Opening night of Alice Desert Festival, Catch The Fly were nothing less than impressive… The Alice Springs three-piece took to the stage as part of the iNTune Music Showcase, programmed to coincide with the iNTune Music Conference.

Mixed amongst an eager home-town crowd, key music industry ‘players’ from down south watched the band do what they do best; kick out fun, well-crafted, high-octane hip hop tunes to an audience ready to receive…

MCs Dan the Underdog and McDee, and soul singer/rapper Sassy J make up Catch the Fly, ably backed by talented music man, DJ MT. Catch The Fly have been working Alice audiences hard over the last three years, writing, rehearsing and refining their material with serious dedication and attention to detail. When they appeared through the smoke shrouding the Desert Festival Main Stage, it was impossible not to be infected by their sound, humour and energy, which hovered and descended upon us like some kind of mad virus. Funky beats, infectious rhythms, wayward words and a huge ability to enjoy every moment on stage made Catch The Fly a stand out – nay, a band to be reckoned with.

Sassy J (aka Jacinta Castle, also one of iNTune’s talented Desert Divas) moved and sounded like a young Neneh Cherry; Dan n’ Dee rapped like a pair of old-school veterans and DJ MT danced his hands across vinyls and dials like they were a baby grand.

CTF soaked up every second of this opportunity, afforded to them not only by by sweat and hard work, but national radio network, triple j. Catch The Fly won the Showcase slot through iNTune partner triple j Unearthed, when a competition was run a few months prior. Unsigned Alice Springs bands and artists registered on the Unearthed website were considered for the gig. Impressed by what they heard, Unearthed chose CTF to open the Showcase which aso featured Tennant Creek reggae band, Colourfide.

The morning after Catch The Fly also impressed judges up early for ‘Feedback On Five’, the professional feedback session that was also a part of iNTune. With only a few hours sleep the three performed like it was the night before,  enlivening the tent venue mob with laughter and original grooves.

With a well-stocked ‘merch’ tent at the ADF gig it’s clear to see that this hip hop trio are well-prepared to ‘go big’. They not only take their music seriously, they also respect who they’re playing to. No matter how big or small the gig CTF visibly perform each song with the energy of ‘the first time’, and each set as if it were their last. Jaded they are not; a thunderball of musical energy they mos’ def are…

With Dan The Underdog just back from out bush, the members of Catch The Fly spent a bit of time with Music NT to shed some more light on their evolving hip hop career.

Music NT: Catch The Fly has been going for a while… How did you all get together?

CTF: McDee and Underdog had been performing together for about 3 years prior to Sassy J joining the crew. A mutual friend introduced us when Dan N Dee were looking for a female vocalist to sing a couple hooks. Sassy J soon became a major contributor, changing the dynamics and the sound of the tracks.

… We were all musicians, we were all good friends, we gelled. It just worked.

MuNT: What are your individual backgrounds and stories – musically and otherwise?

Dan The Underdog: CTF consists of a mixed bag of characters… I was born in South Australia to an American Mom and Australian Dad. I moved over to Buffalo, NY at a young age and sorta got into Hip Hop pretty early on. My aunty put me onto a lot of old school Hip Hop and Soul records. By the time I was 12 I was makin beats on my PS1; one day I decided I had something to say so I tried writing a rap to one, loved the feeling, so I kept at it.

McDee: I was born and raised in Alice Springs and am father to my beautiful 9 year-old daughter Monique. Up until the age of 17 I was into the punk rock scene. I started writing raps working in the checkout at a Foodland in Edwardstown, Adelaide. I returned to my home town of Alice Springs at age 18, and here we are!

Sassy J: Born in Darwin and raised in Alice Springs to a Warlpiri mother from Yuendumu and an Irish/Celtic father from Newcastle NSW. I was trained in classical violin in primary school and always sang in the school choir. At the age of 15 I began performing as a singer with a rap/ hip hop crew, performing locally. At 19 I went solo and picked up a guitar performing as a singer/songwriter, which I continue to do to this day. I was about 24 when I joined Dan N’ Dee.

MuNT: And Dan – from Buffalo NY to Alice.. How and why?

Dan: I was livin wit my big sisters up in Darwin and got in wit a few of the heads up there, TASK, Big B & Casper, we formed Teknikal Onslaught, we mostly just gigged around Darwin, but eventually we got flown down to Alice to perform at 2005 Bass in the Dust. On that trip I met McDee, we made a track together n’ he liked the way I produced, so he asked me to produce his whole album.

He covered flights n’ accommodation a few times n we put his solo album together; from there he started getting me work recording music as part of a school holiday program out in remote Indigenous communities. I sorta kept getting this kinda work so often that I decided to make the move – but not just that; I love the place and the people here.

