Cats Can Fly

The history of Cats Can Fly actually go back as far as the early 1970´s when the school rock band Ethos formed under the supervision of the School Board in North York, Ontario. After changing their name to Scamp and winning a talent search in 1980, they started working on a record that for different reasons never got finished. Once again the band decided to change it's name, this time to Cats Can Fly, and much of the band personnel was replaced. The name itself, "Cats Can Fly", was turned up on a random name-suggestion survey and immediately appealed to the band for it's quirky, optimistic sound - very much like the music the band had started to create. At this stage the band consisted of David Ashley (lead vocals, bass), Mitchell James (guitars) and Peter Alexandre (keyboards), who had attended both high-school and the "college of musical knowledge" together. When Eddie Zeeman (drums, lead vocals) joined in 1982 the line-up was complete and the band soon found work touring bars and clubs all across Canada. On the strength of the quality of the songwriting and the fact that all four members were also skilled vocalists, the band managed to secure a deal with Epic who released the self-titled debut album in the spring of 1986. The record was a great blend of synthesized pop and new wave (with the often strong and distorted guitar lines pushing several of the songs in a more high-tech AOR direction) and spawned two Canadian Top 40 hits in the catchy "Flippin' To The A Side" (#16) and "Lies Are Gonna Get Ya" (#33). The band continued to tour and was also awarded the Juno Award for Most Promising Group in 1986, but unfortunately in 1988 got dropped by the label in a major housecleaning and the band split up shortly thereafter.