Texas-based alt-metal band Catch Your Breath have been picking up speed for the last couple of years, but 2023 has been their biggest year yet.

After signing to Thriller records and seeing their track ‘Dial Tone’ go viral on TikTok, the band have been touring nonstop with artists like Atreyu, Underoath and From Ashes to New. The band was dreamed up by guitarist Teddy around 2013, originally called Inertia until he realised the name was taken. Vocalist Josh had mutual friends with Teddy, and they soon added bassist Cianan and drummer Onell. Now based in Austin, the band met while living in Oklahoma.  

The band dropped their debut album ‘Shame on Me’ in October of this year, and when we caught up with Josh they were still out on tour before breaking for Christmas. ‘Shame on Me’ builds on their metalcore sound with synth soundscaping and slick production to create something brand new for the band that Josh warns might alienate some fans, but seems to only be bringing more onboard. After such an impressive run, Josh says he’s on “cloud nine”. “The album release is going great. We’ve had an unbelievable year, especially for a band like this.”

We caught up with Josh to chat about ‘Shame on Me’ and what’s next for the band. 

You were signed to Thriller this year, which has changed a lot for you. How are you enjoying your time with them?

“We’re loving it. We’d had our hands on everything since its conception, and then getting a team to help out feels weird at first. There’s a weird moment when the band is doing something and we feel like we should be doing something, but we don’t have to do anything. It’s done. Once you get to meet everybody, and you understand how things go, it smooths out a lot.”

It seems hard to give up control over the logistics.

“This label is really good about being hands on with marketing, they’re all over TikTok for us. They’re definitely modernising the marketing side of things. There are some labels out there that will just throw money at you and say do what you do and they’ll give you no guidance, but not these guys. Thriller has been really good about helping us find our way.”

‘Dial Tone’ blew up on TikTok–how did that end up happening?

“‘Dial Tone’ started picking up traction last year. The second we got on Thriller, it was like everybody had heard it. Kudos to Thriller for giving us some marketing to be able to put it out in front of people. We had made a video, and it was going okay, but Thriller hit us up and said they had a a bunch of influencers who work adjacent with the label that they could send it to. That went over really well, we had a few big names that really liked our song. It does help to write good music, but it helps to have someone in your corner that has the tools to help you as well. That’s what the label is there to do. They have the tools to help you get to wherever you want to go. You just have to know where you want to go.”

Is there anything that particularly impacted how you approached ‘Shame on Me’?

“There are bands that we look up to like Bad Omens and Linkin Park, but the overall goal is to just get in and make the best song that we can with what we have. We will come through with pre-production, which is what we had before we got to the studio. Then when we get to the studio, that’s when I really have time to sit down and focus on the music. Then we’ll start hatching out vocals after we get done perfecting our pre-production. That usually starts with the vocal melodies first, we’ll just come up with a really pretty pattern that we like. My job is to sit with those patterns and melodies and put lyrics to them. That’s what takes me the longest amount of time, making sure that I’m serving the song well with my melodies, but I’m also getting out what I want to say through my lyricism.”

What’s your favourite song on the record? 

“Oh, man, that’s a tough one. It’s a toss-up between ‘Cycles’ and ‘Y.S.K.W’. They represent the duality of me. I have two sides where I like really heavy stuff and heartfelt, singing songs as well. Just about every song on this album is about super personal stuff that I don’t talk to people about. Except for maybe ‘Savages’. I’ll talk about that openly.”

What’s the reception been like?

“If this tour is any indication it’s going really well. Packed houses every night. I can’t be thankful enough for what’s happened. We took chances on quite a bit of this album trying to do things and branch out and show people what we really can do and what we’re capable of. The response has been unreal. There was a lot more that we wanted to do. We had five years of releasing pure metalcore music, and now we want to show that there’s an alternative side to us, there’s a pop side to us, there’s all these different elements to this band that make the sound. We were just finally able to get in and put it all together.”

You always risk losing people when you try something new, but you always gain more people.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re trying something new. This is something that we wanted to do. It’s been a part of us, we just haven’t had the opportunity to do it. We’ve been wanting to do a song like ‘My Confessions’ where it’s just me and production forever. When we got in the studio we could finally do it.”

What’s next for you?

“Man, 2024 is loaded. I can’t speak too much on what’s going on because it’s not announced. We do have Ship Rocked coming up in February. That’s going to be amazing. There are some whispers about getting us back into the studio and getting some more pre-production going. The conception of the second album should be pretty soon. That should be something to look forward to for Catch Your Breath fans. 2024 is going to be just as insane as 2023. So just be ready.”

‘Shame On Me’ is out now via Thriller Records.