Cat & Calmell’s journey towards their most authentic selves is anything but a straight line.
There’s no clean befores or afters, no magical moment where everything locks into place. The story of besties and collaborators Catherine Stratton and Calmell Teagle unfolds in real time, through the music, instinct, and vision… a process that feels somewhat public and not quite resolved.
Their latest mixtape Live Laugh Cool Star captures that transformation in action. Leaning into play, persona and pop spectacle, the project also marks a subtle but significant shift in how the duo understand themselves and their art. “We really believe that the mixtape was, like, a mini manifestation,” says Calmell.
“Where we are now is completely different to when we first wrote Cool Star, so hashtag blessed.”
If the project feels like a turning point, it’s not one that’s been hiding behind the scenes. Cat explains, “the entire process of us figuring out our sonic and artistic identity is publicly available because the first song we ever wrote together is the first single that we put out… You can see our journey and our growth.” It’s an openness that resists the idea of a polished transformation. Instead, what you see is the in-between. “It’s still a learning experience… we’re just trying different things and not putting too much pressure on how we should be.”
That shared approach to creating has slowly reshaped their relationship to the music itself. In those early sessions, writing became a way of proving something, to themselves as much as anyone else. Their search for meaning often leaned towards intensity; lyrics that carried the full weight of whatever they were feeling at the time.
“I think at the start, we really focused on trying to write lyrics that were really personal or meaningful for us,” says Cat. “It’s not that that’s changed, but I think now we just know where the line is… sometimes it doesn’t have to be so serious. We don’t have to dredge up all our deepest, darkest traumas to write a song. We can write a song about literally anything.”
What’s emerged in its place is something more relaxed and instinctive. The pressure to explain themselves has softened, replaced by a kind of trust that allows ideas to exist without being overworked into significance.
Calmell notes the shift as they move into their next phase. “Now we’re kind of in this next period where we’re writing for the next project, Wink Wink. I feel like we’re still exercising that writing muscle to just try different things and just have fun with it and not try to put too much pressure on how we should be writing or what we should write about.”
Cat & Calmell’s sense of playfulness is no accident. It’s something they’ve arrived at after periods of disconnection, when the versions of themselves they were living didn’t quite align with the ones they imagined. In Live Laugh Cool Star, the duo crafted songs and personas that embodied famous superstars. Outside of the studio, reality looked different.
Working to make ends meet meant the slow drift away from the creative life they had always pictured. Calmell reflects, “we were working part-time jobs and, like, at the bar I was working at, we’d get fans coming in and it’d just be such a weird experience that they’d see me in that way. Working all these jobs kind of made me feel disconnected to who I was or who I wanted to be. And so writing the project was kind of therapeutic in that way so I could cosplay into something I really wanted to be.”
In the process of writing, that distance between present and future self begins to collapse. The characters start to feel familiar and the personas start to feel real. “It just feels like we’re finally on the right path,” says Cat. “Before, it felt like we were on a skewed path that wasn’t heading towards what we truly wanted.” The difference is orientation rather than outcome, a sense of movement that feels truly aligned to the shared dreams of best friends. “I’m really excited for the journey.”
That inward focus extends to how Cat & Calmell are navigating the industry around them. “Everyone’s kind of on their own journey,” Calmell says. “I guess there’s nothing like your own art to make you believe in yourself.”
The absence of comparison is not a strategy so much as a byproduct of attention being directed elsewhere. Their partnership plays into that, creating a shared space that feels safe and self-contained. Cat explains “what I’ve realised is that Calmell and I are so caught up in our own heads and dealing with our own demons that we’re not even really focusing on anyone else or comparing ourselves to other people. We have each other and we’ve only really had each other for a really long time, for quite a crucial period of our lives…”
“I feel like we’ve always just been kind of left of the centre, but because we’ve had each other, we were cool with not necessarily always fitting in.”
That intuition has become the key to Cat & Calmell’s decision making. There are no fixed versions of the artists waiting at the end of the process. What exists instead is repetition, the act of returning to that internal voice and choosing to listen to it again. “I think what we’ve always done, whether intentionally or not, was follow our own taste and our own intuition,” says Cat. “I think that staying true to that and not being afraid of evolving past who we were when we were teenagers… I think it’s just continuously checking in with yourself to make sure that you’re not being swayed by outside influences and that you’re staying true to yourself.”
“Don’t try to replicate other people because you are your own diva.”
