the short story
photo by Michael Alford
Formed by co-bandleaders Michael Cerveris and Kimberly Kaye, Loose Cattle has been part of New Orleans’ uniquely diverse and eclectic Americana roots music scene for over a decade. Its members, including René Coman, Doug Garrison and Rurik Nunan, individually bring rich and varied musical pedigrees to the band, having played with everyone from Alex Chilton and The Iguanas to Bob Mould and Pete Townshend, meanwhile collecting a Grammy, multiple Tony Awards, and a host of New Orleans music honors.
Loose Cattle are inheritors of the progressive politics and compassionate humanity of folk and country truth-tellers past and present, some of whom have become friends: both Lucinda Williams and Patterson Hood guest on Someone’s Monster, their debut for the mighty Southern indie Single Lock Records. The album ably takes on these weird American times with tenderness, rigor, empathy, and guitars.
With work on a new studio album for 2026 well underway and recent releases like May Day: Live at Jazz Fest 25 and the Unholy Rollers EP climbing the Americana radio charts, the past year of touring (including a recent appearance on NPR's beloved Mountain Stage alongside former REM members' The Baseball Project, The Minus Five, Bob Mould, and Chris Stamey) has found the band moving decisively on from their earlier countryfied reexaminations of other writers’ songs and taking on powerful new identities as songwriters, becoming a band with a broad sonic pallet wrapped around an urgently questioning core.
Their perennial favorite holiday album, Seasonal Affective Disorder, appeared on numerous best-of lists, including Rolling Stone Country’s 10 New Country And Americana Christmas Songs To Hear Right Now, with No Depression declaring “This might be the best album of the season.” Multiple appearances at New Orleans Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest and repeat visits to NPR’s Mountain Stage and Lincoln Center’s American Songbook have garnered them fans and friends like Lucinda Williams, members of Drive By Truckers, and the Grammy-winning Lost Bayou Ramblers, all of whom guest on their upcoming debut on the famed Single Lock Records label, based in Muscle Shoals. The 2024 release has been a hit with critics and audiences alike, spawning four singles receiving radio play across the country, and finishing the year at 85 on the Americana Album Chart Top 200, and 10th in No Depression Magazine’s Year End Readers’ Poll Top 25.