Katastro’s legacy is now carried on by the surviving members. The world lost such a treasure Andy Chaves vocalist of Katastro. With their trademark strength, surviving members of Katastro are confronting this great loss. They have been working hard to create a masterpiece collective that will live forever. I’m sure just as Andy wanted, to keep playing the music.
Katastro’s rise is the result of their otherworldly sound and the perseverance of these musicians. After the loss of their brother and bandmate, the crew has come full circle to continue their journey in music delivering collaborations with Jared and Duddy (Dirty Heads), and more to be announced!
The first to be released is, “Good Time” featuring Jared & Duddy from Dirty Heads, and some of Andy’s final vocals ever recorded. This track is genius, an acoustical blend with Dirty Heads signature rhyming fused with Katastro’s alternative rock sound, it’s perfect!
“I wish that we could stay right here forever/I wish that we could stay right here together,” is a line that Dirty Heads’ Duddy added to “Good Time” after Chaves’ passing, a layer of poignance hovering over the otherwise upbeat dance party track. The late singer’s vocals on the three other tracks were all culled from existing demos.”
“The chorus to “Good Time” was written just a couple of days before Andy died,” confirms drummer Andrew Stravers, whose garage was where the band first formed. “The day after his death, I remember sitting on a golf course listening to that demo, trying to process it. Five months later, Duddy and Jared [Watson] were back helping us finish it with that lyric. That’s when I had to leave the room.”
Disbelief, grief, pain, and passion are threaded throughout the album. But also, a sense of hope, and gratitude conveys their love for their music and life itself.
Ryan Weddle, bassist from Katastro was able to share some amazing news with The Pier.
Suzanne: This is truly an honor, and I cannot express enough how much your music means to so many of your fans. I know it’s been a while since you’ve shared with the world about your lives and music.
Ryan: Thank you so much. It really means a lot. The main thing we are pushing right now is this new single, “Good Times “featuring Jared and Duddy from Dirty Heads. This one comes out on the 27th.
Suzanne: Dirty Heads, I know these guys are amazing humans. How did this collab come to life?
Ryan: Going back, we had just played a show at Red Rocks with Sublime with Rome. We then hit up Dirty Heads to see if they wanted to do some writing with us. We got together as a band, the four of us, to start recording. Then we went out to California to start writing some new music with some guys we really looked up to. I think we were out there for four days and stayed in Santa Ana. We hung out and wrote music. I think the 2nd day we were there “Good Times” was written. Two days later, Andy passed away. So, we were kind of left with, just trying to figure out our lives. It was a very confusing time for us. About a month or two later we decided to open the sessions of the stuff we did have. We were able to turn it into a track. We were surprised by this. What we had, we had to approach a completely differently by finishing this backward. Andy had done a little bit of the vocal recording for the chorus, but they were our scratch versions. We assumed were going to retrack the vocals. Dirty Heads had reached out to us and wanted to everything out to help us finish what we started. We needed to take a couple of trips back and a total of three sessions to finish that one. Then we started working with their producer, and it all came together working with a bunch of great people who wanted to support us.
Suzanne: This is amazing. I know you guys have been through a lot. What helped push you guys to get back out there?
Ryan: Right when Andy passed away, it was the most confusing time. We have been in this band for 16 years and we have all lived together at some point. We were very close; he was our brother and the leader. So, we all took some time and learned how to get through it. Pretty quickly we realized while opening these tracks it was difficult. It is hard to sit in a room and listen to his voice 15 hours a day especially only a few months after. This became something to look forward to, it was the only positive thing we had. We have been working on it for over a year now. This has really helped me throughout the grieving process and having this one goal that we are all going towards and that it’s finally almost out, this is really exciting.
Suzanne: You are continuing this legacy for him.
Ryan: Exactly, you know it’s crazy for his family they are still more of their son’s voice that hasn’t been shown to the world yet. For us, this is by far the most important thing we have ever worked on. There are different challenges in taking what vocals we had and completely writing new music. But this needed to sound like Katastro.
Suzanne: I think there are many who know that pain too well. But this is very difficult, you had to get up and get this going again. I already loved you guys before, but this is just another reason I love you guys. Your strength is amazing.
Ryan: Yeah it was scary, we lost our best friend and brother. And then this was like my whole identity for myself personally working with this band. My whole career felt like it was all gone. That was a whole other painful aspect. You are morning someone, and then you are also morning life as you know it for yourself. Can we move forward? We decided to show honor for Andy, we had to agree to it, incredibly scary. None of us were ready to get on a stage, but we knew we had to. The most incredible night of my life, we had Iration, the guys from Dirty Heads, Rome, all these amazing artists flew out to Arizona and came to support us. It’s when I started to realize, we’ve really got something special here.
Suzane: It hit you, right.
Ryan: When you’re in the mix of everything and you’re just kind of racing to what’s next. We were touring 6-7 months a year, constantly going. Nothing is ever good enough; the shows need to be better. When all this is taken out of the equation, you are left with just pieces, it’s just reality what is there is all you can look at. We had so many fans have our backs, bands in the scene were really there for us. It’s finally happening we have worked so hard for this.
Suzanne: I bet you’re bursting to get this out!
Ryan: Yeah for me, I take great value on posting and getting feedback from the fans. New music and shows. It kind of feels like you’re in this limbo. But to put this out. I am really excited for our fans to hear it. For a lot of people that don’t know us, or don’t know our story I think would really love these tracks as well.
Suzanne: What do you hope your fans can experience from this album?
Ryan: I hope it can bring some more joy back. I know for me just hearing music was kind of a sad weight added to it you know. I had done a lot of listening to our music when he passed away. I think it is so exciting that our fans are going to get to hear Andy sing again for the first time in a year and ½ or so. Maybe some healing for everybody. Like you said, in very similar situations you suddenly lose a loved one you’re grieving. This helped us grieve and heal.
Suzane: Yes, music heals.
Suzanne: So I listened to the new track I was shook, and you really made my day (I was having a shitty day haha). This is so positive!
Ryan: Overall, the message is that good times are happening all around us, and appreciate what you have while you have it .
This was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I’ll never forget it.
Get ready they have got some great music coming!
Written by: Suzanne Sanchez