Need some hope? Check out Smoking Popes

They re called the Smoking Popes and they re from Chicago And yes they re aware that the coincidence is too perfect for words I think all of us in the band are excited to welcome our new member Pope Leo singer Josh Caterer noted this week And we re delighted to have him joining us on all of our tour dates through the rest of the year He ll be intonating backup playing a bit of accordion and pronouncing papal blessings to the audience at all our shows A longtime favorite in the punk pop world the Smoking Popes which also include Caterer s two brothers bassist Matt and guitarist Eli plus drummer Mike Felumlee play Somerville Armory May They re promoting Lovely Stuff their first studio album in seven years which is full of the anthemic hooks they re known for And since the album opens with Golden Moment and closes with a non-joke cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow it hardly lacks for positivity People are looking for a little bit of hope nowadays with a constant flood of discouraging news coming at us every day Caterer says Golden Moment was just inspired by the kind of transcendent moment that a good show can be and the way there s a beautiful exchange of ability between an audience and a performer We just longed to capture a little of that in the form of a song In fact the band wrote and issued an angry political song Allegiance in the wake of the last electoral contest but he says it didn t fit the vibe of this album Caterer may be the only frontman in punk who names his favorite singer as Judy Garland After flirting with the idea for years the Popes covered Somewhere Over the Rainbow as the new album s finale We ve done show tunes in the past but I ve been so intimidated on that one because she s pretty much the greatest singer of all time and I didn t want to step into the ring with her But it seemed like a perfect fit for this album since it s about the longing for transcendent beauty and that idea is baked into the song Caterer has long been pegged as a crooner in a punk band Ever since Need You Around became a hit in the s people started talking about how we sounded like Frank Sinatra in a punk band and that s the bull s eye that we reliably try to go for I grew up listening to a variety of things definitely punk but also blues and country show tunes and jazz crooners I think it s inevitable that we d try to blend various of these things together in a musical cocktail of sorts Pope jokes aside Caterer embraced Christianity in His faith prompted him to leave the band for a time and to return with a different attitude I think the sense of hope that s present on this album isn t coming from thin air it s coming from this faith that has a grounding effect on my whole life And that influences my perspective on everything I do When I became Christian it upended my life because I wasn t raised that way and it didn t seem compatible with being a professional rock musician at that time But it turned out that I needed a scant years to recalibrate and get established on my new path so I could come back to the Popes as a new and improved version of myself