One of Chicago’s most celebrated bands is back but in new form. After lead man Josh Caterer disbanded the Smoking Popes in 1998, he formed Duvall, which plays the Annex Sunday with Five Dollar Foundation and Saving Face.

Badger Herald: Can Smoking Popes fans expect to hear any Popes songs from
Duvall?

Josh Caterer: We usually play at least one Smoking Popes song in our set, but we don’t try to lean too heavily on that. The style we play in now is very similar, though. The real difference is in the attitude of the lyrics in that they’re a lot more positive and not so much in the melancholy. And this comes from having become a Christian; that’s why I left the Popes. So there’s that much more of a spiritual side to the songs now.

BH: Does it bother you at all to be compared to the Smoking Popes?

JC: No, it’s only natural. We’ve got three of the four members, and we’re playing basically the same style. We’re proud of the work we did. We embrace that fully. We’ve changed our name because we didn’t want to start off committing ourselves to that Smoking Popes batch of songs. We wanted to build something new.

BH: Being from Chicago, what do you think of “The Real World Chicago?”

JC: I was never a fan of “The Real World.” I don’t even have cable.

BH: Is Duvall a better environment to be in than that of the Popes?

JC: Very much so. It’s a much more positive environment. It’s drug free, for
one thing, which was not true of the Popes. Everyone’s a bit more mature as
well.

BH: Duvall recently opened up for Tenacious D and Weezer. Were they cool to play with and hang out with?

JC: We did not meet any of the members of either Tenacious D or Weezer.
The dressing rooms were huge, though.