City of Caterpillar’s new album, Mystic Sisters, out now via Relapse Records, marks the Richmond, VA group’s official return after nearly 20 years. During their brief original run, the four-piece developed a distinctive sound that encompassed everything from hardcore and punk to emo and post-rock, a creative and diverse approach that was fleshed out on their 2002 released self-titled full-length.
With only the sole album and a pair of split seven-inches to their name, the group parted ways in 2003. But rather than fade into obscurity, interest in their music continued to grow, as fans and critics began to recognize the pivotal role their approach played in the development of the greater underground music landscape.
Guitarist and vocalist and founding member Brandon Evans spoke to us regarding the bands split, their subsequent reunion shows, and what it was like to write their follow-up album nearly two decades later.
What were the circumstances behind the band ending in 2003 and subsequently reuniting for some shows in 2016?
Bands break up; a lot of personal drama reasons. Not that everyone wanted it to end or anything, it just wasn’t working out and there had been a lot of problems to keep it going in the first place. Our original drummer, Ryan (Parrish), who is playing with us now, was so busy with Darkest Hour and everything back then, so we ended up having to have Pat Broderick from Majority Rule join the band and do all the touring that we ended up doing later. I think just everybody had different expectations and people were very busy between me being in Pg. 99 also and Pat in Majority Rule and everything. Probably doing too much and being young, we couldn’t do all the things that people wanted, so it kind of split up. Not in a pleasant way, but not in a terrible way, it just kind of happened.
Then we all did other music and other projects all through those years. I was living in New York, I had been there for 17 years—right after City of Caterpillar broke up I moved up there. Ryan never had a last show or anything with the band—we broke up for a while, and then we got our new drummer, Pat—so there was this period where he didn’t really feel any finality to it, so (the 2016 reunion) was sort of coming from him. He just wanted to do a last thing, I think he needed closure for himself a little bit because everybody had their own little pains from the ending of the band in weird ways. So I think it was just a closure thing for him and we all probably needed it in different ways. We were just going to do a Richmond thing, maybe a Richmond/D.C. home thing. I don’t think we understood that it became so culty of a following. We understood that we would hear things, that people liked it, but when you’re not doing it—I didn’t really know.
So all the streams started flooding once we were just writing about it, and people were acting like it was going to be huge, so then more shows got added onto that and we were just blown away. We just did two weeks worth. We were getting all kinds of offers, and we were like, ‘Well, we’re not like a band,’ even though it became that. Let’s just keep it close to home and see if we enjoy it and have fun, and then maybe we’ll do another few shows somewhere if that was fun and it was worthwhile.
What transpired between the reunion shows and today that made you guys decide to write and record an album?
There wasn’t talk of being a band. It was about two weeks of east coast, I think it was about 10 shows, I don’t remember. None of us were living in the same town. At that time, (guitarist) Jeff (Kane) was in Ohio; I was in New York; Ryan was in Richmond, and (bassist and vocalist) Kevin (Longendyke) was in northern Virginia/West Virginia, so it wasn’t like we were like, “Let’s do this thing.” It just kept adding up over time and building to it. Obviously it was beyond our imagination of fun and worthwhile so we just did some other small things—West Coast—and then it ended up being Europe and Japan.
So then during all that was when we were talking. We just didn’t want to keep playing old songs—that wasn’t ever even the idea—so if we kept playing, let’s do a new record, let’s not just live on the past because that’s not what the purpose was when we got together.
So when you do start on new material, what’s different about writing a City of Caterpillar song today than 20 years ago?
That’s a complex thing to put into words. You’re in this position where, luckily, the band created this sound that is so experimental that you can expand, but it still had certain things that molded it. So we had to stick within certain things, this energetic rawness, but be experimental and push boundaries. It was cool. It was complex to be like, “OK, we’re going to present something 20 years later.” With so much time, no matter what, we’re going to disappoint some people (laughs). But for ourselves, I think we accomplished it beyond our belief. We probably wrote double the amount of ideas than are on the record, but didn’t flesh them all out. The beginning was hard to all be on a similar page of where we wanted to take it or experiment with. We all want to experiment but in different ways. Then we do feel tied down a bit to want to please, which is typical.
Is there a more deliberate nature to piecing all these ideas together than there was originally?
Yeah, back then there was no expectations. Even when we were writing the second (never recorded) record, when we were actually a band—There was probably six or seven songs that we had ready then, which we didn’t do any of those, this was all new. Back then, even though we had a lot of pressure in our minds on that second album because we wanted to make something good and were worried, it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t this huge talk and weight of coming back 20 years later to release a record. You don’t want to let everyone down and blow that, just destroy a cult thing that everybody else built—we didn’t build—just because we want to come back and make a record. So yeah, there was a lot more talk, and a lot more dialogue and worry and back and forth. I don’t think that’s natural for what you want to experience, at least for me, in making art. You just want to let it be free.
