Band of the Week: Cataldo
By Gwendolyn Elliott April 18, 2017
With so much happening in Seattle’s bustling music scene these days, how do you even know where to start? Allow the highly trained culture curators of Seattlemag.com to help with Band of the Week. This week, we catch up with Eric Anderson of Cataldo, brand-new, shiny signee to Molly Moon’s just launched Mooncrew Records. Anderson’s new album, Keepers, drops Friday, April 28th with an official release party called “Nerd Prom” at Century Ballroom. (If you can’t wait until next weekend, catch Cataldo at the Capitol Hill Molly Moon’s this Saturday, April 22, at noon.)
In three sentences or more, tell us the story of your band: I’ve been recording and releasing music as Cataldo for almost 13 years. After years of DIY solo shows, I moved to Seattle in 2008 and started playing as a more traditional rock band. We’re getting ready to release our 5th record, Keepers, which features pop bangers, alto sax and big songs about my little feelings.
Now tell us about the new project! I started writing this record in 2015 and took a long road to make it. We worked at Studio X, Hall of Justice, Avast, and various project studios, rehearsal spaces, and second bedrooms in Seattle. Tucker Martine continued his lauded streak of Cataldo record mixing and we have appearances from many Pacific Northwest luminaries: Ben Gibbard, Andrew Joslyn, Danielle Sullivan from Wild Ones, as well as folks from Pickwick, Ruler, Fruit Bats, Chris Staples’ band, Silver Torches, SGF and more. We’re releasing vinyl for the first time care of Mooncrew Records—Molly Moon’s new in-house label for employees only (I’ve worked for Molly Moon’s for about 8 years).
What does being a musician in Seattle mean to you? I grew up in Idaho peering over the mountains into Seattle, admiring bands and records that came out of the Pacific Northwest. It’s been a totally sublime surprise to have landed here and become a part of the same community I once admired from afar. Seattle is big enough to have at least couple of everything a band needs (great guitar stores, bassoonists, carpet liquidators, etc.) and small enough that you probably know someone connected to those things. I love living here and plan to stick around as long as I can afford to.
What BIG question should we ask, and what’s the answer? One very big question on my mind is how bands can survive in a post-CD music-streaming economy? The answer is syncs for paper towel commercials.
What’s next? Our biggest thing ahead is Nerd Prom, an event we’re throwing with KEXP and Artist Home at Century Ballroom. After that we’re doing some touring in May, opening for Pickwick in Seattle and Portland in June, lots of festival stuff this summer and more touring in the fall.
Follow Us
Ferry Tales: Eight Indie Bookstores Worth the Ride
Plan a summer day around these bookshops in Seattle, Bremerton, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, and Poulsbo.
Independent bookstores tend to be cornerstones of the communities in which they reside, and Seattle is no exception. In addition to helping customers discover their next read, these neighborhood hubs host weekly gatherings and events, like publication release parties, author talks, and book clubs. Many of them have cafés and reading tables that encourage lingering…
Rearview Mirror: Seattle Art Fair is Back, Nordstrom Throws a Block Party, and a Must-Try Ice Cream Sundae
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
SEATTLE ART FAIR RETURNS The buzziest event of the summer (well, aside from the World Cup), is returning next week. Now in its 10th edition, the Seattle Art Fair will once again take over the Lumen Field Event Center, packing it to the gills with art from 101 local, national, and international galleries. This year,…
Studio Sessions: Jennifer Leigh Harrison
Seattle artist Jennifer Leigh Harrison uses layers of paint and abstraction to explore what we carry beneath the surface.
Jennifer Leigh Harrison’s paintings are dense with movement. Color and texture gather into mosaic-like fields, as if they have been fractured and reformed. There are places in the work where a frenetic buzz seems trapped between the canvas and the first layer of paint. That energy runs through Patterns of Belonging, her current exhibition at…
ENHYPEN’s Jay Has K-Pop Stardom and a Seattle Heart
The Federal Way-raised singer talks hometown memories, Ivar’s clam chowder, and how it feels to perform in the place he grew up.
Long before he was performing in sold-out arenas around the world and representing brands like Prada, ENHYPEN’s Jay called the Puget Sound region home. Born Jay Park (not to be confused with the other famous K-pop star of the same name, who is also from Seattle) in Seattle and raised in nearby Federal Way before…