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With so much happening in Seattle’s bustling music scene these days, how do you even know where to start? Allow the highly trained culture curators of Seattlemag.com to help with Band of the Week. This week, we catch up with Eric Anderson of Cataldo, brand-new, shiny signee to Molly Moon’s just launched Mooncrew Records. Anderson’s new album, Keepers, drops Friday, April 28th with an official release party called “Nerd Prom” at Century Ballroom. (If you can’t wait until next weekend, catch Cataldo at the Capitol Hill Molly Moon’s this Saturday, April 22, at noon.) 

In three sentences or more, tell us the story of your band: I’ve been recording and releasing music as Cataldo for almost 13 years. After years of DIY solo shows, I moved to Seattle in 2008 and started playing as a more traditional rock band. We’re getting ready to release our 5th record, Keepers, which features pop bangers, alto sax and big songs about my little feelings.

Now tell us about the new project! I started writing this record in 2015 and took a long road to make it. We worked at Studio X, Hall of Justice, Avast, and various project studios, rehearsal spaces, and second bedrooms in Seattle. Tucker Martine continued his lauded streak of Cataldo record mixing and we have appearances from many Pacific Northwest luminaries: Ben Gibbard, Andrew Joslyn, Danielle Sullivan from Wild Ones, as well as folks from Pickwick, Ruler, Fruit Bats, Chris Staples’ band, Silver Torches, SGF and more. We’re releasing vinyl for the first time care of Mooncrew Records—Molly Moon’s new in-house label for employees only (I’ve worked for Molly Moon’s for about 8 years).

What does being a musician in Seattle mean to you? I grew up in Idaho peering over the mountains into Seattle, admiring bands and records that came out of the Pacific Northwest. It’s been a totally sublime surprise to have landed here and become a part of the same community I once admired from afar. Seattle is big enough to have at least couple of everything a band needs (great guitar stores, bassoonists, carpet liquidators, etc.) and small enough that you probably know someone connected to those things. I love living here and plan to stick around as long as I can afford to.

What BIG question should we ask, and what’s the answer? One very big question on my mind is how bands can survive in a post-CD music-streaming economy? The answer is syncs for paper towel commercials.

What’s next? Our biggest thing ahead is Nerd Prom, an event we’re throwing with KEXP and Artist Home at Century Ballroom. After that we’re doing some touring in May, opening for Pickwick in Seattle and Portland in June, lots of festival stuff this summer and more touring in the fall.