MuNT: How would you describe your music – the sound and style?

CTF: Hip Hop, soul, funk, get up n’ dance-have-a-good-time-type shit. Lyrically we’re just ourselves: jus’ talk about whatever’s relevant in our lives.

MuNT: How did you develop your sound and style? And how much work goes into writing songs and rehearsing?

CTF: The sound starts with Dan’s funky beats, one of us usually comes up with a concept, writes a verse or hook, then the rest of us follow their lead. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours, sometimes we sit on beats for weeks/months; we just rehearse in one of our living rooms when we know we got a gig comin’ up.

MuNT: Why hip hop? Why not some other style of music?

Dan: cuz Ima hip hop head, it’s the only kind of music I really really love and can see myself doing

McDee: cuz I can’t sing

Sassy: I do other styles in my own time.

MuNT: How would you describe your work ethic as a band?

CTF: Go hard or go home!

MuNT: Why music – why have you all chosen that as your career path? What do you love about making music?

Sassy: cuz I have to, its my calling, who wouldn’t wanna have a career doing something they love

McDee: its just a hobby for me but if it takes off then it’s a bonus

MuNT: And what are your day jobs?

Dee: I recently jus got reinstated in my position at a learning centre in town working with youth with behavioral problems

Dan: I work as an ISA at one of the middle schools in town. I’m a youth homeless refuge worker, and I do mad hip hop workshops out bush and around town.

Sassy: Host of Yamba’s Playtime and VET lecturer at CDU.

MuNT: Who are some of our musical inspirations or ‘heroes’?

Sassy: Tracey Chapman, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Billy Holiday & Salt N Pepa

Dan: Snoop Dogg and E-40 were my favorites growing up, then I got into underground cats like The Grouch, Tech N9ne, Brother Ali, but I’m jus crazy-inspired by the people around me… I have to say I freaked out when I first came back to Australia in 2004 and heard Aussie Hip Hop. I loved it – I never got exposed to it in the US.

Dee: Busta, Tribe, early Hilltops, Urthboy and musicians around my hometown.

MuNT: Who are some of your favorite NT artists?

CTF: Minority Sun, Lil J N Otis Ooruck, Belly, ACID, Deep, Kaotik D & Lunchbox, Gareth Dawkins, Colourfide, Shellie Morris, TASK  & Culture Connect when they’re around.

MuNT: And do you define yourself as an NT band now – or even more specific, one from Alice Springs?

CTF: We’ve been an NT band from Alice Springs ever since we formed. We have drawn a lot of our inspiration from Alice Springs, it’s people, it’s uniqueness to the rest of the country, it’s culture, it’s landscape and the energy it exudes.

MuNT: What’s the best thing about being a musician in Alice, and the most ‘challenging’ thing about it?

CTF: The best thing is the appreciation we get from the fans, the ones who’ve lived here and never got to see any decent live Hip Hop in town before us, and come down to the shows religiously as a result.

The most challenging thing about being a musician in Alice is getting gear together for a gig and feeling isolated in terms of the rest of the industry.

MuNT: You guys have a particular knack for engaging audiences and really bringing their energy into your performances. Is that something you consciously work on, or does it ‘just happen’?

CTF: It comes from our interaction with each other and our friends to begin with. We like to treat our performances as though we are in the lounge room of our own home with a bunch of mates. Humour is a part of who we are as individuals and so when we have fun we want to share that to the best of our ability. We feel rewarded when we have an appreciative and engaged audience whose energy then drives us.

MuNT: What are your muscial ambitions?

CTF: We would love to play at as many festivals as humanly possible.  We want to be able to share our music with as many people as we can; if that means worldwide then so be it!

MuNT: Tell us about your recordings so far? And do you have more gigs/recordings in the works?

CTF: So far as a trio we have recorded one EP with an LP in the works. We regularly perform gigs locally, and we can confidently say as a group we are Alice’s most prolific performers.

MuNT: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given about making music? And what’s the best piece of advice you would give to other young bands and hip hop acts coming up after you?

CTF: Keep doing what you’re doing cuz its working!

Dan: A lot of young rappers come up to me and spit their rhymes… My advice to them usually is to ‘be yourself’; when you’re yourself it comes through in the music and the listener feels a connection.

Visit Catch The Fly on MySpace and Unearthed.Read more about CTF on the Music NT website, and view pics in the Music NT Photo Gallery. And visit the Alice Desert Festival online.

Words: Megan Spencer. Thanks to Dan The Underdog and CTF for the interview.