This Meowing Kills Fascists: LFK’s CAT F!GHT bares their claws in debut EP
Photo by Erin Rockers
The Lawrence-based, fem-punk band CAT F!GHT, a Bratmobile-meets-B-52s-meets Mommy Long Legs hodgepodge, formed in appropriately spooky fashion on Halloween 2022 by four KU students, released their self-titled debut EP this July and subsequently hit the road.
Comprised of lead singer Ali Madden, guitarist Maura Dayton, bassist Clare Hawkins, and drummer Lisa Hild, the band began as an answer to a lack of non-male representation in the local punk scene, providing a queer and fem perspective. When Madden expressed interest to Hawkins in starting a punk project, Hawkins asked to contribute and later brought in Hild, a mutual friend in the KU jazz program. They debuted as an opener in a basement venue, with “OH DOG!” later opening their EP, plus a cover of “I Can’t Do Anything Right” by Red Aunts.
“We love to rock,” Madden says. “I’d been seeing a lot of male-presenting punk acts at local shows, and wasn’t seeing myself represented. I could tell other people had been feeling the same way.”
“We want more variety in the punk scene,” Hawkins says. “We want more non-male expression locally and to rage. It seems that all of the people making music tend to look the same, and it can get exclusionary. We want some more representation in the audience.”
Ruminating in the high of rocking out at the Halloween show, they continued to write songs and book gigs, working their way through the DIY venues in LFK and stages such as Replay Lounge, recordBar, and Bottleneck. Their first big gig, Hawkins recalls, was opening for Deerhoof at Bottleneck her freshman year of college. Dayton also began following the band and became its photographer. When the band needed a new guitarist in early 2024, Dayton jumped at the opportunity, already familiar with the music and wanting to break into the scene themself.
Heavily influenced by the sound of third-wave feminism’s offspring, CAT F!GHT’s discography demands attention (in “LISTEN UP!,” the band’s second original song and corresponding second track on the release, Madden literally screams, “Listen to me! Listen, listen, listen, listen!” and speaks to embracing femininity in punk, much like the Kathleen Hannas of the ‘90s had). They find inspiration in groups like X-Ray Spex, Bikini Kill, Red Aunts, Suburban Lawns, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Blondie, creating a thrashy paw-swipe-at-the-face in each minute-long (give or take 15 seconds) song, complemented by the yelps and whines of Madden’s vocals and occasional screams. Dayton turns the amp as loud as it’ll go.
Photo by Maura Dayton
Doting on the empowerment of the riot grrrl movement and intersectionality that each member is passionate about, the group aims to create a space where everyone, regardless of who they are or how they identify–though fem and queer people, the group’s peers, are the target audience–can enjoy music, mosh, and mingle without feeling threatened by possible targeted hate.
“I feel very obligated to this band–not like it’s a job or a chore, but we’re one of the very few bands in Lawrence that is an all non-male group,” Dayton says. “Representation is so important. You can go to a punk show and feel the testosterone in the room, which can be intimidating. You shouldn’t have to feel threatened by the space you’re walking into.”
Photo by Erin Rockers
The band’s progress culminated in the decision to record and release an EP, starting with sitting down and choosing which songs from their twelve-song discography they enjoyed playing together most. The group got together for a four-hour session at the Live @ KJHK studio in Lawrence, where the KU student-run radio KJHK 90.7 FM hosts their version of NPR’s Tiny Desk, in spring 2025, and knocked it all out in one go.
“We’d been playing these songs for so long leading up to the recording, so it was a very painless process,” Dayton says. “We put a lot of trust into Jack and trusted that he’d get the vision for the project.”
The aforementioned Jack Goodrich, a member of LFK bands The Flamin’ Ghoulies, Jackoffs, and Drastic Plastic, recorded and produced the EP. Goodrich had been following the band since its early days and was deeply familiar with the band’s style, influences, and members, so they chose him as the perfect fit. They let Goodrich take up any stylistic choices he so chose, including adding in layered vocals to “BACKGROUND NOISE” to emulate the band’s chaotic live performance style and meows to open the EP in “OH DOG!”
“We did it the punk rock way,” Madden says. “We got our good friend to mix our stuff and made it as cheap as possible. He was fitting our EP into his schedule. We were really intentional–your music is your baby.”
Most of the songs on the EP were written at the band’s start. ”OH DOG!” and “LISTEN UP!” are anti-establishment sister songs in their jabs at double standards and gender roles and were written in late 2022, with “PERVERT,” a song calling out “the creeps in the audience,” and “BACKGROUND NOISE,” a song designed to scream and kick to, followed soon thereafter. “MOSH BITCH,” the most recent addition to the collection and another song intended to–ahem–mosh to, was written after Dayton joined the band.
Photo by Maura Dayton
“We wanted our EP to be holistic of CAT F!GHT and show our range,” Hawkins adds. Madden adds, “We wanted it to be a sample that could encompass our sound nicely. It was hard to cut some songs out, but I’m happy with what ended up on there.”
Though each member is busy with work, school, or living in a different city, they still find time to practice and keep honing their sound. Writing songs is a therapeutic practice as they channel dissent and frustration into their music, and the reward of hearing other people resonate with their message is something that can’t be beat, as well as giving them a place to expand themselves artistically–for Hawkins, a member of three other local bands, this means being able to switch between jazz, pop, country, and punk regularly–and to see how many more times they can get people to dance to the beat of their organized chaos.
“We’ve grown so much throughout the years,” Madden says. “When we were starting out, we just wanted to go out, have some fun, play some gigs, and do what our male counterparts were doing. Now, everything has come into place. We straightened our ties and decided to pursue it, and the progress paid off. I think that’s what’s fun about the EP, too–it shows our progress and how it’s evolved. Our songs sound like what I imagined they would when I wrote them.”
While nothing is set in stone yet, plans are in action for an album release, featuring more of their unreleased discography and new material, to release more merch, to find the time to plan a bigger tour–Dayton hopes for a week-long excursion on the road in various Midwest cities–and to curate an image for the band via photo shoots, music videos, and collaborations with other artists, hoping to make CAT F!GHT a collective work. While you patiently wait, you can stream CAT F!GHT’s debut mix on Bandcamp or Spotify right meow.
