from the Capitol Press Kit for Born To Quit 1995

Smoking Popes

BORN TO QUIT

Eli Caterer - lead guitar

Josh Caterer - vocals, lead guitar

Matt Caterer - bass

Mike Felumlee – drums

Smart, fast, funny, and bursting with emotion, the Smoking Popes are a group of young musicians poised to reunite the new world of punk rock circa 1995 with its timeless pop roots. Taking a classic approach to songwriting and injecting their powerful, guitar-driven tunes with undeniable hooks, the Smoking Popes are returning the garage universe to its long-lost past. The results, available now for all to hear on their Capitol Records debut Born To Quit, are quintessential great songs.

“The songs mostly are just love songs,” explains Josh Caterer, 23, whose distinctive vocal style and songwriting prowess has garnered the band its well-deserved attention. “Just like all the greatest songs that have been written throughout history.” With brothers Josh, Matt Caterer, 24, on bass, and Eli Caterer, 20, sharing lead guitar honors, along with friend and neighbor Mike Felumlee, 20, playing drums, the Smoking Popes are philosophically aligned with the lo-fi, do-it-yourself approach to music, yet their crisp, tight sound rings loud and clear. The songs on Born To Quit, like “I Gotta Know Right Now,” “Rubella,” and the album’s first single, “Need You Around,” are distinctive, instantly recognizable, and stand apart from the quickly accepted cannon of today’s alternative standard-bearers. “We’re trying to base our songwriting, the structure of our songs and melodies, on the really great classic tunes that are standards because their melodies are so solid,” says Josh. “But then, we have songs which are that good and play them in a really contemporary, tough way. In the way that the Ramones play.”