The title of Illinois’ upcoming album is “The Return of Kid Catastrophe.” Seems like an oddly negative title for a young band that’s had the good fortune of performing at Lollapalooza and earned reams of critical praise from the likes of the New York Times, Spin and Pitchfork.
But when Illinois singer Chris Archibald explains that he was late calling in for an interview because he ran over his cell phone, it begins to make some sense.
“It’s kind of been my life,” Archibald says. “I feel like Ziggy. I walk around with a cloud over my head. If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all.”
Good or bad luck notwithstanding, the band from the Philadelphia suburbs of Bucks County has built a growing international buzz since it released its debut EP “The Revenge Of Some Kid” in 2005 and the follow-up “What The Hell Do I Know?” last year. The band’s first proper tour was with The Kooks, a British band particularly popular in the U.K. A tour with The Hold Steady followed, as did the Lollapalooza slot and a slew of shows at 2007’s South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.
It may seem like an overnight success story for a band yet to release a full-length album. But Archibald has been stockpiling songs for years — a whopping 417, he says.
“We’ve been playing a really long time, so it’s not like we’re, so to say, a new band,” says Archibald, 28. “I guess we’re new to people, but we’re not new to us.”
Illinois — Archibald (guitar, keyboards, banjo, lead vocals), Martin Hoeger (bass, vocals), Andrew Lee (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and JohnPaul Kuyper (drums) — will perform Thursday, April 3 at Fuse in Wilkes-Barre in the next installment of Fixture, a monthly music series presented by The Weekender and Prairie Queen Records. Co-headlining will be Lewis & Clarke, and opening the show will be Pat Finnerty and Mike Quinn.
Illinois’ first appearance in Northeastern Pennsylvania precedes a pair of gigs opening for Nada Surf at the Trocadero in Philadelphia and the Bowery Ballroom in New York.
SXSW last year led to a ton of good press for Illinois, with the band playing nine shows over four days and impressing a host of journalists and bloggers. After the SXSW performances, music blog Idolator called Illinois “this week’s biggest band in the world,” and Entertainment Weekly said the act was “the buzz band of the festival.”
The press has not only dished out the accolades to Illinois but actually put the band to work in a pair of very high-profile instances. Illinois designed a T-shirt for Playboy’s Rock The Rabbit campaign, and Spin enlisted the guys to snap photos to document their Lollapalooza experience.
In addition, the song “Nosebleed,” from “What The Hell Do I Know?,” was featured last year on the Showtime series “Weeds.”
Illinois has been compared to The Shins, Spoon, Weezer, Built To Spill, The Beta Band and a host of other bands with indie cred. But Illinois’ influences aren’t as high-brow as some of the critics would have you believe.
“My favorite band of all time is The Monkees,” says Archibald, adding that the most exciting celebrity encounter he’s had was with Huey Lewis. “Micky Dolenz, I think he is the greatest male pop vocalist of all time.”
“What The Hell Do I Know?” was released by Ace Fu Records, a Brooklyn label that has been home to Kaiser Chiefs, Secret Machines and Man Man, as well as Wilkes-Barre-based An Albatross. The deal with Ace Fu was for one EP only; Archibald says he’s uncertain who will release “Kid Catastrophe” on April 22.
The band recorded half of “Kid Catastrophe” in Los Angeles with Mickey Petralia, who produced Beck’s “Midnight Vultures” as well as the upcoming album by comedy duo “Flight of the Concords.” The other half was tracked in Brooklyn with Eli Janney, who has worked with Ryan Adams, Jet, James Blunt and Perry Farrell’s band Satellite Party.
While 2007 and “What The Hell Do I Know?” might have put the band named after a state on the map, “The Return Of Kid Catastrophe” — with a little luck, of course — might make 2008 the year people start wondering if the state was named after the band.
OK, that might be pushing it.
Regardless, Illinois is simply looking forward to sharing at least another sliver of its enormous stash of songs with an increasing number of fans.
“The thing that’s kind of crazy about the whole situation is we have 417 songs recorded, so we’re sitting on all these songs that the only people that know them are the band,” Archibald says. “So we joke around about it. It’s kind of frustrating. We’re just anxious to get something out.”
w