Kat and the Hurricane Rocks On (Hour 1)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.

Pete Chwaba.

Hey, welcome.

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I am Pete Schwabba, coming to you live from our state's capital, Madison, Wisconsin, tonight.

Always fun to be in Madison doing nightlight.

Madison needs to be lit up just like any other city in our amazing, wonderful state.

So, great to be here and thank you.

A shout out to everybody helping out here today.

Mostly Aaron Zomers, just in the studio here today too.

How you doing, buddy?

He's checking mics.

I'm doing well.

I'm putting it on the spot.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, this one pair of headphones is not working

right.

Something's going on.

But I know you're the man and you're on it.

So a shout out to Aaron Zommers and we have got, this is exciting too because I've worked with several producers here at Civic Media in my short time here.

All of them more than capable.

As you folks know, the K-Man is our normal producer, Conrad Krieger.

But tonight filling in is someone I've never worked with before and who doesn't like me personally So this will be really interesting.

I'm kidding Dom Tell us about Dom.

What's your last name?

Last name Lee le

only

Dominic Lee actually

do you go by Dom or Dominic?

I go by Dom my parents call me Dom so I kind of stick with the whole Dom's feel I like that I like that, but um, yeah, you want to know a little

bit about me?

I want to know everything about you, dude.

And we've got two hours, and we've got four hours of material that we have to cram into there.

So yeah, how are you?

It's nice to meet you.

Yeah, it's nice to meet you, too.

Yeah, so a little bit about me.

I just graduated college.

Just graduated college from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.

Oh, yeah.

go Titans, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

You

know, I graduated with a radio TV film major, and now I'm here at Civic Media.

I love soccer.

I love

animals,

specifically cats.

And I like wearing stuff that's way too warm for me at, you know, how warm it is outside.

I'm

wearing a

whole sweater.

You do not get out much.

You got a sweater on.

Sometimes I wear a beanie, so you know you're lucky.

I'm not wearing a beanie right now.

I'm not

I'm lucky Well, that's great.

I think I know how so you just started here at civic media.

That's that's very exciting I just started.

Yeah, just a few weeks ago

Did you

think you'd have this cool of a job

this fast out of college?

I didn't I am very lucky.

I'm very fortunate

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I had

nothing to do with it, but I'm glad they found you.

My wife went to UW Oshkosh, and we met at the end of college, so I road-tripped up there a couple of times when I was a senior, and we hit bars called Buffalo Breath.

Is that still there?

I think that is, yeah, it is.

Really?

Yep, yep, and then there's a few, there's Kelly's, which is kind of rundown kind of bar, but there's quite a lot there.

It's fun, it's fun for a smaller

school.

Are you a fine, upstanding young citizen?

Like, you would never go out and have too many

drinks.

No, I don't think I've ever done that ever in my lifetime, ever, ever, ever.

Well,

good.

Because

there's a lot of temptation along State Street here.

Well, it's good to be working with you.

Thank you for filling in.

On behalf of Conrad, I thank you.

And we'll have a lot of fun tonight.

And tomorrow night,

too.

Absolutely,

yeah.

I'm here tomorrow, too.

You'll be an

old pro by

then.

Absolutely.

Are John and Gordy nice to you in the morning?

Oh, no.

They... No.

No, they're very, very rude to me.

Especially John.

Something about John.

Always keep your eye on him.

Salty.

Salty guy.

Salty guy.

That's a good way to put it.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Listen, they... Here's the thing.

I am a bridge builder here at Civic Media.

Now, you just said something about them.

They've kind of said a few things to me about you, but I'm here to patch things up, and I'm kidding.

They love you.

We love you, buddy.

It's great

to have you here.

Thank you.

I

appreciate that, Pete.

Got a fun show tonight, folks.

We've got three guests, and...

I'm excited to have all of them on the show.

As usual, we've got a nice mix tonight.

Joining me at 635 will be Cat Rhapsody.

She is the lead singer and guitarist for Cat in the Hurricane.

Cat will be here at 635.

They're just a phenomenal band.

I've heard them briefly on Bar Band Friday night.

I think Terry brought some of their stuff like about a year ago.

And I absolutely felt in love with this band.

They are so fun.

They have such a great sound.

And we're going to talk with Kat at 635.

And we're going to play a couple of their tunes, too.

So a great band.

They'll be performing all over the state, especially during Pride Month.

They are a queer folk indie.

I don't know if I got folk right, but indie rock.

They have great sound, so you're not going to want to miss that interview.

That is at 635.

At 705, James Runde, local filmmaker, Madison filmmaker, James Runde joins the show.

He's got a new project he's going to talk about for a few minutes, but he's coming to us from northern Wisconsin.

I usually have James in the studio here when I'm in Madison, but he also has a gig with PBS, and he's a very talented filmmaker and also a very talented singer-songwriter.

So we'll talk to James for a...

a quick hit.

We'll do it at 7.05 and touch base with James.

And then at 7.20, Daryl Burnett will be here.

And Daryl's great.

This is fun.

I talked to this guy on the phone the other day.

He has, he works, all right.

This is weird.

And I'm going to have to have him explain this when he comes into the studio because he works at the, he works for the green, he's the curator at the Green Bay Automobile Gallery up in Green Bay, but he lives in Madison the other half of the week.

So it just so happened that a typically local guest in Green Bay is going to be our local guest here tonight in the studio.

They have movie cars.

They have great displays.

It's going to be a blast talking to Daryl and he's a big movie fan too.

