Rat Cats

Rat Cats started to play in year 1995. There are three members in the band. Mikko Kiiski (drums), Seppo Tiensuu (double bass) and me Klaus Kuhlmann (guitar). The beginning was quite intresting. I was having a rest for active playing with my previous bands. On that time I practised double bass. Then one day Seppo called me and asked if I could make a gig with double bass in one swing orchestra. I met Seppo for the first time and got notes for gig. Then couple of days later Seppo called me again and told that he had got free for other responsibilities and so I didn’t have to go to that gig. 5 minutes later I got another call from one blues band. They needed a guitar player to their gig. Accidentally that gig was in bigger happening where Seppo played in that swing band within I had to be play at first. So we had funny evening with Seppo and we talked about our music interests. Seppo attended to the way I was playing guitar. He asked me if I have played rockabilly before. In fact I had strong rockabilly period when I was about 16. In that time we had rockabilly bands too. Seppo had also his own rockabilly history. One remarkable step was his band named Blast to the past. The vocalist Harry Fontana made his own career later in U.S. Meanwhile I was talking with Seppo about ideas and possibilities to play rockabilly together our coming drummer was in fact in at same bar, not playing but having fun. After few days we find each other practising for our first gig. We had same interests with Seppo and that´s why our program was ready quite fast. We took cover hits from Blue Cats, Restless, Keytones, Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Stray Cats, Polecats and some hits from finnish bands. Our drummer Mikko have experiences for quite different styles of music so he had to concentrate 5 minutes to rockabilly drumming what we call “nikkenakke”. After that all is history. We had plenty of gigs in 3-4 first years. 4 cds has been released. We got impulses of bands which hits we played. Later we created own hits and try to find our own Rat Cats style. Our music is mostly rockabilly style spiced with 2-3 tuned vocals. In first years we concentrated to make people crazy. Nowdays our purpose is to create more own styled rockabilly and make gigs when other duties gives time. Right now we are making our next release and it will be available in spring 2007.Klaus Kuhlmann