10 minute read
Roy Cathey of The Fifth
Catching Up with Roy Cathey of
The Fifth, SteelCity, and Cold Sweat
Advertisement
Interview by Ken Morton Band Photo by Christopher Formont Live Photo by Joe Schaeffer
Roy Cathey is one of the most underrated rock vocalists on the planet. Best known for his work in Cold Sweat, Roy would go on the front The Fifth and SteelCity, his tremendously effective singing and showmanship launching the songs into the stratosphere. In this interview with Highwire Daze, Cathey discusses the re-emergance of The Fifth, future plans with SteelCity and Cold Sweat - and when it comes to a career in music, why he always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...
Let’s talk about The Fifth. What made you decide that it was time to bring The Fifth back and release new music in the middle of a pandemic?
Well, Ken, like always in my music career, it’s all about the timing.
Yeah, for sure. (laughter)
I’ve always had some pretty terrible timing but at any rate, The Fifth has been in existence for about two decades now. I’ve had the band going since 2001 and I’ve released three CDs with a different lineup and different members. Just the way that the calendar and the events played out, everything came to fruition right around the pandemic. We actually had to delay a couple of recording sessions and everything, but putting new music out for The Fifth has been an ongoing struggle and battle for me, and I’m just glad that we finally got something out since our last CD Confessions Of Man.
How does the music on the EP compare to the albums that you did back in the 2000s?
Well, this album, we definitely, fully embrace our 80s elements and influences and my past with Cold Sweat. In the earlier releases with The Fifth, I kind of leaned a little bit more toward the modern rock sound. A lot of the stuff was a detuned. I was singing in a lower register, it was a little bit
more of the modern rock sound of that era. This record, and after a couple of member changes, and just getting with the right combination of people - mostly getting with guitarist Justin Womble, we were just ready to embrace the 80s influences that we all have and that we all love, and that’s the biggest difference.
Shake Little Sister’s such a fantastic song. Give me a little background on that song and the inspiration for people who haven’t heard it yet.
Shake Little Sister - when Justin first played the riff for me, it was obviously just a straight-ahead driving rock song and, it just harkened back to the era and the day where you had those bands like Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue. And the list goes on and on, riding all the way back to bands like Aerosmith in the 70s. There was always that little bit of element of danger with them. But you knew you were going to have a fucking great time along the way - and the song kind of reminded me of that. So I just kind of penned the lyrics to kind of fit, the soundtrack of a bar fight, almost, or a bunch of hellraisers going into a club and having a great fucking time. So, that’s pretty much the influences behind Shake Little Sister.
With the song Home, you totally hit it out of the ballpark with a power ballad there. Tell me about that song and the influence behind it.
Well, you nailed it on the head as far as the power ballad goes, because there’s a lot of bands that want to shy away from that term “power ballad,” but we fully wrapped our arms around it with Home. When Justin first played the music for me. I knew what kind of song it was and what kind of lyrics and melodies needed to go on top of it. I just wrote it, I mean, come on, let’s face it, there’s just so many people that some of their first romantic experiences had a hair metal power ballad playing in the background. I mean that shit was the fucking soundtrack for a whole generation and there are still people out there that love a great fucking Rock ballad. I appreciate the sentiment that we knocked it out of the park. I feel that we did a great job with it as well.
When did you meet Justin? And how did he become involved with the band? What’s his background?
Justin is one of those homegrown gems that you can find in cities and states that are outside the realms of the LA’s, in the New York’s, and the far more glamorous cities that sound really good and got a really fancy zip code and area code. Justin is somebody that I’ve kind of had my eye on for a while. He has a band called Modena where he’s the guitarist and singer, and they had played a couple of shows opening for The Fifth a couple of years back. And when I saw Justin play, I just kind of put my eye on him and I knew that if I ever needed a guitarist in the future I would reach out to him - and I’m thankful that he turned out to be a huge Cold Sweat fan, and Roy Cathey fan.
Justin is quite a bit younger than me, but he’s an old soul and he’s a shredder, he grew up idolizing those types of guitar players. And I remember one of the first times when I met Justin he said, “you know I used to watch your video on Metal Maniacs on TV on Saturday nights,” and he goes, “if I would have known that I was going to be playing a show with you one day, I would have said, kiss my ass.” But Justin is from the Raleigh, North Carolina area. And I could tell you, man, he’s one of the best fucking guitar players I’ve ever shared the stage with. The kids got it. He can play any style. He can shred, he can play the blues, he can play southern rock. He could play country. That kid is a walking fucking rain man of music. He’s a great cat and a great singer, and a great person, and we’ve really written some great music together. And this is just the start.
