Catherine seems to have finally stepped out of the shadow of the Great Pumpkin, Billy Corgan. Because Corgan produced the band's successful Sleepy EP that landed them a record deal with TVT Records, and because one of Catherine's first breaks was an opening spot for some Midwest Pumpkin gigs, and also because both bands have a propensity toward a big guitar sound, Catherine's association with Chicago's currently most successful rock band has led some detractors to accuse Catherine of merely riding on Pumpkin coattails.

Those detractors no longer have a disbelieving leg to stand on. Catherine's five-man quintet - Neil Jendon (guitar / vocals), Mark Rew (guitar / vocals), Jerome Brown (guitar), Keith Brown (bass), and Kerry Brown (drums) - has just released an album that would still be amazing even if they didn't know Billy Corgan from Billy Carter. Sorry!, which the band produced this time (drummer Kerry Brown engineered), is Catherine's debut full-length TVT effort, and it's an admirable release. It travels from first single "Songs About Girls," where Jendon pokes fun at the pop world in general, to Rew's sadly silly "Funny Bunny" to a cover of the Bee Gees' "Every Christian Lionhearted Man" to the pathos of "Her Pills" and "2 AM" to the sheer sonic love force of "Saint," a cut so strong you feel like you're on the virtual reality machine at Lollapalooza. The 12-track album caps off with "Waterfall," a brave 12-minute orchestral tour de force.

Throughout Sorry!, the three guitars act as a front-line attack, not so forceful they blow your eardrums out, but furious enough to be enticing. Then again, the band's motto is "Better Living Through Noise."

Today, the band is till making lots of noise. Catherine has collected itself at a local greasy spoon to talk about the new album, but they're talking about a lot of other stuff instead, like cables and mikes and knobs and whether they need a second crew person. Kerry Brown (who recently wed Pumpkins bassist D'Arcy) has just kicked a three-pack-a-day smoke habit. His brother Keith, who recently replaced departing bass player Cilff Fox and just moved here from California, talks about how he's dreading the winter weather. Jerome Brown (no relation) is passing around some weird blue bottles of Japanese beer. Neil Jendon is late, and Mark Rew is talking about drinking in the daytime. Throw in various well-wishers who stop by to greet the band and you're left with an interview tape you'd need "Get Smart!" technology to transcribe completely. Still, we plod on . . .

The interview would have been a lot simpler if it had been with the first incarnation of Catherine about five years ago, which consisted of Jendon, Jerome Brown, and a drum machine. The band seemed to expand for social reasons, not musical. "People would just come up to us and say, 'You need me in your band,'" explains Jendon. "Sometimes before we even knew what they played." Bassist Cliff Fox joined in 1990 for Catherine's first single "Sparkle/Charmed" on Limited Potential Records; the drum machine was tossed and Kerry Brown added in 1991; Rew joined Catherine that year.

The band is asking about Fox's departure, which seems like weird timing; most musicians leave bands when things aren't going so well, not when the group is about to hit it big. "I think he was afraid of certain things," says Rew, "like losing his girlfriend."

"He did not like life on the road," Kerry Brown adds, "It's not that easy."

Being on the road by themselves will be a new experience, especially after the Pumpkins tour and a gig opening up for Dig on the West Coast this past summer. Still, Catherine's strong live show should serve them well. One of their performance highlights is when they drag an unsuspecting audience member up to solo on Jendon's guitar.

"It started in Iowa," Rew explains, "where we asked the whole audience."

"We wound up with 20 people on stage," remembers Jerome Brown.

The band says the best part is seeing someone who would never normally be on stage get to be a momentary rock star. "That last guy at Metro did really well," says Jerome Brown, "but then he gave us a demo tape!"

After all the years of club playing, duking it out on local labels, and weathering personnel changes, Catherine is about to find out if it has all been worth it with the release of Sorry!

"It seems like right now is the hard part," worries Jerome Brown.

"But at this stage, it's a lot better than I thought it would be," Rew points out. "There have been obstacles to overcome. But it's the most fun I've ever had."

"I never felt like it wasn't worth it," adds cofounder Jerome Brown.

"Don't ever think for a second you can't do it," Rew states emphatically - a little advice for bands just starting out.

"Be persistent," adds Kerry Brown.

"And don't take other people's advice," Jendon says. "There are no rules about how these things are done. There's no set formula."

"It helps to know as many people as you can," Rew offers. "You have to know people and make it work for you."

Catherine is undoubtedly glad they know John "Skippy" McFadden, owner of March Records, the label that put out Catherine's Sleepy EP. The band was about to sign to Smash when McFadden introduced them to a TVT rep. Ironically, in the midst of the Chicago music boom, Catherine's story hasn't received the voluminous amounts of press it would have received, say, three years ago. Has the band been frustrated by being lumped in with the "Chicago music scene"?

"It's different in Austin or Seattle," states Kerry Brown. "Each one of those bands sounded alike, so if you listen to one band you'd probably like them all. Someone who listens to Liz Phair isn't necessarily going to like us."

"It's like the British invasion," Rew adds. "I never thought, 'Oh, here comes another British band.' It was like, the more the better, to get to hear as much as possible."

Though Catherine is still sometimes compared to "shoegazer" bands like My Bloody Valentine, Jendon maintains that he was more influenced by "Robert Fripp and Jad Fherim, the guitarist from Half Japanese. People who do something to the instrument that hasn't been done before."

Jendon and his fellow guitarists continue that tradition on the new album on the new album. Catch the way "Saint" starts with a thin layer of guitar that seems loud, but then another louder layer gets added on top of that and another louder layer on top of that, for a sonic layer cake effect. "Every Christian" opens disarmingly with a whisper of an acoustic guitar, and the acoustic is also the seed from which the guitar force of "Inchworm" grows. Slower fuzzy songs like "Pills" and "2 AM" don't sound like what you'd expect Catherine to sound like, but they are quietly effective nonetheless. And first cut "Songs About Girls" resembles the poppier songs it's making fun of, which is, Jendon admits, actually making fun of himself.

"I was writing and it got to the point where I'm like, 'All these songs are about girls!'"

"Girls or mothers," Jerome Brown jokes.

"They're actually about boys," Rew offers.

It was Rew's idea to include the Bee Gees cover. "Before their disco stuff, they had this great album Holiday around '66 or '67. Some of it's bullshit, but I always loved ['Christian'] - it's got a very chewy center like texture."

Jerome Brown says the 12-minute "Waterfall" that ends the album is "our oldest song. We just kept recording until it stopped. It seemed the most logical place to put it at the end." The musical experiment is an ambitious ending to a great 12-track journey.

"We were all brought up on albums about 40 minutes long." Jerome Brown explains.

"There's nothing worse than wading through 15 tracks to get to the two or three good songs on the records," Jendon says.

Sorry! listeners won't have to worry; there's no wading to be done - it's smooth sailing all the way. And Catherine's future path looks just as clear.

Appearing: December 17 at Metro (3730 N. Clark) in Chicago

Article From - Illinois Entertainer

Date - December 1994

Article By - Gwen Ihnat