by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
When we last left Kid Catastrophe — aka Chris “Arch” Archibald of the band Illinois — it was April, and the band was preparing to release a new album.
But things don’t often go as planned in Kid Catastrophe’s world.
Illinois’ record label, Ace Fu, folded. Riding high after the well-received early-2007 “What The Hell Do I Know?” EP, the once-steady buzz on Illinois had trickled to a near silence. No word on the album for months. No updates to the MySpace page. And rumors of a lineup change.
“We had hit rock bottom,” Archibald said earlier this week. “We felt like our EP had done really well, and we were on this high, and everything in our world blew up.”
Illinois had a hard drive full of 114 songs and no plan in place to release any of them.
“We were looking for a label, but it was a bad time to be looking for a label because so many labels were shutting down,” Archibald said. “We kind of lost faith in it. So we thought about doing it ourselves. And I had been shooting little movies with myself and my roommates, kind of bullshit stuff we only really kept for us.”
Enter +1 Records, a new label formed by a publicity and marketing company with Illinois as a client. +1 signed the band, and Illinois presented it with the 114 songs, telling the label to release whichever ones it wants, in any fashion it prefers.
The resulting decision: “The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe,” six months of digital-only EPs, short films and release-show residencies. Beginning with the Nov. 4 release of Chapter 1, Illinois each month will put out a 3-song EP and an accompanying short film. (You can view Chapter 1 below.) And every month during the “Kid Catastrophe” campaign, Illinois will perform at CD-release parties in Washington, D.C., New York, Boston and Philadelphia, near the band’s Bucks County, Pa., base.
“We just want to put out something crazy, because we think we owe it to ourselves, and to others, because we’ve been promising this big record,” Archibald said.
The band will likely gain some press attention for the unique business approach — Spin.com offered an exclusive preview of Chapter 1 last week — and bucking the system.
“That’s like the sweet revenge of it all,” the singer/songwriter said. “Because for years, everyone said without major-label support, you’re not going anywhere. I’m not cocky, but I’m confident. I hope. I think. So I really believe in it.”
To craft the film component of the “Kid Catastrophe” series, +1 hooked Archibald up with People Food, an underground maker of short concept videos in Los Angeles. People Food wrote, produced and directed the “Kid Catastrophe” shorts inspired by the songs, and they’ll culminate in a 20-minute film.
Archibald, who had already been dabbling in the above-mentioned amateur movies with friends, said he’s not concerned that the “Kid Catastrophe” videos will anyway falsely color or take away from the songs.
“I think it just kind of enhances it,” he explained. “It doesn’t take away from it, at least I don’t think so. I always love to see visuals when I hear music. The Weezer ‘Buddy Holly’ video, that kind of changed my life. I used to skip that song on the record. Then I saw the video, and I was like, ‘Goddamn, this song is great!’”
Illinois performed in April at Fixture, a monthly series in Northeastern Pa. presented by the Weekender and Prairie Queen Records. There have been some changes to the band’s lineup since, most notably the exit of guitarist Andrew Lee.
“Yeah, he was having some issues,” said Archibald. “And every time we played, people would say, ‘What the hell is that kid on?’ He’s really just on the moon. We used to play really raucously. For years, he would never play the same part of the song, and a lot of times we felt it was bad, and other times we felt it was beautiful.
“Hearing these songs, they’re more mature, and actually like songs. Before, we’d get, ‘The CD’s alright, but you should see them live.’ Now I think the CDs are great, and live it comes across better. The gimmicks from the live show are gone.”
Joining Archibald — who plays guitar, keyboards and banjo — are longtime members Martin Hoeger (bass) and JohnPaul Kuyper (drums). Dan Pawlovich, who was a touring guitarist hired in part to play the parts Lee should’ve been playing, Archibald said, is now a full-time member. Chris Shepherd has also joined the band on guitar.
“It’s really exciting for us,” said Archibald, adding that after the string of EPs, Illinois hopes to release a full-length album of different material in 2009. “We’re playing these songs we used to play, and they used to be rough around the edges. It’s getting there, and it’s really exciting. Before we told anybody about Andrew — because he was a big factor in the band, and you can’t kick [Brian] Westbrook out of the Eagles — we just wanted to get it down and show people the difference, the whole new thing. It’s definitely fun. The songs are a little bit different. But I think it’s all bigger now, and it makes more sense.”
