If you want to find yourself anew, start searching in the tried and tested. CATAPULTS from Oldenburg, Germany takes this attitude to heart on their debut album. On I’LL BE HONEST, the band celebrates a stirring mixture of emo and skate-punk in the tradition of great genre representatives such as Spanish Love Songs, The Hotelier or The Wonder Years, but still achieves a new independent sound with an inimitable DIY attitude and an infinite joy of playing. At the same time, the band is trying to find the new in the old. Up-Cycling plays a central role on the record and is therefore exactly the album the skate scene needed in a time of sustainability. Today, we have teamed up with
CATAPULTS display their attitude in the music video for the lead single IF YOU DON’T MATTER, NOTHING DOES, for which the band built a guitar from old skateboards. In their third single EVERYTHING (I WISH I COULD CLAIM TO BE) CATAPULTS once again celebrate self-realization against all odds. For this purpose, they shot an inclusive music video in cooperation with a studio for people with disabilities in Bremen, Germany. CATAPULTS combine these thematic concepts with their characteristic blend of energetic yet light-footed instrumentals and a singing voice that skillfully breaks with conventions but remains accessible at all times.
It becomes clear which central role honesty and social commitment play in the life and music of CATAPULTS. The band first had to come to this realization on their own when they set the initial spark for their debut album in mid-2019. After two DIY EP’s and appearances at renowned festivals in Germany, the album was to be something big. A concept album, 15 tracks, with interludes and a complete storyline. All nonsense! Instead, the four guys from Oldenburg decided to pick a collection of 10 songs, which together form on the most promising emo-punk records of the German punk rock scene.
Uncompromising openness and relentless self-reflection form the quintessence of I’LL BE HONEST. CATAPULTS recorded their debut album after almost a year of songwriting in March 2020, together with Sören Kucz, Tom Porcell and their longtime producer and friend Paul Zimmermann in the freshly built “Limetree Studios” near Hildesheim, Germany.
With I’LL BE HONEST, the band’s goal is to establish their music in the German emo and pop-punk scene and become a constant in the European punk rock market. The Label “Uncle M!”, through which the album will be released in March 2021, will help them to achieve this goal. Extended tours for 2021 as well as the first international shows are already planned in cooperation with the booking agency “Spider Promotion”.
The band’s work brings their own mixture of sounds and vibes great artists such as Spanish Love Songs, The Hotelier or even The Story So Far.
CATAPULTS are: Malte Grätsch, Joost Rademacher, Maurice Gärtner, Lars Bannasch
Scroll down for 5 things that inspired CATAPULTS for their new album!
1. Sustainability
We all try to live a somewhat sustainable life. Whether it’s about our eating habits or buying second hand clothes or even just riding our bikes more often, we try to live in a way that at least somehow helps mitigate climate change. Most notably, Lars (Bass) has started his own small business where he crafts lamps, necklaces and other decorative stuff from old and broken skateboards. That’s how we got to the idea of building a guitar from that same material and that in turn gave us the inspiration for the music video to If You Don’t Matter, Nothing Does. We think that building something beautiful and new from old and used material can really help make a difference in reducing waste and emissions. Plus it can be really fun!
2. Do it yourself
This kind of plays the sustainability part. We’ve been pretty DIY from day one and even with a label and a booking agency in our backs, little of that has changed. We try to take matters in our own hands where it is possible and I think that adds a lot of our personality to how we are perceived. There is little of an image about us. We’re just doing what we like to do most and we’re unapologetically ourselves while doing it. We’re honestly just doing as much as we can to have as much fun as we can. Speaking of honestly…
3. Honesty
I mean, it’s all in the album title, I’ll Be Honest. Honesty is what really drives our writing process for the lyrics. Each one of the band members is going through a pretty wild time of their life right now, like there’s been losses of loved ones, relationship issues, feeling stuck in a certain place. That’s where we draw a lot of inspiration from. It causes some pretty uncomfortable self-reflection but I think it makes for more compelling lyrics that listeners can relate to. Maybe someday when things cool down a little we’ll veer out into more fictionalized storytelling, or maybe we’ll just pour our hearts out forever. Who knows. But in the months we’ve been working on the album, honesty was the way to go for us.
4. Other Artists / Bands
Wow, original right? It really does be like that though, no band is an island. Of course we have some consent on bands that we all like that massively influence us. Those are bands like Boston Manor, Spanish Love Songs, The Menzingers, and Tiny Moving Parts. But each of us has their own weird genres that they like that also play into our influences. I, personally, really like some good pop music and experimental hip hop, Maurice is a big fan of deathcore while he also loves folk music, Malte is all about high-production modern rock and classic rock and Lars is the gritty garage punk / grunge fan in the band. We all draw from many sources individually and that really adds a lot of possibilities for us to play with our style and make it more distinct.
5. Personal ambitions
As a band we constantly try to one-up ourselves with every consecutive song that we write. We have released two EPs before this album and while those are still good and listenable to us, we aimed to lift our music to the next level with I’ll Be Honest. We wanted to solidify our style of music and make it the best LP we could possibly make at this point in our band’s life. So we threw everything we had in us at the songwriting for over a year before actually going into the studio. We tried to work out every minute detail in a way that would benefit the song without feeling too forced or contrived. And I think we managed to pull that off really well. We honestly can’t wait for people to hear all the remaining songs that are on the album.