So.

There's your show.

Great guests.

As usual here at Nightlight and great to have you as well.

I want to give a shout out to Matt Rothschild.

Dom, I said Rothschild.

I did put a plural at the end because Aaron told me it's not Rothschild.

It's Rothschild.

Well, I think

I messed that up a few times too.

Matt's so laid back.

I don't think he cares that much.

My last name is Schwabba.

People have been

torturing it my whole life.

So I feel like a connection with Matt there.

But I know he's driving home.

He said he was going to be listening.

And now when I see him tomorrow, I'm going to make sure he was listening.

It's a

lot of pressure.

It's a lot of pressure.

Actually, it's no pressure.

But that's a good guy.

So anyway, great show tonight.

Great to have you.

We're going to get right to our question of the night, I think.

Were we able to locate that intro music?

I might be

not right now.

No pressure, Dom.

Listen, we'll get through this.

We'll get through it.

We'll get through it.

Let me take a look.

All right, take a look.

I'll talk about something else.

I was driving down to Madison yesterday.

I left Marinette.

And I mean, it was like, in my car, it said 96 degrees.

And this is in Northern Wisconsin, Northeast Wisconsin.

All of a sudden, all of these cars pull over quickly, like hit the brakes.

I was like, Oh God, no, there's an accident.

What is going on?

And everyone's pulling over to the shoulder.

I don't see.

police lights or anything like that.

And as I get closer, I realize the road buckled.

It looked like someone took a jackhammer and just went straight across Highway 41 in the southbound lanes.

It was horrible.

And a lot of cars, I think, sustained damage because they didn't see it coming.

I got so lucky.

They pulled over, I slowed down, I went around it in the shoulder and was able to just keep going.

But I bet there were 10 or 12 cars that probably sustained

serious damage because of the road buckling from the heat.

And I saw three or four instances of that all the way down to Madison yesterday, not as bad as that though.

So I hope they got that figured out.

The police were just arriving on the scene and it didn't look like anybody was seriously hurt, but I would imagine there was serious car damage.

So that was.

That was unfortunate.

So whatever you're doing folks and I immediately called everybody in my family I'm like if you're driving on the highway, this is a serious thing.

I never had encountered anything like that.

I know it happens But it was not on my radar as something I should be looking out for as the good citizen and defensive driver that I am So be careful if you're on the the roadways today.

I think the heat most of the heat is behind us, but just a precaution and Dumb any luck

No luck.

We don't have to do it.

You know what?

It's not a big deal.

We're gonna do the question either way

We don't need the

we don't need the fancy schmancy intro music.

We'll just get right to tonight's question and I hope you guys have fun with this because Dom, I'm just telling you our listeners love food questions.

Okay, I don't get what it is We talk movies a lot TV all kinds of stuff, but when we have a good food question people go nuts It's really fun.

That's

here.

So tonight's question is in honor of national onion rings day What's your favorite side order?

National one.

And most people go fries.

Some people go onion rings, cheese curds, whatever, salad, coleslaw, potato salad.

My favorite is a pretty much all-American favorite.

It's just a baked potato with butter.

Wow.

That's all I'm

gonna say.

That's great.

That

is amazing.

It's a

fine side dish.

Do you have one?

Do I have it?

We can come back to you too.

You can think about it.

So do I have a good side dish?

That was the question,

right?

Correct.

What is your favorite side dish?

Favorite side dish.

Say you get

a burger or even if it's like pasta or a steak or something.

When

it's weird, I don't have to go, it is weird.

It is very weird.

And I have to go with apple sauce.

Good old apple sauce, a little bit of cinnamon on top.

Yeah.

And I can just, you know, take that for the ride for the next few hours.

I love it.

And it'll fuel me up.

It's not crazy weird, but it's just weird enough that it's gonna be probably a rare.

A rare answer tonight.

That's great.

All right, that's it, folks.

Let us know on the text line, 855-752-4842, 855-755-CIVIC.

What is your favorite side order?

You can also text us on the app.

If you don't have it, you should.

Very easy to use.

You can take all your civic media stations and hosts with you wherever you go.

We are on statewide.

So just click the little icon right next to the station you're listening on and let us know what your favorite site order is.

And if you are watching on YouTube, Facebook, or on a Twixt, Twixtr, you can text us right on the stream and we will read your response on the radio.

If you're there, give us a like or follow.

If you're so inclined, always good to get likes and follows and we will, we'll read those.

I think I want to say like French fries will be number one, but I don't know.

Does Aaron have a favorite side?

Or is he busy trying to work?

That's, that's a tough one.

I, but French fries are probably going to have to be number one.

I do love anything with potatoes and I crave the salt.

Same.

Same.

I need the salt.

I wish I didn't, but I am so with you there.

Even when I get like a haystack, I love haystack on your rings.

When you get those like that really lightly battered, I put so much salt on those and I could just inhale them.

And then nobody wants to be around you for the rest of the night, but it's a, it's a, it's a lovely side item.

All right, so there you go.

That's our question of the night.

I have to say this, I talked to someone a couple of days ago and I know they're not listening because they're probably, I just know we have our differences.

It's a neighbor and they kept saying, they're telling a story and they kept saying, well, flash forward.

And they said flash forward about four or five times in the course of three minutes.

And do you have something like that?

Like I, it's fast forward, not flash forward.

All I wanted to do was get out of the conversations.

I Didn't say anything.

I just let them jaw and say flash forward.

Well, you know flash forward three years later.

