Tempe rock band Katastro will sing out forever

There's little denying that Andy Chaves was the beating heart of Katastro.

"I see it now when I go see other artists and you're like, 'Oh, that's that thing,'" says bassist Ryan Weddle of Chaves' presence and charisma. "It's not necessarily the way they move on stage or command it, but he demanded attention and you wanted to give him the attention."

So, when Chaves died in a car accident in May 2022, the entire band — Weddle, guitarist Tanner Riccio and drummer Andrew Stravers — knew they had to celebrate Chaves' singular work and musicality one last time. The end result of that two-plus-year campaign comes in Katastro's recently released final album, "Until the End of Time."

Even if the trio knew they needed to soldier on, they nonetheless faced some tough decisions along the way.

"Obviously there were always doubts about things in this situation, but I think we were all pretty in line: It's something we needed to get done," says Riccio. "We weren't more confident; it's hard to be confident without a singer. But we just knew we were doing the right thing."

Weddle had his own doubts, but framed the larger issue in an especially positive manner: It's about continuing their great work as a collective.

"I think there were so many self-doubting moments while making the album where you're like, 'Is this the right thing? Is this cool? Is this song going to turn out?' You can do that forever, especially working on a project like this," says Weddle. "But I think, ultimately, since we’ve all worked with each other since the beginning and all been there, we knew what Andy would have (done). And we knew that whatever we felt was right was because that’s how we’d always done things.”

The larger issue, then, was if "we were going to have enough to make it fit together and make sure it made sense," says Weddle. That's because the band was basically working with song fragments and ideas that Chaves had written and recorded sometime before his death.

"We were left with these unfinished vocal ideas that didn't get to become fully realized on his end," says Riccio. "And we had to figure out how to make those into our singles and our album."

He adds, "It was a way for us to write that we've never done before. And a few times we had to strip all the music and just keep his vocals and then rewrite an entire song, which was difficult, but it needed to be done."
If anything, the band embraced the difficult nature of this process to do something truly novel and potent.

"I think in a perfect world, obviously, we would go back and redo some things and re-track some things," Weddle says. "But the beauty of it is that it's a lot of Andy's first takes. So the essence and the emotion of what the song was really right there. It was a puzzle of working backward and finding songs where maybe the melody wasn't my favorite melody at first, but what can we do? Maybe change some of the chords or something to make his vocals stand out a little better. If all we have is his vocals, what can we do to really make him shine?"

The entire approach gave the band an even greater appreciation for Chaves and even some insight into their own creative process.

"Which makes me think, like, how many times in the past were we maybe stepping on Andy's creativity?" says Weddle. "Or, how many times that we had a rough idea that we would then hit a wall and we just decided to give up on it, and that could have been a great track."

Luckily, Chaves isn't the only vocal presence on the LP. The band were able to recruit several stand-in singers, including Slug from Atmosphere, Rome Ramirez and Jared Watson of Dirty Heads.

"We were choosing people that Andy really looked up to and loved," Riccio says. "Slug was one of his favorite artists growing up; he was a hero to him. We were being methodical of who we chose and really trying to keep in mind the people Andy liked and what he would be stoked about."

The same folks also supported the band in other ways in recent years.

"We were in the studio with the Dirty Heads when Andy passed away," Weddle says. "Iration has given us more show opportunities and stage time than anybody else. They even sold a Katastro shirt on their tour that we were supposed to be on and gave us the profits that we had to miss after Andy passed away. Everybody that's on this album has a really deep connection to Andy."

The whole process may have been imperfect, but it resulted in some of the most touching tunes of the entire Katastro discography.

"There's one track on the album called 'Tell Me I'm Ok' with Dirty Heads. And the chorus is one of those moments where it was like perfect, but the last half of it, (Chaves) just didn't have the right words," Weddle says. "And we all decided to just leave it. We're like, 'The feeling is there.' ... We didn't want to do that for the whole album, but there's a part of us that think it's punk rock to just leave it the way."
As such, "Until the End of Time" is a slightly different record for Katastro — it may be both more positive but also decidedly more layered.

"It wasn't until a year or a year-and-a-half in until we started realizing there was a theme to what (Chaves) was saying in all these songs," says Weddle. "And it just felt like we were getting a little bit more hopeful lyrics from Andy than sometimes in the past. I think it's another upbeat Katastro album, ultimately. We're known for more party songs, and we've had some darker eras in some albums. But this one … it feels more intense. And there's songs that are going to make our fans cry the first time they hear it. But then there's other songs that are about making out and having a great time. I just think it perfectly encapsulates our band."

Even if the LP's creation was focused on Chaves, the trio also note that this extended process helped them grieve and connect in some interesting ways.

"We all had the worst day of our lives together," Riccio says. "So I think that friendship is really the only way this could have been completed in the genuine way that it was. But I think having each other all be together at that moment and then being together making this album, and then the preparation for the shows, we've all gotten a lot closer. We were already close before, but it's such a unique situation, and it's an unfortunate thing that we all have to share, but we're all learning in our own ways how to get through it."

The final piece of this puzzle, though, came with two farewell shows on October 25 and 26 at Marquee Theatre. Even before they got into the venue, the band felt the overwhelming love for Chaves.

"We walked the line Friday night ... (and) met a bunch of people and everybody had tattoos that they got from Charles, who was Andy's tattoo artist. And to see all the people that traveled from Montana and Virginia and everywhere, it was amazing."

Once on stage, though, the band were mostly alone. Weddle says that the band didn't want to simply re-create their Kamp Fest event, where they were "able to bring in the singers from Dirty Heads and Iration and so many incredible artists that ended up being on the album, and they all came out and sang Andy's parts for every song." It was, as Riccio echoes, about more of a singular, stripped-down celebration.

"I think we wanted to make it a point for us three to try and accomplish this mostly ourselves and not have all these other artists come in because, at the end of the day, the band is just us three," Riccio says.
The end result, however, was yet another undeniable testament to Chaves' honored place in the Valley's rock scene.

"The first (night), we did a DJ set where we essentially played our songs through the Marquee system and hung out with the fans," Weddle says. "But the way the crowd was responding to just listening to our music, it felt more like we were putting together this community and they were all there to experience that together. And it was less about, 'Are you entertaining me at this moment?' It was a bigger thing than that. We're just super lucky to have the fanbase and followers that we do have because they've supported us throughout these two-and-a-half years."

After all of this, though, one question still hangs in the air: Is this really and truly the end for Katastro?

"It's so wild working on this album for two-and-a-half years because we'd get asked this question, and we'd say, 'We're going to tackle that once we get there,'" Weddle says. "And it feels like we're here; now we have to tackle that."

But that's not so much an outright dodge as it is a way to explain that, like everything else, there's no easy answer surrounding Katastro going forward.

"Right now, we don't have anything on the books," Weddle says. "We don't have any plans to replace Andy or anything like that. So I think we just want to try to bring as much attention to our history and Andy's legacy. I think working on this album was such an accomplishment in itself for us that we'll get there when we need to get there. We'll figure it out. But right now we have not figured it out."

But while Katastro's members may be short on future plans, they've taken away something truly special from this entire process. Not only do they have a deeply profound record, and a lifetime's worth of accompanying memories, they have the satisfaction of knowing they were real and honest when it mattered most. And that they did it all for a dear friend who likely would've encouraged them every step of the way.

"I think people can judge it all they want and look at it however they want," Riccio says. "But it's us being super vulnerable and probably the worst state of mind we've ever been in, but coming together and creating something beautiful out of it."

"Until The End Of Time" is out now via Controlled Substance Sound Labs.