Pin up: The Catnip Junkies featuring Mike and Beth Silvia

Are you cat people or dog people?

We are all about the cat! But we love other people’s dogs. They’re the best because you get all the love, none of the work!

How did you come up with your band name? We were snowed in during that winter a couple of years ago when it felt like we were always snowed in. We sat around our living room playing with one of those band name generators on the interwebs. We have three girls and one guy in our band, so we added words like lucky cat and kittens, but nothing really catchy came up. Later Mike threw it out there, Catnip!  The Catnip Junkies. We loved it. It was really hard to pass on Twilight of the Cat Gods from the name generator!

Where’s your favorite local place to catch a play?

We’ve seen some fantastic shows at the Stadium Theater. We have lots of theater friends performing locally and we love to get out and show our support!

What’s your favorite local thing to do in the summer?

Kayaking is one of our favorite local summer activities! RI is packed with fantastic all day paddles. The Charlestown Breachway is a favorite but watch the tides! We once sat beached for about 20 minutes paddling like crazy thinking we were trucking along, but it was really just the tide coming in and we hadn’t moved an inch! It’s a cautionary tale.

We also get to play lots of outdoor town concerts during the summer and that’s always a highlight.

Tell me about The SpeakEasy night at the House of Mood.

It’s a cabaret style show that starts with our band and cocktails at 7:45pm. We are a bass, fiddle, banjo, piano and kazoo playin’ band. Our music is old school gypsy jazz, and we love to have a good time warming up the audience with our interactive show.  It can get quite rowdy!

The show continues at 8:30 with Miss Maple Divine and the Fringe Follies. It’s a true variety act, with tap, drag, comedy, commentary, aerial acts, and pole dancing. The follies are so much more than pink pasties. We absolutely love playing and hosting the SpeakEasy. It’s a dream job. We are excited to be working with House of Mood on all kinds of new projects in the near future, so stay tuned!