It's not flash forward You don't use a fastball, but when you use to take a camera picture

flash

flash forward well flash forward I Should do a question about that because so many people get like those little cliches wrong.

It's kind of funny And then I saw this I was walking on State Street last night.

My son was in town too weird

I went to get a bite to eat.

And right down the street here, the coffee shop, I see a sign that says, no loitering.

It's a coffee shop.

That's all people do in coffee shops is loiter.

Most coffee shops, you don't even have to buy anything.

You just go in there and set up shop, and maybe that's what they mean, but I'm like, God, no loitering.

That's what coffee shops are for.

Crazy.

I also saw the movie 28 Years Later.

over the weekend.

Just open last weekend, had a very good opening, was not able to dethrone how I trained your dragon, how I met your dragon, how I trained your mother, how to train your dragon.

It did not dethrone how to train your dragon.

That's a juggernaut of a box office film.

But 28 years later is good.

I really enjoyed it.

And I say this all the time.

I say I'm not a zombie movie guy, but maybe I am because I apparently

I do check these out, time to time.

So, we will, are we out of time already?

20

seconds?

We are already out of 20 seconds.

Oh, what the

heck is going

on here?

Look, we're in women's speed, man.

Dom, you took too long introducing yourself.

Are we gonna come back and read your texts?

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwab, a comedy live from Madison on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome

back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwab.

Great to have you with me on this Monday night coming to you live from downtown Madison.

A wonderful place to light up.

during the night or the evening, as it were.

Great to be back in Madison as always.

Riding shotgun tonight, instead of Conrad, is Dom Lee.

Dom or Dominic?

Dom.

Dom.

Nice and simple.

Dom Lee.

Six letters in the whole damn name.

You gotta love that.

My

parents did wonders there.

Yeah, you'll never have to spell that for anyone, unless they're like, you know, borderline.

Hey, I wanna make a quick announcement here, folks.

We're having an issue with the phone lines because they were still going to Green Bay or whatever.

For whatever reason, we have a new phone number just for tonight.

I believe it's 608-688-9088.

608-688-9088.

So if you'd like to call in and we'd love it when you do, call us at that number for tonight and we will hopefully get the phone thing squared away for tomorrow.

Our question of the night is, what is your favorite side order?

It is National Onion Rings Day.

My wife is an onion ring person.

I typically do fries or a baked potato.

If it's a more upscale place, I'll order a baked potato, because you ain't getting no baked potato and no diner, typically.

But I'll typically do that, and sometimes I'll get fries, but...

Dom says applesauce.

It's it's so you said it was just weird enough.

It's just weird

enough, but it's not like over the top You know that's not something completely crazy, but like you get that with a burger I get that with a burger and I make my burgers at home And I normally have the big tub of applesauce just pour it on

and I call it a little

size.

That's awesome.

I Was not expecting that I was I was expecting like a coleslaw

Maybe even green beans from people tonight.

We'll still probably get a few of those but applesauce is great Coming up at 635 cat Rhapsody will be here They are the lead singer and guitarist for the band cat in the hurricane a great band We featured them on nightlight before when terry bar has been on on a Friday night to do a bar band Friday night cat will be here at 635 We're gonna play a couple of cat in the Hurricanes songs

and we'll have a nice conversation with Kat too.

Very excited to talk to them about Kat and the Hurricane.

So Barb from Waukesha, Texas, and she says, hi, definitely sweet potato fries, a very healthy, well actually a healthier option.

I don't know how healthy sweet potato fries are.

I know sweet potatoes are phenomenal for you, but I think they're still deep fried.

But either way, healthier than regular fries and pretty delicious too.

Coleslaw is a close second, says Barb from Waukesha.

Barb, great to hear from you.

And hash browns with onions.

See, I was listening, says Matt Rothschild.

That's a good choice too.

That's a

really good choice.

That's a great choice.

You know

what they make in up in Marinette at like the supper clubs?

They'll have like hash browns with cheddar cheese and sour cream in them.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I'm not a huge dairy guy, but when that.

is when it's together, when it doesn't overtake the potato element of the side, the hash browns, it's dynamite.

Yeah, it just sounds good too, right?

Applesauce doesn't even sound that good, but that, oh my, mm.

Applesauce doesn't, well, I mean, applesauce, yeah,

I don't

know.

You know what, Matt?

Matt, Dom, Matt's on, you know, I'm glad I gave Matt a shout out because I don't think we would have heard this answer tonight.

Yeah, you're right, you're right.

I don't know, Matt.

That's a good one.

That might be my I may have to replace baked potato hash browns.

Oh, no, wait, I'm sorry.

He says hash browns with onions.

I don't know if I read that part.

That's phenomenal too.

That's great.

No, it's just reminded me of this other hash brown dish.

Thank you Matt drive safely buddy.

Hope you have a safe trip home Cindy says phone not working.

Yes, just a reminder Cindy call us at 608-688-9088 if you need to get ahold of us

via what I like to call the telephone.

Monica from Mount Horrib, she's in the 608.

She says hash brown, there we go, hash browns with cheddar cheese and Tapatio sauce.

Oh man, that's great.

I've never had that.

Yeah, I've never even heard what that is.

It sounds good though.

Tapatio

is just a great hot sauce.

Like it far surpasses like Tabasco or even, I'm trying to think what the new, all the new craze was not Tapatio.

What's that hot sauce, the red stuff?

people call it, I'm totally flaking out.

But it's like,

it's kind of all the rage right now.

