Catfish and the Bottlemen are a British indie rock band that formed in Llandudno, North Wales in 2007. They have released one album that reached number 10 in the UK album chart. The band have toured in UK, Europe, North America, and Australia and have featured in a number of festivals including Glastonbury, Latitude, Reading and Leeds, T in the Park, Governors Ball, and Bonnaroo.

Catfish and the Bottlemen were founded in 2007, when Ryan Evan "Van" McCann and Billy Bibby began playing guitar together at Billy's parents home; a bed & breakfast in Llandudno, Wales. Van's parents also ran a bed and breakfast in town and Van was friends with Billy's younger brother, which is how Van and Billy met. Van and Billy were joined by Benjamin Blakeway on bass as the third founding member of the band. They promoted themselves by playing in car parks after other artist's gigs, including bands such as Kasabian. Original drummer Jon Barr was replaced by Bob Hall in 2010, and founding lead guitarist Billy Bibby left the band in the summer of 2014 and was replaced by Johnny "Bondy" Bond.

Ryan "Van" McCann was born in Cheshire, England and spent time travelling in Australia with his parents as child before moving to Llandudno, Wales. The band derives its name from McCann's first childhood musical memory: that of an Australian street busker in Sydney, playing beer bottles strung to a wire who went (and still goes) by the name of Catfish the Bottleman. Van was reunited with Catfish the Bottleman in January 2015 at the studios of Triple J radio in Sydney.

The band signed to Communion Records in 2013 and released their first three singles "Homesick", "Rango" and "Pacifier" that year. In 2014 the band signed to Island Records and on 17 March released their next single "Kathleen", produced by Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Adele). All the singles were premiered as Zane Lowe’s "Hottest record in the world" and were playlisted on Radio 1. "Kathleen" ranked at number one on MTV's hottest tracks in April 2014.