Ash Cartwright
Cat & Calmell Are Australia’s Best New Pop Duo. Just Ask KATSEYE
Read an exclusive interview with rising pop duo Cat & Calmell, one of our Future of Music 2026 acts
This interview is part of our Future of Music 2026 series. Follow all the coverage here.
Cat & Calmell have always had a gift for making chaos sound polished.
The Sydney pop duo, made up of Catherine Stratton and Calmell Teagle, first broke through in 2020 with debut single “Dumbshit”, quickly establishing themselves as sharp, self-aware pop disruptors with a knack for turning anxiety, attitude, and internet-age disillusionment into hooks.
Their 2021 debut EP, Life of Mine, captured the restless energy of being young, reckless, and unsure of where everything was heading, while 2023’s How Do You Feel? sharpened their world further ahead of Australian support slots with Camila Cabello.
Along the way, they picked up industry recognition too, earning nominations at the APRA Awards, the J Awards, and the Rolling Stone Australia Awards.
Their most recent release, Live Laugh Cool Star, feels like Cat & Calmell at their most fully realised.
Built around themes of perception versus reality, celebrity culture, financial struggle, and hedonism as both performance and survival tactic, the mixtape captures the surreal pressure of looking put together while quietly falling apart.
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That tension is where the duo thrive. On “Pop Music”, featuring Cult Shotta, they turn manifestation and self-belief into something playful, cocky, and slightly sideways, drawing from underground electronic and trap sounds while poking at what a pop song is supposed to be.
Glossy, satirical and emotionally frayed in all the right places, Cat & Calmell’s world is one where the party is fun, the joke is sharp, and the comedown is never too far away.
Read an exclusive interview with Cat & Calmell below.
Rolling Stone AU/NZ: What does it mean to you to be included in Rolling Stone’s Future of Music series?
Cat & Calmell: It’s truly such an honour!! We’ve been making music together since 2019, but to be honest it feels like we’re just getting started!
How did you first get your start in music?
Since we were lil’ babies we’ve always surrounded ourselves with music! Whether that was school choir or forcing our parents to watch us perform Avril Lavigne and Nikki Webster lol. But things really snowballed when we got put into a session with a producer who later shared our demo to our A&R, Mark Holland, who OBVIOUSLY fell in love with us hehe. Not too long after EMI Australia signed us and the rest is historyyyyy.
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Describe your sound to a new listener in three words.
Ever-growing, fun, and unapologetic <3
Tell us about your latest release.
Our latest project was our mixtape Live Laugh Cool Star, it kinda changed the game for us cuz we really let our freak flags fly on this one. After years of making music, this project felt like the first time we truly started finding our sound and artist identity.
What’s your favourite career memory so far?
Gosh, we’ve made so many memories in the shortest time but probably supporting KATSEYE during their first Aus show! It’s such an EPIC year for the pop girls, and we were just stoked to be a part of that experience and meet so many new people along the way.
What are the positives and negatives of being a musician in 2026?
Top of mind, it feels like the positives and negatives are two sides of the same coin — positives would be how much more accessible finding an audience is thanks to social media. You don’t have to have label or management backing to have your music reach a wide audience, so it feels like stardom or notoriety has been democratised in a sense.
And the negatives would be how much the promotion or reach of an artist is dependent on social media — it can feel very draining and contrived to constantly have to think of ways to dilute or subvert your music into bitesize, eye-catching pieces of content. We’ve struggled with this our whole career! But that being said, we feel like we’ve found an equilibrium — there is a way to present yourself and your music online that feels true to you!
@catandcalmell pinky is UP #katseye
What’s one thing you’d change about the (AU/NZ) music industry.
We’d love to see some of the long-standing industry institutions pay more attention to and catch up with what’s current and resonating with the broader demographics of music lovers.
Are you hopeful for the future of music in ANZ?
We are! There’s so many cool artists coming out of ANZ right now and it feels like everyone’s really embracing their Aussie roots and we think that’s what’s most exciting!
Name one other ANZ act you’d like to see make our Future of Music series in the future.
Okay… Call us biased but our entire friend group is truly the future of Australian music — Dylan Atlantis, Cult Shotta, 2charm, Becca Hatch, Friday*, and breakfast road !!!
What’s coming up for you this year?
After releasing our first mixtape, we’re really locked in on writing and figuring out what the next move feels and sounds like. We’ve been just kind of going with the flow and doing what feels right in the moment our whole careers, but this year we’re learning to be more intentional with our art and really trust that creative process! So expect epic new music, more shows, and all that good stuff x
