Originally conceived as a solo bedroom project in 2009,
Cheatahs is the brainchild of guitarist and vocalist
Nathan Hewitt. Having left his birthplace of Morinville, a small town on the outskirts of Edmonton, Canada,
Hewitt ended up in London, where he spent some time as a guitarist in the group
Little Death. The lo-fi ethic of
Little Death carried over into his solo project, which began with the nostalgic sound of "Warrior," released on 7" by Young and Lost Club, before
Hewitt put
Cheatahs on hold when he signed on as the touring guitarist for
Male Bonding.
Having apparently named the project due to him "cheating" on his previous band,
Hewitt managed to bring others along for the trip. John Arthur Webb (
Male Bonding) and Nell Eu (Screaming Tea Party) both snuck out on their respective bands to bring
Cheatahs to a live setting, before
James Wignall of
Weird Dreams (guitar, vocals),
Dean Reid (bass, vocals), and Marc Raue (drums) cemented a four-piece lineup in 2012. The slacker sound of the Coared EP, released in June of the same year on Marshall Teller Records -- whom
Hewitt had helped by designing their first logo in 2010 -- blended the sonics of
Dinosaur Jr. with the melancholic nature of
Elliott Smith. In 2013, eight years after
Cheatahs were formed, they released
Extended Plays, a collection of their two prior limited-edition EPs, Coared and Sans. A mere five years later, they completed their first full-length album, a self-titled set engineered by
Reid and produced by the group; the set was released by Wichita Records in February 2014. Heading out on a European and U.S. tour in support of their debut, the band re-entered the studio later that year. The result, the EP
Sunne, was announced in November and released in early 2015. In mid-2015,
Cheatahs dropped another EP,
Murasaki, inspired by the writings of 11th century Japanese author Murasaki Shikibu. The EP's title track later appeared on Mythologies, the group's second full-length, which landed that October. ~ Daniel Clancy