It's in every Thai restaurant you go to and I'm totally blanking.

One of our textures, whenever I have a brain block like this, one of our textures always helps me out.

And on the stream, oh, Terry Barr, our pal Terry Barr, who introduced me to our guest at 635, Cat Rhapsody.

Terry says, aside, potato salad.

Terry is one of those.

I can't do potato salad.

I don't know what it is.

I can't either I can't either I just it's just something about and for me honestly coleslaw not a huge fan of it.

I

respect other people for liking it Okay, but I just can't get into it.

I don't be a hater.

I'm with you though.

I like I like it I don't like cold potatoes.

I never have but I like But people love my wife loves potato salad my mom loves potato salad And it's one of those things like when your mom invites you over for burgers or for Sunday dinner.

She's like, yeah, I'll make some potato salad

You don't say, mom, nobody likes potato salad, except you, because that's just a jerky thing to say.

You bring, you sneak in potato chips on the side, so you have those, and you can enjoy yourself too.

But, Terry, you can like whatever you want, because I'm excited to talk to Cat Rhapsody tonight.

So thank you for that invitation.

And Dave Kunish on the stream says, cheese curds.

That's interesting.

That's an interesting one, because cheese curds kind of are standalone also, but they can also be a side.

I don't really eat them with burgers or anything.

But I'll have him as an appetizer.

Yeah, if I had a cheeseburger and cheese curds, I feel like it's too much cheese.

It's

overbearing

But I still I do like cheese herds by itself and you get that like Culver's has the cheddar burger Or no the cheese curd the Curder burger.

That's what it's called.

Yep.

That's just that's too much.

That's insane All right cat rhapsody is here folks after the news very excited.

This is a great band cat in the hurricane We featured them on a bar band Friday night many moons ago and terry bar introduced us to cat in the hurricane and cat rhapsody

The front person for Kat in the Hurricane will be here.

They are the lead singer and guitarist.

So very excited to talk to Kat.

That's coming up after the news.

We've got James Runde at 705 and all kinds of fun stuff happening here on Nightlight Live from Madison.

It's Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media radio

network.

Like to get lucky.

Welcome back This is a Monday night version of nightlight folks Slightly different than a Tuesday version or a Wednesday version in that they're different days other than that It's the same old nightlight except we are live from downtown Madison tonight always fun to be in Madison doing the show Coming up in the second hour

Local musician and filmmaker James Runde will be here.

He's gonna pop on for a few minutes and tell us about his new film he's working on.

Always great to talk to James.

And then Daryl Burnett from the Green Bay Automobile Gallery will be here at 720 in studio talking about really cool stuff up at their Green Bay facility and events they have coming up and movie cars and all kinds of fun stuff.

We talk about movies quite a bit here.

So I will try to tie anything.

To movies and my next guests music Their band cat in the hurricane I don't know if they've had music of theirs in movies yet But they should because it is outstanding and it's my pleasure now to welcome the lead singer and guitarist from cat in the hurricane cat Rhapsody with the coolest name I've ever heard cat welcome

Thank you so much, Pete.

It's good to see you again.

It's good to see you again, too.

I'm glad you reminded me.

I know we featured your music on here, but I had completely forgotten about that car conversation we had when Terry brought you on and you were in the car.

That was so much fun.

But it's great to have your undivided attention now when you're not weaving in and out of traffic.

So a much safer atmosphere here.

For the listeners, I was parked.

Oh, you were.

OK, well,

that's good.

So, Kat, it's great to see you.

What is cat rhapsody?

I don't even care if it's your real name.

It's just a really, and Pete Schwabba, there's nothing exotic about my name.

One of our listeners says you have to wet your lips to say my last name properly.

I don't even know what that means.

But cat rhapsody, I'm working with a guy named Dom Lee tonight.

You guys both have cool names, so it's good.

Oh, thank you so much.

Yeah, I appreciate

that.

This is just a stage name for Kat and the Hurricane.

It works.

If you want to know my real name, you'll have to pay me money.

No, I'm just

kidding.

You don't have to divulge any information that would get you in trouble tonight, Kat.

I don't want to do that.

You could be on the lam for all I know.

Tell us about Kat and the Hurricane for listeners who either missed those segments or haven't heard of you guys.

How did the band form?

And then we'll get into, you guys have won a host of awards.

We'll get to that.

We're going to play some of your music.

But how did you guys form?

Well, I started Kat in the hurricane in October of 2015.

It was just me.

I was just doing solo stuff.

I was just coming off of being in a band for about three-ish years that kind of just dissolved over time.

And I was the only one in that group of people that didn't already have a pre-existing project.

So I took to using my friend and his resources to

put an album together in a basement and that ended up being the first album that I ever had, which is Miles Away, that you can find on all streaming platforms, very much a baby version of what Cat in the Hurricane used to be.

And from there, I knew I felt really lonely in doing the solo thing.

So I knew that I wanted to branch out and find new band members.

And that's when in 2018, I walked into my favorite open mic that I had been attending for years.

And I saw Benjamin Rose for the very first time.

And we had just happened to be in Janesville at the right time, at the right moment.

And we became friends.

We started playing out together.

And then it wasn't until 2019 when

Benjamin moved up to Madison first, and then I followed up in August of 2020.

2019

when

I met Alex our drummer and since then we've been grinding ever since and unfortunately 2019 came at a time of like we were getting ready to go on our first tour and then

COVID

happened but so we had to make live streaming work and that also like devolved into so many wonderful things and relationships even though you know with the bleakness of the time but

really truly it's just been like the solid three of us with some you know interchangeable members from time to time but yeah it's been us since 2019 and now we're in 2025 and it's just been such an crazy, crazy journey of getting to this moment right now.