So there was more of a focus on inserting certain ideas or concepts into the record?
I think normally we would never do what I’m about to say, but this record was the different thing because it’s 20 years later. Normally we would just experiment, and if the vibes start clicking in the room, then that’s where we flow to and start adding on, which is still how we did it, but we very much talked about it. “OK, we accomplished that kind of sound and that kind of energy in that song; what’s the next song going to be?’ We would have those conversations this time because we had all this pressure in our minds. So we very much were like, “Well, what do we want on the record? We need a song that does this kind of vibe, that’s got to make it.” So we would have those talks and very much try to bring that in the next song.
There’s plenty of songs that got ditched too, so it’s very confusing to say this because not all these vibes made the record. But we did have conversations of we want a slow one or we want just a fast, heavy one or it’s not crazy enough or we need this. But it wasn’t trying to force any of those urgent emotions into a song that we had already started; we had already had the conversation. I think the first record, those things would get added in second, and we would force these parts to come in. We just talked more and we tried to make it come to life. But still, really, it was in the room together coming up with the stuff once we’re talking about it.
What role did playing in other bands with other people in your time apart play into this material?
That’s ethereal. I don’t know if I can put that into words. I can pretend, but there’s no way I can really tap into that. We experimented very far in other realms, all of us. Ryan is probably the one who stayed the most in genre-closeness. I think those experimentations have really helped us to appreciate the sound that City of Caterpillar is and be excited to do it again, for me at least, especially probably most for me, or even Kevin. Kevin’s experimented really far out to where going back to it is like, ‘OK, I haven’t done a band anywhere similar to this again since being in it.’ For me it’s always just been really pushing my boundaries, so it’s fun to again push the boundaries within this realm that I hadn’t been able to play with for a long time. I think as a group we just learned and grew up with our personalities to really push beyond any small little things that might flare up. Not even flare up, I’m making it sound like it’s dramatic, it’s really not. It’s really chill and smooth. But I think that has to do with age and when people are young and crazy and reactive, it can just go so much faster and dissipate. But I think we really explored together and appreciated that time and wanted to show our little tricks that we’ve learned in other ways and then apply it into whatever you want to call City of Caterpillar’s sound.
I think that base City of Caterpillar sound you reference is an amalgamation of a lot of things being pulled from across the independent music spectrum—punk, hardcore, indie rock, post rock, etc… Were there newer ideas or concepts getting pulled into this for the new album?
I think we’re still pulling from similar energies and interests artistically and emotionally. I don’t think it’s really very far off, but I just think that we got older with more experience playing and learning to do different things. I remember being very frustrated in writing the second record that didn’t happen. Kevin and I both really wanted to experiment vocally with our voices, which we hadn’t really done that much and didn’t have the experience and felt very insecure about. It wasn’t even that we wanted to ‘sing’ sing, but we wanted to try more things. It was taking a bit. This was probably one of the reasons we broke up too, was this slowness that it became. But I think the time allowed for those things to grow and expand with other projects and now we get to apply it more in ways that we wanted to do then. That to me is different and fun, and I think it helps the growth of it, to me. Others will probably hate that; everyone will have an opinion.
I think sonically it’s similar, but there’s probably less bananas, real fast writing of some crazy riff I just made up this second because we’re just trying to move, and it’s probably more thought-out riffs now. This is what we were starting to do on the second record; every song is pretty much some crazy tuning. It’s all different guitar wise, so that’s different. But that’s also what we were already trying to do back then, we just re-tapped into it, but no one would probably know that.
Was it difficult to tap back into the mindset of creating the music that City of Caterpillar makes?
Yes and no. I was very excited, I always loved doing the band; I never wanted to break up in the first place, when I think about it. So it’s very fun to go back to that, but obviously there’s been a lot of time, so to get back to a place where we could all function was maybe the harder challenge. Not in a negative way, a positive challenging way. Honestly, when I was living in New York it wasn’t working out because it was too much trouble to get down and have everybody be together. So I moved down here, and being here made it easier to all gel, and once it gelled, once we got a song that we were all like, ‘oh okay,’ then we just kept it flowing. It went pretty well, I think. They’re all different, but similar. I think it’s extremely creative and experimental.
Was the experimentation all fleshed out in the practice space, or did you guys make some decisions in the studio?
