Sight Unscene

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines the word “caveat” as “a warning or a caution.” But as I looked upon the grinning visages of three of the four members of local Brit-pop collective Caveat — bassist Adam Dieter, vocalist / guitarist Seth Friesen and guitairst / keyboardist Kirt Lind — the only thing that I seemed to be in danger of was possibly being bought a beer. This unassuming and good-humored nature is also more than evident in the band’s music; along with drummer Nick Bearden, Caveat crafts a distinctively pop-infested brand of mellowness that is quite at odds with the general tenor of the majority of bands presently banging about in Chico. Consequently, Caveat has often found themselves somewhat aced out of the various cliques and scenes inherent in any musical community. However, this lack of peers has done little to hinder the band’s progress. Caveat released a self-titled, home-recorded EP in 2002. The disc’s four songs showcase a sound decidely influenced by British pop like Blur, Travis and the like, but also retaining a flavor characteristic of pop music from this side of the pond. On the eve of releasing their second EP — which, depending on dastardly Canadian CD manufactuers, may or may not be ready for the band’s date this Saturday, March 15th at the infamous Towne Lounge — the members of Caveat and I met for a congenial discussion on the back patio of the Bear, where I learned the past, present and future of their group.

How did you guys get started?
Adam: Seth and I thought it would be fun to have Brit-pop sounding band, and we started writing some songs — this was a couple years ago, fall of 2000. We had a high schooler playing drums with us for a while, and when he went off to college we got Nick.
Seth: It was horrible. When we first started, it was the worst thing to ever come out of an amplifier. But we’ve steadily gotten better and better.
Kirt: But they didn’t get good until I joined the band [laughs].

How did you hook up with Kirt?
Adam: Seth and I went to high school together, in Colfax, with Nick; we all graduated together, so we knew each other from there. When we got Nick to play drums, we wanted another guitarist, so we put an ad in the Synthesis, Kirt responded, I knew him from KCSC, and it clicked from day one.

So when you say Brit-pop, what do you mean? Who were you guys trying to emulate, initially?
Kirt: We’ll give you the standard influences we always use: Doves, Supergrass…
Adam: Blur!
Kirt: Blur, I think we sound kind of like that sometimes.

What made you guys decide to go in the whole Brit-pop direction?
Adam: I grew up with it; I’ve basically listened to that kind of stuff my whole life. We just all seemed to gel with it.
Seth: It’s music that we were all into.
Adam: In our ad in the paper we said, “bands like: Doves, Supergrass, Guided By Voices”…
Kirt: When I saw the ad, I was just like “Shit! They just listed four bands I like,” so it just seemed perfect.
Adam: We like American rock too, though. Guided By Voices and, as of late, we’re doing a Spoon cover. Interpol is cool too, but we’re not there yet.
Seth: It’s pretty eclectic; I like a lot of different things than these guys, and Nick is on a completely different page than everyone. He plays in Buffalo Creek, for one, and he used to be in that hip-hop band, W.H.A.T., so he’s into jazz and all that kind of stuff, and I’ve got a lot of Beatles influence in what I do, so everyone’s coming from different backgrounds.

But it has kind of left you guys without a real scene, though. I mean, there’s the punk scene, and the hardcore scene, but there’s really not a local Brit-pop scene.
Kirt: You know there’s the indie scene and the metal scene, and we kind of fit somewhere between. We really don’t fit in though, and sometimes it’s hard…
Adam: It’s hard to find a venue. We played Riff Raff, but it’s not really our kind of audience; we don’t really have a scene. We’re just kind of doing our own thing. We are our own scene [laughs].
Seth: We’re not really indie enough to be in with the indie people, but not really mainstream enough to be in with the LaSalle’s people.

I would suppose that you guys are probably itching to play out of town more.
Adam: Right now we’re trying to book a West Coast tour for June. We’ve got some dates in Washington and we’re trying to get some stuff up the coast.
Seth: We’d like to go all the way up into Vancouver…
Adam: We figured if we go to Canada we can call it an international world tour.

You guys have a new EP coming out, right?
Adam: It’s being made in Canada right now, so all we have are burned copies. We recorded it over December and January and sent it off to the CD pressing plant a couple of weeks ago.

Have you shopped it to any labels yet?
Kirt: As soon as the pressed copies get back from the plant, I’m going to start sending them off to indie labels, shopping us around.
Seth: So any small labels who are reading this, we are available.

Is that the long term goal for the band? To make this a career?
Kirt: That’s more of a dream.
Seth: We’re realistic about it. If we could make a career out of this, then I think we would all jump at the chance, but we’re just trying to enjoy it while we can.

What are your plans for the near future?
Adam: Just gig a lot, get out of town more. I kind of feel like we’ve played this town a bit much. Just make a go of it.
Seth: The true test will be if we can survive being with each other for two weeks on the tour. If we come back and one of us hasn’t killed somebody else, then I think we’ve got something.
Adam: We just want to keep upping it, to see where we can go with it until we hit the ceiling, with groupies and all [wistful laughter from the band].

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