Wow, that's so great.

So Cat in the Hurricane consists of Cat Rhapsody, my guest, and you mentioned Benjamin Rose and drummer Alex Nelson, and occasionally accompanied by singer Candace Griffin.

My

best friend of 10 years,

over 10 years now.

When you guys came here, was that because Madison has a good music scene or does it help you to be here?

Have you thought about going other places or are you fine being here?

You've won a slew of awards here in Madison, so that was obviously a good move.

Yeah.

So Benjamin and I were both from Janesville.

And to be honest, there's really just nothing going on in Janesville.

Also Janesville has its own problems with systemic racism and just straight up homophobic and transphobia.

So if we had stayed there, I don't believe that we would have been on the same path as we are now.

It just wasn't, it just didn't have the thing that we needed.

And Madison is just so much more open-minded and the music

community here is bustling.

There are things happening.

There are events.

People are organizing.

And so I think we really found the place where we truly belong.

And Alex had already was already here.

So in 2019, I ended up moving in with them.

They'd only ever played on an E kit.

I was like, Hey, do you want to play drums?

They're like, I don't have a real kit.

And I was working on a music.

store at the time and I bought them a drum kit and I said all right you have a drum kit now be in my band

yeah the bribe them basically something so all right you guys have been together since 2017 you're an all queer and trans synth rock indie pop band

Is that a competitive like brand?

I mean, that's who you guys are.

But is there competition between other bands that can say that or are there not many bands that identify like that?

I think that there's not a lot of competition for us because there aren't a lot of like solid queer and trans bands that are like doing the same.

exact thing as us.

So it's like, we don't see this competition.

We just see it as an opportunity to work with other queer and trans bands, whether it's the same genre, whether it's punk, whether it's like alternative, it doesn't matter.

We are not afraid of playing with all genres on a on a lineup because that just makes it more enticing for anybody to come out to a cat and hurricane show.

They can expect any kind of genre on any given lineup at any given time.

Great answer.

And I didn't mean competition.

I meant it in the sense that like all bands are trying to get seen and they're really competing against themselves and you have to be you have to put out good music regardless of who is in your band.

But it is Pride Month.

You guys do have some some.

big dates coming up this month that people can still take advantage of seeing you guys live.

Tell us about this Saturday in Sheboygan, right?

Yes.

So yes, this Saturday is Sheboygan.

We're going to be playing with the traveling suitcase.

And I believe our good friends from line are also going to be up in Sheboygan with us.

So that's going to be a great time.

It's being put on by Paradigm.

They've had to work really hard to push back against the city about even being allowed to have this gathering.

Because again, as you can see in the political climate that we have today.

people will say anything, do anything to try to like impede on us just like having our own celebration that's not really like directly affecting them until

they come

into our spaces and make it about them because right so the point is like to center us to center queer and trans people and I don't know there's just something about that that really just irks

Straight people it makes them angry and that's very sad, but that's why we just we keep doing it We

can't stop

because we're here and we deserve to

Absolutely

be a prideful be joyful and gather

and you're right like don't go but then

on Sunday Go

ahead sorry

exactly

like

you're invited obviously

you're

invited, but if you're invited you need to act right you need to you know

come come correct because it's supposed to be a warm and welcoming uh you know uh gathering for anybody so

absolutely yeah do you guys uh you just when you were talking about that cat i could see the ire coming up a little bit have you like how much of uh your songwriting is affected by what you guys go through um

well i i i'll speak for

got it out specifically because we on that album have a little bit more politically charged songs because we were writing these songs like starting in 2020 all the way up until now and even though we released it at the end of you know 2023 now um or I'm sorry 2024 uh they're still very relevant to exactly what's happening today um so and we'll continue to keep

writing about our personal experiences of living and existing as queer and trans people in this political climate, we have to.

It's not that we're like, it's not just because we're queer and trans, but we are a band that is queer and trans.

So there is a lot of it that, you know, does surround the identity.

But what we always say when we get on stage is that we just want to be the representation that we needed when we were kids.

Because

we know

there are queer and trans kids that are growing up in America that feel very alone.

And if we can get up on a stage in front of a kid that needs something or a song to hang on to, to know that, you know, they're going to be okay and that they can too live to be a happy, healthy, grown, trans or queer adult.

You know, we want to show them that that

is

possible.

Absolutely.

My guest is Cat Rhapsody.

They are the lead singer and guitarist in the band Cat and the Hurricane.

Let's hear.

Do we have time or should we wait till after the break?

We can play.

Let's play some.

I really want to hear.

Yeah, let's play some.

All right.

And we'll tune it out.

Give me 20 seconds if faded out.

And I'll introduce the next segment because I want to hear more of our guest music too.

So here's Cat the Hurricane.

Dreams became nightmares Gonna take on the world Right now I'm taking on myself Incessantly haunted By the things that I once loved Second hand smoke and rum on my clothes I can still smell him Is this the

Is this the coffee and alcohol in my blood?

Or is it some kind of divine punishment?

Cause I said I'd be okay this time.

I tried, I lied, I still get high off of coming undone.

I love that song, Kat.

We are coming right back.

Kat Rhapsody is here.

We're gonna hear another tune after a very short break here, and we're gonna tell you where you can see Kat and the Hurricane, and about all their awards they won last weekend.

