by Joe Licavoli
Straight out of New Jersey comes one of the most fast and furious ska-punk bands of the day.
Hatched in 1996, Catch 22 drew legions of fans with their unique blend of ska and punk. Silence is golden was never the motto for these east-coast kids. The group inked a record deal with Victory records in 1997, after label owner heard the bands demo CD through the walls of the office and called the band the very next day. Catch 22 became the first ska-punk band ever signed to Victory-making them stand apart from the hard-core staple the label has become associated with.
The band recorded their first full length, “Keasbey Nights” followed by the tour around the United States. When the band got home, it suffered a harsh blow when their front man Kalonky grew tired of touring and quit the band in order to focus on higher education. The band let no time spare by having bassist Pat Calvin take over the guitar while the band enlisted fellow New Jersey musicians, Jeff Davidson on vocals and Pat Keys on bass. With the new line-up in place, the band went back on tour with Ten Foot Pole, this tour generated more energy than the last one and the crowd did not seem to mind the line-up change.
Catch 22 has smooth sailing when releasing their sophomore album, “Washed Up.” In the summer of 2000, the band added trombone player, Ian McKenzie from the late, Edna’s Goldfish. With the addition of a trombone player the bands sound grew ever larger and the band released, their new album, “Alone In A Crowd.”
Catch 22 is currently touring in support of the new release with Sum 41 and Bowling for Soup, as well as hitting a few shows with Reel Big Fish.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the band, here is a brief summary of the band members and what they do in the band. Mike Soprano, holding down the horns on trombone and Ryan Ekired, pumping way on the sax and helping out on vocals. Pat Keys blasting out rhythms on the bass and Pat Calpin rocking out on the guitar. Jeff Davidson creating the mood on vocals, Kevin Gunther creating high energy on the trumpet while throwing in a harmony or two on vocals, and Chris Greer keeping the beat on the drums.
Initially, I was scheduled to interview the bands trumpet player, Kevin Gunther by phone at 9 am. Unfortunately, Kevin must have had a rough night before the interview, because he was not answering his cell phone for Kathy, who does promotions over at Victory records. So, I waited about an hour and I got a call back from Kathy saying that Kevin was not picking up, but she got a hold of the bass player, Pat Keys, who just woke up. Even though Pat has just woke up he saved the interview giving me a lot of interesting facts and opinions of the band. Here’s what he has to say on the early Thursday morning.
No Cover: Did everyone in Catch22 grow up on the East Coast?
Pat: Yes, we all did. We all grew up in either New York or New Jersey.
No Cover: How has this tour been going?
Pat: It has been great! Last night was our last show with Reel Big Fish and were really gonna miss them but we are really happy to be going around with Sum 41.
No Cover: What reaction have you gotten from fans, friends and family about the new album, “Alone In A Crowd”?
Pat: They really like it. Actually my parents liked it because that was a big step for me, because they don’t usually like ska punk, and they actually thought it was pretty good. All the feedback has been 99 percent very, very positive, a lot of good things.
No Cover_ Every song on the new album seems to be reflecting many different music styles, where does this musically diverse aspect of the album come from?
Pat: It comes from each one of us and different styles of music that we are influenced by. Jeff is very heavy into reggae, Kevin; our trumpet player loves hardcore. We all listen to a lot of different styles of music and we take all of our influences and the different genera’s of music, even some that we do nor really listen to all the time, but that we can be influenced by and we try to combine it.
No Cover: Is it strange being the only ska influenced band on Victory records?
Pat: Actually that’s not really true anymore. They have a band called The River City Rebels, they are more like a street punk with horns band, but it’s in the same idea. They even signed an emo band, they’re starting to diversify, but Victory has always been good to us even when we were like the black sheep of Victory.
No Cover: How does Catch 22 arrange their songs?
Pat: Each song has its own way of being broad about. Sometimes, one or two of us will develop a very strong idea for a song and have it all set, other times we will just have a couple parts ready and we bring it into practice and see what we can do with it. The arrangements usually follow that way.
No Cover: Has Catch 22 ever-toured Europe, if not do you guys have any plans to go there?
Pat: No, we never have, but we are really excited to get over there. Hopefully, in this spring we are looking to get over in Europe, and do some touring, do a few weeks, we’re really looking forward to that.
No Cover: Do you guys eventually want to sing with a major label?
Pat: Right now, we’re just playing it by ear. We’re happy with Victory now; they’re helping us out as much as they can. Also, it’s nice to be a higher priority because when you’re on a smaller label you get a lot more attention. They don’t necessarily have all the resources of a major label but its good to be able to interact and know everyone’s name at the label. Actually, even our president, Tony came with us on a little leg of this tour, he cam with us for a few days and hung around with us just to check it out, and just to see how we were doing.
No Cover: How did your parents’ react when you decided to be in a band and tour the country?
Pat: Well I have always been in bands since I was like 13, and they were always concerned because I was a little kid driving around playing shows. But when I joined Catch 22, I left college, and there was a little bit of tension, but they’ve been really supportive the whole way through, and it wasn’t exactly what they wanted be to do, but they stuck by my decision.
No Cover: Is it tough being on tour during the holidays?
Pat: Yea, sometimes it’s hard. We’ve missed Easter with our families, which was bad for most of us. We just missed Thanksgiving but we were glad because we got to stop home and see our family’s for a little while, at least in the morning, but then we had to go and make an 800-mile drive for the rest of the thing. Sometimes it works us but you get by and you make the best of what you can do.
No Cover: Why did you initially want to be in a band?
