Josh Caterer’s best known as the singer/songwriter of the Smoking Popes, one of Chicago’s longest-standing melodic punk bands — beloved for his pitch-perfect songs of teen alienation and angst — but he has another agenda this holiday season.
“I want to put out some new ideas of what a Christmas song is about,” says Caterer. “I want to say new things about the experience, not just re-record ‘Jingle Bells.’ We get the same regurgitated oldies every year!”
Caterer has just issued an EP of Christmas originals, and while his solo show this week will mostly be material from the group’s half-dozen studio albums, he’ll bust out a few of the songs he wrote while sitting beside his mom’s Christmas tree.
“When the muse walks by, you have to follow her,” explains Caterer, laughing about his inspiration. “I was next to the tree, at my parents’ house, looking at the tree, listening to the same John Denver Christmas record I have listened to every December as long as I have been alive, and a song, ‘The Heart of Christmas,’ just kind of hit me.”
Caterer is quick to clarify that the muse wasn’t exactly sparked by Denver. “It’s really more about the nostalgic beauty of Christmas than anything to do with that record,” says Caterer. “Along with, like, the Johnny Mathis Christmas record, I can’t objectively say that record is good or bad, even. It’s just something you listen to several times, every December. Because it’s the law of Christmas.”
While Caterer has a general respect for the holiday canon — he cites the Aaron Neville version of “O Holy Night” as his favorite — he says he feels it’s time to move on to some new Christmas ideas.
“There is a lot to be said about Christmas — there (are) the personal, the emotional aspects but also the good vibes, the family element and then the gospel element,” says Caterer, one of the punk scene’s few out Christians. “The song ‘Austinbound’ on the EP, that’s just seasonal, really. It’s about just being over spending another winter in Chicago, like, ‘I’m out of here.'”
For the singer, it’s not particular Christmas songs that are awful, but mostly just how they are performed.
“I was shopping the other week, and I heard a rock version of ‘Deck the Halls’ at the mall — it made me not want to be alive,” Caterer laughs.
Being a person of faith has given Caterer a leg up, or at least a little more ground to authentically cover, in comparison to some of his secular peers in the punk scene.
“Doing the Christmas EP gives me a chance to address the meaning of Christmas, because I have that relationship, because I celebrate the birth of Jesus when I am writing a Christmas song,” says Caterer. “Like on ‘Baby from Bethlehem,’ lyrically it’s from the point of view of a shepherd in the field who witnesses the angels heralding the birth of Christ. It’s not calculated, but with inspiration, you just have to chase it.
“The only thing is that, in a Christmas song, you’ll never hear me mention Santa. Our civilization has enough Santa in it; he’s gotten enough coverage already.”
