RAW ENERGETIC RUSTBELT PUNK!
F$#@ YEAH!!
Eaten By Kittens are one of the hottest new bands out of Akron, Ohio further cementing the city’s music scene as one of the hottest if not most underrated in the country! They are fresh and intense and are on the prowl with plenty of heavy punk vibes playing songs from the early punk days and drive home an intense sound as a two peiece band with husband and wife team Chris and Jenna Schuerger.
Eaten By Kittens formed after their previous band The Dead Babysitter’s Club disbanded with their bass player Jess West moving on to form another band (Pivot). The result is a tight, energetic, firey band that hits on all cyclinders and plays mostly covers with a few originals mixed in with the same over the edge vibe and energy as their covers. “Eaten by Kittens is a two piece (power duo?) rock and roll band from Akron, Ohio. We’re a married couple, Chris and Jenna. We classify ourselves as ‘Rust Belt Punk’, a term we sort of borrowed, but if you just say ‘punk’ these days people assume you are pop-punk or hardcore and we really aren’t either one of those. I’d like to think we are closer to old school 70’s/80’s punk…are at least that’s the vibe we are going for. We were very recently a three-piece doing a lot of 90’s alt rock covers, like L7, the Butthole Surfers, Nirvana, some girly stuff, etc. Our #3 person wanted to do other stuff, so she exited the band. We still had a couple of shows scheduled that we didn’t want to cancel. We decided not to replace our #3…who needs a bass player anyway? I mean for live shows at least. Jenna can play drums and sing at the same time, so we felt we had everything we needed between the two of us. We kept most of the existing set list from our former incarnation added a few more including some originals, and we were ready to continue. We decided to drop the old band name and come up with something fresh. Jenna and I bounced around a bunch of different ideas and Eaten by Kittens just kind of fell out. We both liked it because we think it does a pretty good job of conveying the right amount of whimsical and edgy that we are going for. It sounds almost like a dumb 80’s horror movie trying to rip off a dumb 50’s horror movie (like attack or the killer tomatoes maybe?). Any time we go to a new spot to play, somebody who has never heard us before always says “Eaten by Kittens? I can’t wait to hear whatever the heck you guys sound like!”
“We were a 3 piece, but mostly doing cover songs, and that was fun, but Jenna and I were feeling an artistic pull in a slightly bawdier direction. We wanted to be a little sillier and our old #3 wanted to be more serious. It totally worked out for all of us. We now have a situation where we can do exactly what we want, and she has the same. We’re still all best friends and we book shows together with her band, so it really was a pretty drama free kind of deal. Eaten by Kittens is more focused on original content. We still do a fair number of covers, but we are keeping it edgier than before. The old band mixed in some girly/pretty stuff because our #3 had a really good singing voice for flowery girly stuff, Jenna and I have departed from all of that. We’re more interested in catchy odd ball stuff. We just added Wild in the Streets by the Circle Jerks to our set. Jenna came up with that one all on her own, and she insisted that she get to sing it. She kicks ass on it too (sorry Keith Morris, but I think she has you beat 
)
As for what inspires their music, Chris said, “For our original stuff, we try to keep it simply and catchy, and I like to add in a little edgy humor too. It’s fun to see people react to a song where we shout the ‘F’ word 60 times, or Jenna is singing about retards (not mentally handicapped people…we don’t use that word for them…I’m talking about high functioning retards, like the guy in front of you at the ATM who has to get out of the car because he’s fully confused at the basic operation of normal every day objects). Not every song is blatantly funny, but we sneak a little something in where we can. For our covers, we try to do stuff that’s cool, as long as we can pull it off, we’ll do it. We really want to focus on original songs, but when you go to a new place and play to a new crowd who doesn’t know your stuff, you have to try to reach them with some well timed covers. Nobody wants to sit through 20 songs in a row they’ve never heard before.”
Eaten By Kittens have been playing locally this summer including an appearance at the Highland Square Porch Rock at Barnacles and have more to come. “We’re trying to balance playing shows and writing/recording which are both very different mindsets. We plan to have our first 8-10 song album completed by the end of the year. We’ve gotten 6 songs pushed out on all of the streaming services, but some are early recordings and could use a re-do for sure. We are self-recording at this point and we’re still getting the hang of mixing and mastering, which anybody can do, most of us hacks can’t do well, so maybe we’ll just say fuck it and get some professional help.”
As for the original music from Eaten By Kittens, Chris says, “The one that we get the most attention with currently is our song Graveyard Retard. We were joking around one day about how all these goth bands shoot music videos in cemeteries, and take pictures in them and stuff, and I thought it would be fun to write a song poking fun at them. I added a bunch of monster stuff to it, like when all those novelty music artists in the 60’s were trying to capitalize on the success of the Monster Mash. The chord progression in that song is a very amateurish lift of Chopin’s Funeral March. Most recently we did a remake of a song I wrote with my Industrial band [FAKE] that I had in the mid 90’s/early 2000’s (also a two-piece band, by the way). That song is called Going Down on Connie Chung. It’s exactly as corny and depraved as you are probably imagining. “My hands down your pants, my hands on your ass, my mouth on your crotch, Maury Povich likes to watch”. Other than the lyrics we had to rewrite that one from scratch. The original version drums were done on an old Yamha RX5 drum machine in a way that no human drummer could ever replicate, there was only bass guitar, no regular guitar, and it was played with so much distortion I couldn’t even begin to transcribe it. I feel like we did that one justice.
One thing is for sure you are destined for a fun time at a live Eaten By Kitten’s show as they bring a great vibe to the stage and to the audience who are in for a real treat! “Our attitude is sarcastic, a bit self-deprecating, kind of edgy, but also humble. We like to be a little antagonistic, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We like to fuck around on stage, banter back and forth, engage with the audience. We want to have fun, and we want the audience us to have fun as well. Beyond just playing cool music we try to give an actual performance.”
“We are on ALL of the streaming services currently. Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Apple Music, iHeart, you name it. We also keep our Facebook page up to date with our comings and goings, so anybody who is interested should follow us on Facebook and whichever their favorite streaming service might be. We do have a website – www.eatenbykittensband.com which has all of our links. I would NOT try to just google us. Most of the results on google if you search for Eaten by Kittens are videos of animals eating baby cats, and we don’t want anybody to get bummed out with that!”
Make sure you find Eaten By Kittens music online and better yet see a live show! They are bringing the edge to the live show with their music and covers that will have you coming back for more.
