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By Don Sill Catch 22, The New Jersey based ska-punk band, was expected to become a huge phenomenon within the hardcore/punk rock scene. With the momentum of their latest album along with a nation wide tour under way, these guys should be on top of the world, but instead their out searching franticly for a new front man/singer. "(Davidson's) heart just wasn't into it and he wanted to move on." Explains trumpeter and founding band mate, Kevin Gunther, about the bands latest departure, "Things are getting huge right now and he bails out? I mean, If he doesn't want to be in the band now, when things are so huge, then he'll never want to be in the band. There's no real hard feelings, we can't force him to be in the band, if he doesn't want to be in the band then he doesn't want to be in the band." Catch 22 has been playing musical singers since the very beginning of their existence. Original front man, Tomas Kalnoky left the band just after their very successful 1997 Victory debut, "Keasbey Nights," which made them one of the best selling bands in Victory Records history. Then recently, this year, just after the success of the bands highly anticipated third album, "Alone in a Crowd," replacement singer, Jeff Davidson decides it's his turn to exit the band, leaving Catch 22 high and dry just before their nation wide tour begins with the RX Bandits, thus causing the band to cancel while they search for yet another replacement. "Right now we have about twenty auditions scheduled for next week," says Gunther, "and I've had some pretty interesting people calling me and want to be in the band. A lot of confident people, everyone I talk to so far keeps telling me, 'I'm the one, don't even bother calling anyone else, I'm gonna do it..' and I tell every one of them, 'you know what, dude? I hope you are." Seems once everything begins to take-off for Catch 22 something goes wrong and they end up loosing an extremely vital member of the band, the singer. Are they recruiting singers who are afraid of success? Or can it be just a string of bad luck? To loose the voice of a band is devastating and difficult to bounce back from, sure they did it once before, but to go through this again is enough to exhaust the very best of us. "When we found out this news we were obviously devastated and weren't really sure what to do." Says Gunther, "We know how hard it is going to be, but we love playing in this band more than anything else in the world so we feel it's worth it." So, could this mean the end for Catch 22? Don't bet on it, these guys are young, creative, ambitious and love what they too much to let some obstacle, like loosing a band mate, stand in their way of the big time. A statement from the Official Catch 22 web site says; "After talking with a ton supportive friends, family, and fans of the band we have decided to move on and try to find someone who wants to play in Catch 22 as much as the six remaining members do." Hopefully the boys recover quickly, get back on their feet and become stronger than ever. At least now we know why they call themselves Catch 22. For more info on Catch 22 you can log to: www.njcatch22.com
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