Pet Sounds #64: Emo Musician Andrea Neuenfeldt Derives Emotional Support From Her Kitties
On a cool, mid-May evening in Malden, Massachusetts, all seems calm in the quaint city located about 15 outside Boston (when rush-hour traffic isn’t choking Route 99, that is). But vocalist/bassist Andrea Neuenfeldt is stressed out, finding it impossible to be patient as new releases from her two principal projects are about to be released. In one month, soft pop-punks Unseemlier will unveil their debut LP, I Have a Screw Loose, Somewhere, two years after the Boston quartet joined forces. Exactly one week later, Neuenfeldt’s other band, emo-pop trio MK Naomi, will release their first EP, Dream Hiss. (That band describes itself as an “emo-pop hallucination … named for the covert CIA bioweapons program that ran from the 1950s-‘70s.)
While many musicians often know each other well enough to lower the temperature when one of them spazzes out, Neuenfeldt is at a disadvantage. For one thing, she’s just starting to get to know her new collaborators in the two projects. She’s even more of an odd-woman-out in Unseemlier, as her three bandmates are childhood friends who know how to talk one other off the proverbial ledge when their anxiety level skyrockets.
“It’s like sitting on pins and needles,” Neuenfeldt tells The Bad Penny, noting that Unseemlier is also booked to play FEST 23 in Gainesville, Florida, in October. “I’m very impatient — but I also like wanting to be super-respectful, because other people have [to deal with real] life shit.”
Fortunately, Neuenfeldt has special companions to scratch her itch while she longs to get onstage at this very moment. Those sources of emotional support for the musician are her three cats: Rufus, Wolfgang and Arnold.
Here’s how the rest of our conversation went:
Did you get cats to temper your hyperactivity?
Is it OK if I dive right into the sad stuff? We just lost our first cat that I found. He was such a wonderful guy and also a little shit. I loved him so much.
As for my ginger boy, Rufus, I found him while hanging out on Lynn Beach with my friend Jackie in June 2011. He walked right up to me, as if he had heard me telling Jackie that sometimes you see rats on the beach. We continued to hang out on the beach, but when we started walking back, the biggest-ass rat I’ve ever seen was like being silhouetted, like a great fire car. [We realized that we needed a cat, so he became ours.
We then adopted Wolfgang, which is a 5-year-old black cat that we [took in] during COVID. Because we have so much love to give, we adopted Arnold, another ginger cat, in late January. His middle name is Schwarzenegger.
Do your cats get along pretty well?
Oh yeah, they get along so well. Wolfie, as we call him, really liked to cuddle with Rufus a lot. But Rufus is a bit of a hardened guy. He likes to hang out, but from a distance with Wolfie. And Wolfie still doesn’t seem to understand that.
It’s funny you named one cat after Arnold Schwarzenegger, because in Terminator 2, the bad guy [Robert Patrick] goes to the home of John Connor, and when The Terminator calls the kid’s house to see if he’s there, he says, “How’s Wolfie doing?,” referring to a dog Connor’s adopted parents didn’t own.
Oh, my God. I didn’t even realize that! That’s gonna absolutely make my partner Tom’s day. I don’t know how I never realized that because I love the Terminator movie. That’s so funny.
Getting deeper into the subject of cats, I’ve been surprised in talking with musicians for this Pet Sounds series that their cats are, by and large, quite friendly.
When I was a kid, I knew a lot of families with a cat that would hide under the bed or not want to be petted. I don’t have anything to back this up, but it seems like such cats weren’t properly socialized. I feel like the education around cats has gotten a lot better. Animal Planet has done a world of good in educating people about how to raise their pets.
Admittedly, Rufus definitely had some [behavioral] issues. He would bite and scratch. He wasn’t a bad cat, he wasn’t looking for a fight, but he definitely had these defense mechanisms.
What’s the most damage your cats have done to you and/or your household?
Mostly scratching our skin. But luckily, we have landlords that are friends, and they’re very pro-animal and [supportive of their tenants] having pets. But luckily, the cats haven’t really scratched the surfaces of the tiny apartment [in which we live].
What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen one or more of them do?
Oh, that’s a great question. Let’s see. What’s really cute is how obsessed Wolfie is with Tom. We call him “Mom,” because Wolfie needs to be on him at practically all times. He’s the most cuddly guy that I’ve ever met in my life. I’ve never had a cat like him before. He’ll crawl onto Tom and then flop over. And he falls asleep in Tom’s arms.
When you’re away from home for a significant period of time, do you have to find somebody else to watch your cats?
That’s a great question, because we’re still trying to figure it out. We have friends that we [can rely on,] but unfortunately, none of our parents live nearby.
Have you written any, any songs about your cats, or have they made any appearances on any of your records?
Not yet, but we would definitely like to. The MK Naomi EP is named Dream Hiss in reference to my other cat dying. I keep hoping he’ll show up in my dreams. I miss them when they pass away, you know.
Were there points in your life where the cats provided you with emotional support that you really needed?
Oh, yeah. Rufus was with me through the hardest times of my life so far. When we found him in 2011, I was living with my best friend and my partner and a roommate. A few years after that, my partner had a mental health episode, a manic episode, and got diagnosed with bipolar. I was in my early 20s and was just trying to figure out life. I had just graduated from college and was taking care of both of us, financially and emotionally, because [my partner] didn’t have family support. It was a really, really hard time — but Rufus was there.
Check out MK Naomi’s and Unseemlier’s Bandcamp pages here and here, respectively.
Go here for The Bad Penny’s Pet Sounds index.
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