On Thursday, October 26, 2000 I did a half hour long phone interview with Josh Caterer for this site. The interview went as follows, enjoy!!!

E: So what have you been up to?

JC: What have I been up to? I've just been working, taking care of Elliot, and just helping my wife take care of Elliot. And you know, hanging around.

E: Usual life stuff?

JC: Yeah, you know I have also been, as far as music is concerned, I've been putting together some demos for a new record that I plan to record at some point.

E: Just some time down the line?

JC: Probably January, is when I'll record it.

E: That's cool, so you've been working on original stuff then?

JC: Yeah.

E: How is that different than when you were with the popes.

JC: Well, I'm gonna record this one alone. I'm gonna play everything.

E: What kind of instruments do you play?

JC: Well I play, you know; guitar, bass, drums, some keyboards. A little harmonica.

E: I didn't know you did all that.

JC: Yeah

E: So you've been working on some demo tracks then in the studios?

JC: Yeah I have.

E: Mark (Ruggiero) had mentioned that he had watched you play with Eli.

JC: Yeah Eli helped me with some of the demos I made in the studio. We did a few songs, but I've been doing the rest of them here at home. I'm gonna do all the rest of them in my basement, and do it Jay Mascis style. Partly because I've always kinda wanted to do that. Partly because I don't have a band persay. I mean I know a few musicians who could help me, but nobody that I could cohesively put together as a band. Until I find them, I'm just gonna do it this way.

E: Would it take too much time to get people together to practice?

JC: Yeah and actually I've found the it takes longer to develop songs with other people.

E: So do you plan on playing shows eventually?

JC: Eventually yeah. For those I will need some help though.

E: Yeah it'd be pretty weird up there alone, Milli Vanilli style.

(Laughs)

E: So, do you still talk to all the Popes?

JC: Yes I do.

E: I guess that's probably a silly question considering their family.

JC: Yeah most of them are.

E: How is different writing religious music as opposed to writing for the Popes? That is what the new album is going to be right?

JC: Yeah, I don't know what you'd call it. Gospel Rock? Well, it's a little bit trickier, you have to put more thought into it, because I used to occasionally throw in lines that I just thought sounded cool. Now that there's one particular subject that I'm trying to convey, you know I wanna stick to it and represent it in a good way. And in a certain way, whereas before it was just like it just depended on what I felt when I was writing.

E: Where any of the songs you wrote for the Popes based on life experiences and meaningful?

JC: Most of them are just based on girls that I was interested in or had relationships with. Mostly my wife. Like a lot of the earlier stuff was written when we were dating, and then we ended up breaking up, so some other girls found their way into the subject matter there, but I'd say seventy-five percent of the stuff is about my wife.

E: Wow so I guess they do mean something then.

JC: Yeah they do. Not to me personally, but in a larger sense the songs I wrote then don't have a lot of significance as far as like, they don't have any eternal importance. The things that I'm writing about now, the message that I'm conveying in the music, there are eternal implications to it.

E: You still song with choir at church?

JC: Yeah I do.

E: Do you still find a lot of Popes fans showing up?

JC: No, not really. I mean there was sort of a surge after the (Daily Herald) article came out.

E: I had thought about going, but I never did.

JC: You're still welcome to if you'd like. I sing with them every week. You should.

E: Where's that at?

JC: It's 1424 W. Irving Park Rd in Chicago.

E: You sing every Sunday then?

JC: Yeah 11 AM and 6:30 PM

E: Was the Why Me? EP produce by you?

JC: Yeah it was me and Phil Bonnet in the studio and I guess you could say I produced it. I mean Phil was always kinda reluctant to take credit as a producer. He saw himself as an engineer who was just there to record what I was doing.

E: You worked with him with the Popes to right?

JC: Right. I don't know..... it was co-produced, I guess I did most of the production myself. But he was definitely involved.

E: So you keep in touch with a lot of people that you knew when you were with the Popes?

JC: Not too many, other than, I keep in touch with Tom Counihan. He's a good friend, I still see him a lot, and the guys in the band. I don't really see anybody else, who we worked with, as far as people in the industry, because, you know, I don't get out to clubs, to see people in the music scene very much.

E: So was there hard feelings when the band broke up?

JC: Um.. Yeah. I think there were. I mean nobody wanted me to leave the band, you know. Although the general response was that they were upset that I was leaving the band and they didn't know quite how to deal with that. They were supportive of me personally, like that I had to do what I had to do. I mean if a guy wants to leave a band, I mean there's a lot of bad reasons to leave a band. But if a guy says, "I'm leaving the band because I think God doesn't want me to be in this band anymore." You can't really argue with that.

E: Yeah I guess not. (laughs) That must have been tough to decide on that after so many years.

JC: Yeah it definitely was not a decision that I made hastily. Because I committed my life to Jesus in May of 1998 and it wasn't until February or March of 1999 when I officially announced that I was leaving.

E: I had read in the Daily Herald article that it was a drug overdose that triggered it, was it that or was it before then?.

JC: That was definitely a pivotal moment. I do think that the hand of God was on my life before that and he was already sort of working on me, you know. Sort of drawing me to himself and leading me a point where I was ready to really stop messing around and seek him. But that was definitely one of the important things that led me down that road.

E: So that was like the final straw?

JC: Up to that point I had been kinda thinking about things. You know, like what's the point of it all? Asking the big questions about life, but not really doing anything about it. But that night, because I thought that I was about to die. I put it into action and actually prayed. It's hard to know. I won't know until I actually get to heaven, whether I was really gonna die that night. But I thought I was. I seemed pretty close. Whether or not it doesn't really matter, it was the event that pointed me in the right direction.

E: I'm glad you didn't.

JC: Yeah, me too.

E: In your work with the church do you write original stuff for the choir?

JC: Not for the choir no. The choir sings along with prerecorded music. I am allowed to perform original stuff at the church, I just do that with my acoustic guitar.

E: Let's see we've covered a lot of bases here. Do you have any idea of what the other band members are doing now? I know Mike's doing the Alkaline Trio thing.

JC: Right and he's also running Double Zero Records.

E: How about Eli. I know the Men's Group just broke up.

JC: Right Eli's in a couple other bands though. He's always doing something. He'll just join a new band because he just likes to play.

E: How about Matt, I'd heard that he was working on some music.

JC: Yeah he was..he is. I don't know he doesn't really have a band together and he's not in a band. He sort of works on stuff himself. Writing stuff.

E: Well I guess that's all I've got for you.

JC: Okay.

E: It was great talking to you. Thanks for this.

JC: Sure, it was really nice talking to you.