It's Peach Wabba and

Nightlight.

Welcome back.

This is Peach Wava and Nightlight coming to you live from beautiful Madison, Wisconsin tonight overlooking State Street.

Gorgeous night.

Things are cooling off a little bit, but not here on Nightlight.

because we've got Cat Rhapsody.

For a few more minutes, they are the lead singer and guitarist of the band.

Cat and the Hurricane, we just heard the song.

Is it coffee and alcohol or alcohol and coffee?

I always get confused.

Coffee and alcohol.

Caffeine and

alcohol.

Caffeine and alcohol.

All right, so that is one of my favorite tunes.

I love that song.

You just won an award for that song.

Your band did.

Tell us about all the success you had at the most recent Madison area music awards, which just happened and you guys cleaned up.

Yes, it was so much fun.

So first of all, it was the first time for me and the band to be going to the Atwood Music Hall and it's just

gorgeous.

So very

happy to know that we have another venue here in Madison, which is wonderful.

And yeah, we went and we saw so many of our friends.

We saw really great bands perform.

And yes, I actually have one of the awards right here with

me now.

Nice.

This is this is what

all five of them looked like.

And this one in particular is 2025 performer of the year.

Wow.

So I took this one and then we always spread out the other ones amongst the other band members.

But in order, it's a song of the year, caffeine and alcohol, pop song of the year, caffeine and alcohol, pop album got it out.

performer of the year and a rock performer.

So that is five mama awards that we walked away with last Sunday.

And

we

are so honored to represent Madison.

What do you do with that, Kat?

You've got five awards.

Does that just up your price at clubs?

Does it make you want to go out into the world even more?

I mean, the awards are great, but what do you do with them to propel the band

forward?

I mean, just the representation of like, we're from Madison and reminding people that there is a very lively bustling music scene here.

Because

I feel like Madison sometimes is seen as like a flyover city.

It absolutely is not.

It's really up and coming, especially with the smaller local venues that have opened up in the recent couple years here.

Like, out with Music Hall and like Gamma Ray has been...

uh, vital to the revitalization of the museum here.

Right.

Um, all right.

So for people that want to, uh, see you guys live, you're performing a few more Pride Fest dates here in Wisconsin.

You've got, uh, Sheboygan this Saturday at Pride Fest, Sunday and Oshkosh at Pride Fest, and then Madison, uh, on June 30th.

So, um, where can people get tickets for this, for the shows?

So the pride events are going to be free.

So you can catch us at Sheboygan and Oshkosh free of charge.

As for our Monday night June 30th show is going to be at the Gamma Ray bar and you can find all of the information on GammaRay.bar.

That's the

website link or you can find all of the information to finding tickets and times and all of that on KatInTheHurricane.com.

That's fantastic.

I want to get to, I want to close with another one of your songs called Sorry That I'm Like This, another great tune, but I have to ask you, is an openly all queer or trans band, are you hesitant to go into areas that are less friendly?

I've never understood people that Colin Kaepert takes an E. I'm never watching football again.

Bruce Springsteen sings about the working man.

I'm never listening to him again.

Openly queer and trans bands have, I think, is like that tenfold with the adversity you guys face.

Does that make you not want to perform places or do you want to go in there even more than?

That's a great question.

We know that we can't live our entire lives in fear.

It is scary sometimes when we do leave Madison.

Madison has been very wonderful to us.

We feel comfortable here.

We feel safe here.

But yeah, when we do go out on tour, it's a lot of logistics of who are we playing with and what venue.

is the venue a warm and welcoming place for people like us.

And then on top of that, we have to think about where we're going to stop to eat food and sit down.

We have to think about where we're going to lay

our heads

at night.

We have to think about where we're going to stop to go to the bathroom.

Those are just all things that we do have to think about on a regular basis.

And I think the best way for like our

what we'll say our heterosexual siblings is to keep asking your queer and trans people in your life how they're doing.

Ask us how we're doing and if we need anything and let them know that you're listening and that you see them and that you understand that we have to think about so many more things than an average person has to think about before they leave their house in the morning.

So when we get up on

stage we remind people like we're queer and

that's it's not it's not the end all be all that we are queer and trans but like we are who we are on top of being the representation of our community so you know every day is uh every day is a new surprise of like who we're going to meet out there just keep asking questions and yeah keep keep checking in on your queer and trans friends we need you now more than ever

Kat, I love the answer.

I love the music.

You say Madison's been good to you.

You guys have been good to Madison, too.

So keep up the great work.

And we're going to close this segment with part of your song, Sorry That I'm Like This, another great tune.

This is Kat and the Hurricane Taking Us to Break.

Thank you so much for being on the show tonight.

And I look forward to one day having you guys in the studio.

That would be great.

Thank

you.

All right.

Thanks so much, Kat.

We'll make it happen.

Thank you so much.

We're coming right back.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.

Pete Chwaba.

Welcome

back.

Alright.

So I just said it was still hot outside and now here it is.

It's like raining I'm looking right out at State Street, and I'm gonna be walking home in the rain So there you go.

I hope it cools things off though.

Hey, welcome back to nightlight This is hour number two.

We are live from downtown Madison broadcasting from Madison tonight and tomorrow night

Tomorrow night, Kaelin Cole will be here in the studio performing and we will be talking about some superstars, some cinematic sisterhood in Milwaukee.

Thanks to Milwaukee film, Susan Kearns will be here.

So another fun night.

Tomorrow night live from Madison.

