Fraidy Katt

Fraidy Katt was a Toronto glam and sleaze rock band that papered the city with its flyers between 1990 and 1992. Calgary-born guitarist Stacey Blades started the group after meeting singer Mick Anthony in late 1989. Blades saw a rock star in Anthony, and the two lured bassist Robbie Childs and drummer Grant Skinner away from the local band Hollywood Zoo. Rhythm guitarist Cody West came over from the city's punk scene.

The band cut its first demo in 1990, five raw, stripped-down songs: 'Below The Belt', 'Cool Cruel Lady', 'No Shoulder To Cry On', 'Sweet Sweet Suzie' and 'Small Talk'. The sound came straight off the Sunset Strip, with Anthony's sneering vocals drawing comparisons to Taime Downe of Faster Pussycat and Childs' bass driving 'Cool Cruel Lady'.

Fraidy Katt played its first show in the summer of 1991 at Rock N Roll Heaven, the Toronto hard rock club known for its mirrors, leather seats and spandex crowd. Blades remembered the band stapling flyers to every wall and lamp post in Toronto and flirting with every girl who might come out to a show. People were talking about Toronto as the next hard rock city after Los Angeles, and Fraidy Katt quickly became one of the biggest unsigned bands in town. Its ballad 'No Shoulder To Cry On' was the song the crowds came for, and record company people started turning up alongside the fans.

The band went back into the studio in 1991 for a more polished session, recording 'Sex Bullies' and 'Shot From The Hip' along with brighter new versions of 'Sweet Sweet Suzie', 'Cool Cruel Lady' and 'No Shoulder To Cry On', with reworked arrangements and added vocal parts. Cody West quit at the end of 1991. Blades brought in his old friend Dusty Drake, who played on what Blades considered the band's best-sounding demo, cut at Toronto's Demo Factory studio.

By 1992 grunge had taken over radio and the record companies. Blades later said Fraidy Katt arrived two years too late, and that a start in the late 1980s would have made the band huge. Fraidy Katt broke up after the summer of 1992, and Blades left later that year to join Roxx Gang in Florida.

Blades went on to play with Roxx Gang, Supercool and Smack before spending nearly ten years in L.A. Guns. With them he recorded Rips The Covers Off (2004), Tales From The Strip (2005), Loud & Dangerous: Live From Hollywood (2006) and Hollywood Forever (2012), leaving the band at the end of 2012.

In August 2014 the American label FnA Records gathered both demos on Scratched, Fraidy Katt's first album, released 24 years after the band's first session. Blades wrote the band's story for the release and thanked the label for letting the band relive its youth.

-Robert Williston