All pretty much practice space. A lot of it would be Jeff and I happening to experiment together a bit and then coming in with something and then it would be with Ryan. And then Kevin would be the last piece a lot of times, just because he was the furthest once I moved back, because he’s still another two-to-three-hour drive. So that made it harder because we didn’t have Kevin’s presence a lot which I think would be killer. I mean, once he gets a bass line it just changes everything. I really feel like the band, in the instruments, has a lot of personality all come through. I think that’s the one thing that makes the band unique, is that we’re not really writing ‘song’ songs, our personalities are all coming through on our instruments within the song. Everybody’s kind of flaring so it makes it strange in this good/bad/whatever, but unique sound.
As a band known for having this emotional aspect to them, where were you coming from lyrically with this record? It’s been mentioned that “Decider” deals with the passing of Gared O’Donell of Planes Mistaken For Stars.
Sadly, I guess just aging probably. I guess I partially don’t like talking about this a lot of the time within this realm because I feel like music a lot of times gets attached to youth and it’s hard to talk as an old person, but I think it’s dealing with these experiences that are life and they just add up the older you get and they change perspective. I think it’s just trying to put that into words whereas when we were younger it was just putting the raw energy into the words without the perspective probably. A lot of it has to do with topics of things changing, getting old, disappearing, a lot of loss. But also I was trying to put in, in the stuff I was adding lyrically to this album, more mystical energies and possibilities and just that no one really knows anything, even though I’m putting in these other experiences of maybe loss or whatever topic it might be.
Like you brought up Gared, that song particularly. It’s not just Gared, it was also Matt from Planes (Mistaken For Stars) and just all these people, not even that they’ve left this realm as much as they might still be in this realm. All these people aren’t around you anymore and they were around you, they were right beside you. What happened and what’s next to happen from there? Topics like that. What other realms are there here? Just trying to explore the curiosity instead of, ‘this is what it is and I know and this is my emotion.’ Trying to be less youthful, I guess. Not trying—by default being less youthful.
You had mentioned not really being aware of the growing interest in City of Caterpillar after the split. What was it like discovering this and how do you think the band fits into this 20 years later?
It’s one of those things where you just hear of things through the internet. The internet is, in my mind, what made it happen. It was this new invention that exploded after we were a band. Obviously it was a thing before it, but it really took over into everyone’s presence with cell phones and computers being pushed more and more after we broke up. We experienced some things, but when you see it there, it doesn’t feel real even though you’re hearing it. It’s just confusing. Like, ‘Is that a real phenomenon?’
I think it still blows our mind that people react how they do sometimes. I love the support and the showing of love obviously. I don’t understand it as to what really moves people; these things are beyond words. I don’t know how we fit in, and I don’t know how it will go. It doesn’t truly matter, it will go how it goes, and we’re just proud that we got to make another record again and be a part of a community again within this world of punk, or whatever community from here. I would love it to just expand and move people again. If it does, it’s beautiful. If it doesn’t, it will be depressingly sad, but it’s totally cool (laughs).
Is there a particular song off Mystic Sisters that sticks out to you amongst the rest?
That’s a hard one for me. They’re all uniquely different. The whole record comes to mind–this one because of this, this one because of that. I think “Ascension Theft,” which is the last one on the record, is super experimental and different than anything we’ve ever done, but in a very fun and unique way that I think expands the band within it’s own sound. I think it just encapsulates the idea of what the band did before, but sounds nothing like it—in a good way. I don’t know how to put that. That sound that never really was a sound before it happened on the first record, I feel like we accomplished that and that song is so experimental and pulling all these layers of looping and messing with them. It’s textural, but drives and then there’s this anthemic uplifting end, which we hardly ever do. It moves me when I hear it.
I think “Mystic Sisters,” I just feel like that encapsulates all the things that we were actually, but in a new way. It has an arcing beauty and builds to something different. I think that was another a trick in our bag that we would experiment with. I think that one is fun and good, and I love the lyrics to it, and I just think it’s pretty. We experiment on it. That has Johnny (Ward) from Pg. 99 doing some noisy violin tracks, and we have some synthesizer stuff in the background. It’s just a lot of textures in that too. There’s a lot of experimenting, but not totally changing the band. But those two are unique and they’re long. For those reasons those two appeal to me, but I could tell you every song.
You have shows booked for the fall; is there a future for the band beyond that?
If we’re given the opportunity and everything flows together in this realm, it would be beautiful. I don’t even like answering things like that after the way life has gone; you just never know. We very much had fun writing this record together, I really hope it continues and we could write another one. It would be beautiful. I would be curious to see what that would be. I would like to hope it’d be even better than this one. Some people are going to think this one is terrible (laughs), so they’ll definitely hope the third one’s better, if you got a third one. I really would love to see that happen, I don’t know. We’ll see how it unfolds.
Follow the band’s discography here.
Photo by Reid Haithcock