We just had a great conversation with Cat Rhapsody.

from Kat and the Hurricane.

Very excited to see them.

They're playing Pride Fests all around the state for the next week.

Shubboygan, Oshkosh, and here in Madison on June 30th.

Coming up at 7.20, Daryl Burnett will be here.

He is the curator of the...

Green Bay Automobile Gallery.

He's going to be live in studio here in Madison because he spends half of his week here.

We'll talk movie cars and all kinds of fun stuff.

Our question of the night, ladies and gentlemen, is it is National Onion Rings Day.

What is your favorite side order?

And Dom says.

Apple sauce, which

is just weird enough.

It is just weird enough.

You have to always incorporate the cinnamon, though.

Always incorporate

the cinnamon.

That's the go-to.

That's what really, really makes it.

It's a

superfood, too.

It's a superfood, to be honest.

Absolutely.

All right.

Mine is a baked potato.

Good old fashioned baked potato with, that's a side dish you could set your watch by, a baked potato with butter.

I don't think you can be any more mainstream than that.

Bridget from the 818 says roasted vegetables with a little goat cheese, corn in the cob in the summertime with butter and salt.

Bridget is not afraid to fire up the grill and do some serious side, that's a great one too.

We'll read your stream comments in just a bit.

Right now, I wanna get back to the show.

because a good pal of mine is going to join us for a few minutes here and tell us what he's working on.

He is a Madisonian who has been here in the studio.

I'd hope to have him here this time.

But he said, Pete, not only do I not like you, I don't like your show.

No, he said, I'm out of town, but I would love to be on the show.

So he joins us now on the stream, filmmaker and musician, singer, songwriter, James Runde.

Hey, buddy.

Hey, what's going on, man?

Where are you now?

I am in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Oh, La Crosse.

I thought you were like way up north.

Okay.

So you're there on a-

Well, no, we are going, sorry.

I, you know, like a poor, actually I shouldn't even say this on the air, like a poor PBS employee.

I didn't look at the, the call sheet quite super well.

And I didn't realize that Superior was actually tomorrow night.

So it's not only in La Crosse, but we're making the four hour trek up to Superior.

ETA or ETD, one o'clock tomorrow.

Oh, all right.

Actually the hotel is letting us extend our checkout time.

So that's nice.

That's huge.

And that's

really... I shouldn't be saying that.

I shouldn't be blabbing about that on the air.

They told us to keep it on the down low.

And now everybody's going to roll in there.

Yeah.

Now everybody at the baradas and...

We heard PBS is getting late checkouts.

You

sons of guns.

Can you

talk about what you're filming or is this a new project?

Yeah, I can talk about it.

We're just shooting.

Actually, this is a good promotion.

It's a good time.

We're shooting host segments for Wisconsin Life, which is a local favorite on PBS Wisconsin.

It's a locally produced programs where feature segments about people from all over the state doing really cool things.

Surprising things.

I've learned so much.

Just being a videographer on the show has taught me so much.

But these aren't segments themselves, what we're shooting here in La Crosse, Superior, Tomorrow, and then Chippewa the following day is like the host.

So the time you get with our host, Angela Fitzgerald, if you recognize the name, she introduces the episode and we go to a cool place each time and she gets to experience stuff today.

you know, like fishing.

She went fishing with the monk campers, which was really cool.

Listen, stop begging.

I'll be on the show.

Okay.

I just, just come out and ask it with friends.

Actually, all of them, I'm not sure if all that's like, that's not PR language.

We might have to snip this out.

All right, you just let us know buddy.

We'll take care of you.

I really wanted to have you on though to talk about I know you have a new project in the works I always look for an opportunity to talk about white and lazy or Played out.

I'm a big fan of all of your work.

So do you have a new film in in the works?

Yeah, well, I got so kind of I have yes a new film in the works which I feel like is one that I've told you about before which is the Alien movie told with only

Still

that is going to

come out.

It is going to come out ladies and gentlemen I know nobody follows me, but if you have you've heard me talk about this movie It will come out It is being worked on and it is it

actually has a

date in my head that I'm not gonna announce on air So I don't embarrass myself by exceeding it by a number of months or years That's fair, but it does have a clock in my head.

So that means that it's gonna get taken care of that's so that is right now working title connection, but

If you've seen Lajatay, here's the elevator pitch.

It's Lajatay with Ken Burns a little bit thrown in there.

And then you also have maybe like Film Noir, something like D-Tour.

I know you're a big Film Noir guy.

I do like Film

Noir.

I don't think I've seen D-Tour in the first one

you said.

You're talking.

It's got to go right on the top of

the

list.

I'm putting it down right now.

But what was the first one you

said?

Lajatay.

You said that

so

my listeners are

pretty

are pretty up on stuff But when you drop la jeté like it's mission impossible or something you might lose them a little

bit

You've given me two films to watch now.

Actually, you know what?

Yeah, la jeté is a really good one because like so the first time I was exposed to la jeté was in college film

still photo class.

They taught us how to use the dark room and develop our own photos and stuff like that.

And the professor showed us this movie, which I thought was cool because I was more of a movie guy.

And I just thought, I'll pick up an elective and take this art class.

And so he showed it totally blew my mind.

It's about 45 minutes, I think, if I'm remembering correctly.

It's kind of like a middle length film.

It's not really a real featuring.

It's not really a real short.

