coming in directly -- i really don't listen to music all the time unless I'm sitting down and really listening to it. So instead it's about the interaction between that chemistry and my own little tunnel of sound. matte roxx! changed the way i thought about freestyling and about flows. King Marc changed the way I think about hyperpop. Busby changed the way I thought about how I was mixing my vocals in more alt tracks. pritty was literally the anthem to my big 2020 breakup. and there's so many examples of that in my life.

Zomb: So many examples of such quality inspiration. Sometimes your life and peers are truly all you need to make an infinite amount of wonderful sounding records. Who do you want to work with in the upcoming future? Are there any artists you would wanna collaborate with outside of your usual features? 

 Bloodcat: lately i've been dealing with the fact that a lot of times I'll find someone whose work i really like, and who i really look up to and respect, but who i shouldn't probably make a track with bc it wouldn't work. I feel like I used to bend a lot more to do whatever I needed to do like variety is important but not if it's something I probably don't need to be doing, in order to justify a collaboration. So I'm like learning that it's not just about working with people that you look up to you have to really mesh. and i don't have any collabs that i regret or anything but as I'm meeting more and more people I'm starting to understand more why certain people collab with each other and others don't. With all that said, I'm super excited about a couple of collab projects with peaNut, scumlol, and others with just absolutely insanely strong personalities and styles and approaches and I'm really hyped for those to come together so I can talk about them more. Right now I'm working mostly on producing, which people don't really know yet. I think it's still kind of happening in the background, but I'm making remixes of a lot of my own tracks and my friends tracks. So that's a big collaborative effort that I'm really really excited about. Straight up edm dance remixes not rap's version of a remix where it's just a new feature. 

Zomb: Totally understandable, as an artist it’s such a positive thing to know who you mesh well with and who you don’t. It’s also good to take some chances so it seems like you have a really good understanding of that sort of scope of things. What are some of your plans for the summer and the rest of 2022? 

Bloodcat: I'm honestly in my hot girl summer arc right now for like the first time ever in my life because I used to be so emo lowkey. as far as music goes tho, im working on the finishing touches of my next mixtape, "bloodcat!" it's literally just named bloodcat bc i feel like it's me like it's all of me, also, when u reviewed cigarella, you mentioned that you could imagine a visual to it, so that's happening now. It's basically a pajama party. but for the rest of the year, idk man anytime i plan that far ahead i change my mind like 300 times before the time comes

Zomb: New Bloodcat project? We love to hear that! Sometimes you gotta take days as they come and not think too far ahead, I know many people can certainly relate to that. Cigarella has got to be one of my favorite songs of yours we’ve had on the show so a visual for that is going to be insane. So you’re slowly taking over the summer, have a wonderful audio discography out now, along with a library of visuals. One of the last questions I have for you is what keeps you sane outside of music? What are you doing if you aren’t creating? 

Bloodcat: That's a really good question bro and after a year in the trenches I feel like I'm finally figuring out what those things are, because my new approach of only putting out my absolute best means that there's less time in the studio and more time living and getting inspired. I'm kind of getting to know myself still, after all the ups and downs of life as a bcat, but I'm learning that I like to read a lot, that I'm a gardener, and that I really really like to swim. I'm in like my first real love-centered relationship so that's huge. and I'm clowning on myself right now because this all sounds so dorky when i think ab all the cracky stories that have happened in my life, but I feel like I'm finally taking time to think and to breathe right now, instead of either working all the time or going on some crazy bender to cope with the stress of all that bag chasing. It's a really peaceful season for me. And thank u bro I'm glad you like cigarella and thank you for calling my discography wonderful. It really is a rollercoaster of it's own so I appreciate that a lot.