Fantastic Cat

They said it couldn’t be done. Four different songwriters joining forces to form a single band? There was simply no precedent (outside of CSNY, The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys, The Highwaymen, Monsters of Folk, etc). And yet Fantastic Cat did it anyway, defying the odds and teaming up to record their highly unanticipated debut, The Very Best Of Fantastic Cat. Hailed by Rolling Stone as “a wildly satisfying collection of folk-rock, country, Americana, and good old rock & roll,” the album earned the vocal-trading, instrument-swapping collective their national TV debut, sold-out headline dates around the US and Europe, festival performances everywhere from Sundance to Take Root, and a song in the Paramount+ series Tulsa King. In 2023, the unlikely four-piece collaborated with all-star producer Butch Walker on a 50th anniversary recording of Wings’ “Band On The Run,” which prompted even more love from Rolling Stone, who dubbed them “the Harlem Globetrotters of Americana.”

​Individually, each member of Fantastic Cat boasts their own impressive resume along with a litany of critical acclaim. The Guardian named Don DiLego “one to watch.” NPR said Anthony D’Amato “sings and writes in the tradition of Bruce Springsteen or Josh Ritter.” Rolling Stone called Brian Dunne’s latest record “the sleeper album of the year” and praised Mike Montali’s band, Hollis Brown, as “the soundtrack for a late-night drive through the American heartland.” Collectively, though, the four transcend their respective roots, emerging as a velvet-clad rock and roll cooperative far greater than the sum of its parts.

They say some cats are born fantastic; others have fantasy thrust upon them. These guys are somewhere in the middle.