Homeward Bound, The New Album from Pissed Off Catfish

“What song is that you opened the second set with? Is it new?”

“What album is that song you keep playing on? I can’t find it on Spotify.”

“When is the new album coming out?”

I’ve getting some version of these questions for the past 7 years since we released “Bottom of a Bottle”, the last Pissed off Catfish album. A lot has happened since then, and I’ll do my best to fill you in, but the important thing is that the new album “Homeward Bound” drops today!

So what happened? And why did it take so long?

Short answer… A bunch of stuff.

In the summer of 2012, on the heals of our release of ‘Bottom of a Bottle’ we would have loved to get right back into the studio to record a followup. The problem was that we had no songs left. Everything we had written as a band had just come out on the previous two albums. In addition to that we were in full promotion mode for ‘Bottom of a Bottle’. In short, we knew we had some work to do before we could focus on our next release.

The process for putting together ‘Homeward Bound’ began in December of 2013. Jeff had just moved into a new house with a rehearsal space in the bonus room over his garage. We jammed around a bit and Rob Doty started playing a KILLER riff that got me all kinds of excited. That riff ended up being the backbone of the title track, ‘Homeward Bound’. I jotted down a few lyric ideas and went home and finished the rest of the song.

We spent the next year emailing each other demos of new songs we were all working on… And the songs were some of the best we had written to date. Jeff Stigelman brought us ‘I Ain’t Sayin’ It’s Right (But It’s Done)’ and ‘Drown’. Rob contributed ‘Snake Oil’ and he and I collaborated to put together ‘#1 Love’. I wrote ‘New Orleans’ later on that year as well and dug into my archives with ‘Stars Align’ which is a song I wrote in 2004, and ‘Time for Spring’ which was written in 2010 (and we ultimately decided that Rob should sing it).

Ryan Beck, who also produced the album, contributed a couple of fantastic songs as well: ‘Whiskey All Over You’ and ‘Sunset Strip’. This marks the first time we have included songs on a POC release that were not written by Rob, Jeff, and myself and honestly they are two of my favorite tracks on the album.

With songs in tow, we entered Primary Sound Studios in the fall of 2014 with our long-time engineer Jake Belser behind the mixing desk. We started sketching out the rhythm tracks employing the bass talents of Landon Curtis, Rich Florey on guitar, and John Marque / Ryan Beck on drums. We had the ‘bones’ of each track completed through a series of sessions that stretched through the spring of 2015 and then we got to work on overdubs… And that’s when things stalled out… for the first time.

We played a TON of shows that summer and and then more shows that fall and winter and we just could never find the time to get into the studio to finish the songs. We finally finished overdubs, mixing and mastering by the winter of 2016-2017. And then things stalled out… again.

Jeff decided to accept a promotion at work that involved moving his family back to his home town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And shortly after that, Rob announced that he was taking a new work assignment in Switzerland, and that he would be there for at least 2 years. And I’m like ‘great but how are we going to promote a new album if you guys are several states and countries away?’… Kidding, I was super happy for both of them, but I decided it was not exactly the right time to release a new album that we had just spent the last 3 years working on.

I decided it might be good for me to take a break as well, so we decided to just shelve the album until the time was right to release it.

In August of this year. I decided my break was over. I put together this website, and started working on booking some shows and some new songs. I figured this would also be the perfect time to release ‘Homeward Bound’. As I have listened back through the tracks I am so excited with how they turned out. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it and we are so sorry we made you wait to hear it!

Credits

Rob Doty: Vocals, Guitar

Jeff Stigelman: Vocals, Mandolin, Guitar

Colin Clark: Vocals, Banjo, Guitar

Rich Florey: Lead Guitar

Landon Curtis: Bass

John Marque: Drums

Ryan Beck: Drums & Percussion

‘Homeward Bound’ was recorded at Primary Sound Studios. It was produced by Ryan Beck and engineered by Jake Belser.

The band would like to thank everyone who made this album possible… from our friends and fans who come out to see us play, to our parents for supporting us through all of our musical phases growing up and always being there to babysit when we have an important gig, and especially our wives and kids for putting up with all the shows, recording sessions, and late night songwriting jams. We love and and are so thankful for everyone who has made it possible for us to keep making this music that we love so much.