Pat: I’ve just been playing music since I was a little kid and I just always wanted to be out there doing it and performing. Its a great feeling, it’s a great job as far as getting by, it’s a good way of life. I really can’t help it-its in my blood.
No Cover: What do you think about the presidential election of George Bush and Al Gore, with all of the ballot recounts?
Pat: I think it’s supposed to be George Bush. I’ve been trying to avoid it, the entire time ever since the election. There’s not much I can do about it, I guess Bush is in. I think its time for Al Gore to give up, its like hey you lost buddy. I’m a little bit disappointed that Bush won.
No Cover: I’m a little disappointed in the political process, we look like idiots to the rest of the world.
Pat: Yea, the rest of the world is looking at us like what’s the matter with these guys? Their retarded or something, that’s from Billy Madison.
No Cover: The title track of the new album, “Alone In A Crowd,” is ballad-esc and that seems to be a change from the other songs on the album, what brought that about?
Pat: Well, we were just writing the song and Pat (Calpin: had a guitar part written and we were trying to see what we wanted to do with it. And we really wanted to put an acoustic song on the album, for no special reason, but that song just sounded like an acoustic song to us, and that’s just how we did it, put in a little keyboard solo. We were a little worried about the responses to that, but even that, with like the rest of the album, a lot of people were down with it and they were glad that we tried something different.
No Cover: Have you guys gone on tour with any bands on Victory?
Pat: We did a tour with Shutdown; they’re like a New York hardcore band. We did almost an entire national tour with them.
No Cover: How did that go?
Pat: It was pretty good, it was at a time when our draw wasn’t as big as it is and theirs was not as big as it is now, but it was a great tour for us and the hardcore kids were really open to us to listening to the music. In fact we found that the hardcore kids were more open to listening to the ska bands then the ska kids were open to listening to the hardcore bands. It’s a little too bad for the ska scene, but we were glad that the hardcore kids were sticking it out with us. We got a lot of comments like, ‘I don’t really like ska, but you guys are pretty good, so we figured that we did an all right job. Also, it was a great tour, were good friends with the guys from Shutdown now, and they’re just good people to be out with, we're all apart of the same scene. Other than that, we just have done shows with Victory bands, we did a show with Snapcase, and the responses have always been great. The hardcore bands wont discriminate against us because we have a horn section.
No Cover: The explosion of the ska scene in 1997 with No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bostones and Reel Big Fish, seemed to trigger a huge backlash from the public, yet Ctach22 seems to have risen above the backlash, how did Catch 22 do this?
Pat: I think we had good timing with that. We were a little behind the ska scene; there already was a backlash before we even started touring. But I think kids like hearing something a little bit different; there’s something a little bit different about our ska music that hasn’t really been played out. We’ve just been really lucky with touring, and at first there were a lot of kids that had a backlash against ska and they were having problems with it. One of our first major tours was Ten Foot Pole, so we tried to even stay out of the ska touring a little bit and toured with punk bands. We think that helped us, it’s a lot of factors, its hard to read a kids mind, we just make the music we want to make and going out there and touring and hitting the road, and hoping people like it. It’s been great for us, we still make the music we want to make, but we just hope they like it.
No Cover: What bands have you been into lately that most people don’t think you would like?
Pat: I love Ween's new album. I could say Weezer, but every punk kid loves Weezer. Dr Dre’s The Chronic 2001 was a great album. We dig into that, with some of the guys who listen to rap.
No Cover: I got the bonus CD, and the last song is just an all out free style rap song, are you going to go some place with that and put some hip-hop or rap into the next album?
Pat: We would love to do a whole album of rap or maybe an EP or something. It was just so fun to do, there was like two weeks after we made that song where we were like, were never going to play ska ever again, were gonna be a rap band! It’s all in fun, really we incorporate elements from everything we listen to, and so maybe on the next album you will hear some sampled drums or something. I can’t even predict it because we haven’t even started writing it yet. I don’t know if you will see that necessarily be reflected in our records, but it was definitely a fun thing to do and we hope that we go somewhere with it. Even maybe just as a side, or if nothing that song was good enough for us. Yea, but we would really love to do a whole album full of it, and just tear it up, and not even care what anybody thinks, just so it, because it would be something fun for us. We don’t know where its gonna lead, but we just like to put it out on the table and go with what’s happening.
No Cover: Have you guys been getting radio airplay for the new album?
Pat: As far as I know it has been very limited. Some college radio has been playing our song, “Point the Blame.” Mainstream radio hasn’t really picked it up at all, which is understandable because once you have horns in a song, its like taboo. Plus, with out the major label pull behind us it’s hard to get a song even on the radio. But we did make a video, and that was a lot of fun for us. We had a chance to do a video so we thought, why not? It was a fun experience just making it.
No Cover: What are the plans for Catch 22 when you guys get back from tour?
Pat: When we get back home, we are going to enjoy the holidays with our families. We are gonna see our girlfriends and everything, a lot of the guys have girlfriends. I’m gonna be able to see all of my friends. I’m still gonna be making music, because I play in some bands when I’m at home. So, we’re just going to lay low for a little while, we’re gonna do a few dates at the end of January with The Pietasters. We are hoping to write some new stuff, because there was such a lag time in between “Keasbey Nights” and “Alone in A Crowd.” We were even a little rushed at the end of making “Alone In A Crowd,” because we just knew we had to get a record out, because it had been over two years.
That’s all folks. Be sure to check out Catch 22 when they hit a town near you, and pick up the bands new album, “Alone In A Crowd.” Catch 22 is a welcomed change to the sometimes stagnate ska scene and I definitely recommend you check them out.