You did a live show during the pandemic with your other band Steel City and MORC Studios. What was that experience like doing a live feed with no audience in front of you in the middle of a pandemic?
I was fortunate enough to do two live stream events for the Monsters of Rock Cruise organization. The first one I did was with a little impromptu supergroup called The Seeds Of Low Hangin’ Fruit, which had Sebastian LaBar, Jaron Gulino, and Ian Corabi, which is the backup band for Tantric. We got to do a live stream together.
But the real big mac daddy one was with SteelCity out in Los Angeles, at the Monsters of Rock Studios, and that was a phenomenal experience. I’ve never played in such a high-dollar production value type of event. It was amazing to play with LED walls behind you, and you play on top of an LED wall. The graphics were amazing but as an old school guy that used to have in the audience in his face and the smell of beer and cigarette smokes and cheap body spray. You know, you miss that audience feedback, that sound, and it’s weird. Just imagine having the best sex of your life wearing the thickest raincoat you could ever
imagine.
Regarding Steel City, are you still working with them? And is there any new music on the horizon?
Oh, yes. Absolutely. Mike’s hard at work. We will be putting a record out in 2022. I think he’s got about 1,800 songs already written. He’s got a lot of tunes already ready, and we’re going to start going through whatever process to whittle that down to a reasonable about. So yes, there will be future SteelCity music.
You’re going to be forever known as the singer of Cold Sweat. When you look back on your time with Cold Sweat. What do you think of that music and that time period of your career?
I don’t care what anybody says. I was lucky enough to catch the very tail end of an era that will never be reproduced and it will never be replicated. Cold Sweat was a very small blip on the music or musical landscape. But you know, we made an impact on the genre and it was an amazing time. I got to play theaters and arenas with one of my idols, which is Ronnie James Dio, and I got to be managed by Wendy Dio, and I got to be wined and dined and hang out on the Sunset Strip. I mean, literally everything that I used to dream about as a fan when I was a kid in North Carolina growing up. I got to do, you know, did I get super rich and super famous? No, but I have memories and did things that nobody else has been able to say that they can do, it’s pretty cool to say that you walked out on stage in front of 65,000 people in Germany and played a show with Aerosmith and Whitesnake. I got to fucking do that. I’m always going to be proud of it.
Has The Fifth ever played out here in the Los Angeles area? Or do you plan to do so in the future, hopefully?
Yes. We’d love to. Our management, Dave Tedder at Head First, is working really hard. We’d love to do a western run. We’ve already played some. We played a festival, a few years back in Denver, Colorado and we would love to do another run out west. We’ve got several friends in the Las Vegas area. We have friends in the Arizona area, and I’m sure that if we would book a show somewhere out in Cali, we pulled some people, and I might even be able to coax Mr. Mark Ferrari to show up for a show. So yeah, man, we’d love to make it happen and hopefully, Dave can make that happen in 2022.
What do you hope 2022 brings for you and for the music industry and for your various projects?
I think all of us could say that we just want things to go back to some sort of normalcy again, and of course my goal has always been a complete and utter world domination. [Laughter]
Of course I have to ask, any chance of Cool Sweat reuniting once again for some shows?
I will never say never. I do think that there is always a good chance that we may be asked to do the Monsters of Rock Cruise again. We are still in contact with one another and we do have some live material recorded that’s in the can that we did on the last cruise that we want to put a couple of light little touch-ups on and hopefully release that soon. Hopefully in 2022. Cold Sweat is - I want to say - it’s on life support, there’s still a pulse there, there’s still life, and there’s still something down the line. It’s just that I can’t look into that mirror mirror on the wall and give that prediction. In the world of The Fifth, I can make those calls; but the world is a Cold Sweat, I got four other guys that have lives and going in different directions. But we’re still all back up to being buds and excited about what happened when we did the cruise last, and excited about possibly doing it again. So I’ll never say never. So yes, I’d say that there’s at least a good 75 percent chance that something will happen again.
No, you know, my goal is always been just to be involved in great projects, spread the name of the bands that I’m involved with, spread the name of myself, reach new people, reach new audiences. Hopefully get to travel to some new countries, eat some different food - my goals are always the same. It’s just to keep making music and keep trying to reach people and hopefully move them in some positive way.
