Andy Chaves never liked writing pretty songs about pretty girls. But one March day in 2022, the lead singer of Arizona alternative band Katastro seemed to want to do something very different.
“A lot of our songs are about Andy’s breakups and difficult situations with the women in his life, but he was just in a good mood that day,” Katastro drummer Andrew Stravers, 34, recalls during a recent interview with PEOPLE from the Arizona studio where the band was recording that day. gathered on the fateful day two years ago. “He was like, ‘You know what? I want to write something sweet and a little more honest about a girl.’ I said, ‘That’s nice. You should do it.’”
And so he did. But no one could have ever imagined that Chaves wouldn’t be here at this moment, singing the song that took him so long to write.
Three months later, in May 2022, Chaves died in a car accident. He was only 32 years old.
“The night of Andy’s funeral we all went back to his family’s house,” Stravers says quietly. “There were probably 40 family members at his parents’ house and they asked, ‘Do you have any demos?’ And I showed them this song.”
Cadastre band.
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At the time, the song that featured Chaves’ precious vocals was known only under the title “Dancing”.
“I played for them and the whole family went from crying and sadness to singing and dancing,” Stravers recalls. “At that point, it was a minute and a half demo. I think we played it 15 times in total. And so, from that point on, it was a big thing that we wanted to finish not only for the album, but for his family as well.”
Of course, the act of finishing the song came with an enormous amount of pain, as it meant that the remaining members of Katastra – Stravers, bassist Ryan Weddle and guitarist Tanner Riccio – had to dig back into the song their friend never finished.
“Finding the demos on our hard drives afterwards showed, in my opinion, how talented Andy was and how gifted he was,” says Stravers. “We actually turned around [‘Dancing’] into the Katastro song where Tanner took out his guitar and did his thing and Ryan did his thing with the bass, and it turned into one of our favorite songs on the album.”
And that’s why they named the new single — the video for which PEOPLE is exclusively premiering — “Our favorite song.”
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Until the End of Time cover.
“We kind of just let go of the reins and he told us what he thought,” Riccio, 35, tells PEOPLE of the surprisingly upbeat music video. “I mean with [Toon] Being professionals and knowing what to do, we just trusted it and everything turned out very well, even better than we thought.”
As is their seventh full-length album, which will now forever serve as the home for “Our Favorite Song”.
“The whole album was made from vocal recordings that we took [Chaves] from completely unfinished songs and super rough demos,” Stravers says of the upcoming album Until the end of timewhich is set for release on October 4th and features the talents of fellow artists such as Dirty Heads, Iration and Rome Ramirez. “Finishing songs with his vocals has been a big part of us surviving the past few years and getting over the loss of our best friend.”
“In the beginning, we didn’t even know if we could make an album,” adds Riccio. “It took us a while to gain confidence that we could make a good record that sounded like it wasn’t put together. I think we’re still accepting it and we still don’t realize what we’ve done.”
Because as much as the loyal fans of Kadastro needed this album for its realization, it was just as necessary for the members of the band.
“In the past two years, [we all] we had to listen to his voice and work on these songs to get through it,” says Stravers. “Even if it does nothing and only 10 people stream it after the album comes out, it’s already served a huge purpose in helping us get over Andy’s death. That’s how I feel.”
Every member of Katastra also believes that this is the last album they will ever release as a band.
“It’s bittersweet to know that we’re not working together on something that involves him after this process,” says Riccio. “But again, it’s very healing to finish it and release it for everyone to enjoy.”
And they believe Chaves would enjoy it too.
“He better know right now how hard this shit was,” Riccio says. “He better know.”
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Source: HIS Education