But it's told it was told only in black and white still images and it was kind of post apocalyptic and it had like a futuristic Sort of I mean this is kind of in the Cold War coming out of World War two and stuff So people were obviously really freaked out about the nuclear bomb in the end of the world and all this kind of stuff So it's it has sort of that Gravi toss to it, but it's all told in still images.

It's very suspenseful nice And it's like I don't know why it's in why why it's in French.

I don't think the guy who made it's French

It's like made by some guy named Robert, like with a kind of an Anglo last name, so I don't know why.

He

just wanted a sexier sounding name, I

think.

Yeah, because everything sounds better in French.

I think so, too.

Wisconsin knows that well.

I mean, how many French towns do we have?

We're just like, oh yeah, we'll just keep that name.

You know, it sounds good.

The French had a way with their tongues, you know?

I

agree.

I love that.

That's a great idea, though.

I can't wait to see what you do, because every year I see...

For a lot of years in a row anyway, you were you had something every year in the Wisconsin Film Festival and I was kind of blown away by all of your stuff Where can people see played out if they can

and

where can people see white and lazy?

Great question and thank you for keeping me on track This is all available on YouTube For free so

honestly,

that's that's the number one place people should go.

Just give me a follow on YouTube.

I haven't put out a video

recently, but I have a few cooking.

Um, actually, you know what else I should plug.

So here my, honestly, you know what I should be doing right now is like, rather than projects that I'm working on, I am actively working on that, that Lajaté inspired film called connection.

It's called connection.

I know that's kind of a bland title, but it's about like an electrical connection, a human connection, you know?

Um, so I have these stockpiles of footage.

Can you hear me by the way?

Yeah, still.

Oh, okay, cool.

I thought I heard an echo.

So I have these like stockpiles of footage, like one of them is my camcorder from childhood.

I shot all of the scratch offs who you've played some of our tracks on

air.

And we're about we're actually later going to hear a track from the scratch offs, my band.

Yeah.

So I recorded the whole first few years of the band history, like the real, you know, really when we first got going, first started touring and all that stuff.

on my childhood high-aid camcorder and so you know all the zoomers nowadays love the stuff from the from the mid 90s to the mid aughts and this camera fits you know right in there and the look is nice and zeitgeisty and the footage looks great so I have all these funny really really truly funny clips of us goofing off on the road and acting like fools and rocking and rolling and I'm gonna start putting out little shorts of that just because they're funny.

And then another little stockpile of footage is I took a road trip to California when I was 22 and an RV 2015 it was supposed to be a hip-hop tour I was just along for the ride just to see what happened and we broke down in the middle of nowhere, Illinois Peru Sorry if you live in Peru.

I don't think anybody cares about Peru on this show But that town boy, you know, so we were stuck down on I-39 like outside of st.

Louis We broke down and we were stuck

for three days three

nights

four days in the October one of those nights we had to sleep on the side of the road and we were freezing our you know what's off and anyway all of this is documented like very well and actually quite painstakingly and I'll say that the ending of this situation was that by the fourth day it was so cold and everybody was so tired and fed up and I had

been working with this mechanic to try and get him to come out here and you know fix the RV and he didn't know what the seemingly didn't know what the hell he was doing because it never ended up running it never got going on the third night we cranked it it didn't go it is sputtered a few times it didn't go fourth day i sold it he begged me not to the mechanic was begging me not to sell it to his boss but we sold it to the chop shop so we told i hauled it in there for two grand clean cash and

The chop shop that we sold it to or the mechanic quote-unquote was attached to a bit Let's just say it was a big building with a large billboard that said xxx

You have these great like almost Kara wacky and type stories Have you ever thought

that's all on camera and it should be a documentary, right?

Yeah

I mean it's interesting enough to take up 10 minutes of your time it's like you're just watching these guys and it's like oh yeah because the footage at the beginning is so like oh yeah man we're gonna light it up in LA and then by the end it's like you're somebody shot the last time we somebody had the

Had the gall I guess to shoot the last night when we were trying to start it for the last time and everybody's huddled around the engine and the car is like Deconstructed, you know, it's like the engine is exposed the interior is ragged because we've like ripped apart every like possible fuse and every you know what I mean every Everything is everywhere and they're cranking the key to try and get it to go and it's sputters for such a brief minute Everybody's like come on come on and you just hear it go and go

and it never clicks, and it's devastating.

My guest is James Runde.

He is a Madison-based filmmaker and musician.

And the front man, I would say that's right for the scratch-offs.

Yeah, I guess so.

I mean, now we have a front lady, too, though, Aditi Devanath.

Hey, also at PBS Tying.

Shout out to Aditi Devanath.

She's a reporter on here and now, and she does wonderful work.

If you tune into PBS, honestly, a lot of listeners out there who tune into PBS Wisconsin probably

are tuning into here and now on Friday evenings.

If

you are sick of the mainstream news and if you're sick of just spin and you're sick of like local news with like their 30 second slots and minute long slots, seriously consider giving a look to PBS news because I listen to folks and I'm a, I just started at PBS two years ago.

I only, you know, I only just learned about the show from editing it.

Interesting.

And once I was editing and I was like, man, this is actually really good.

You're giving me that cue.

I'm like, why did our house start coming in?

I just felt it was good background music for what you were saying.

It was.

All that thought.

We are coming right back.

You were poking me.

We're coming right

back with James Ronde.

We're going to hear some great tunes.

It's Beach Bob and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Welcome back.

This is Nightlight.

I am Pete Schwama.

We are broadcasting live from Rainey, downtown Madison tonight.

It's great to have you with me.