Katastro honor their late lead singer Andy Chaves in the music video for “Good Time” (ft. Jared Watson & Duddy B of Dirty Heads), a heartfelt anthem of celebration and remembrance reminding us to live in the moment and soak in life’s highs as they’re happening.
“Good Time” – Katastro ft. Jared Watson & Duddy B of Dirty Heads
And if you wanna live the good life, well this is what it looks like…
An anthem that started off as a celebration of life has since become a commemoration of it.
Joy and grief collide in “Good Time,” Katastro’s first single since lead singer Andy Chaves lost his life in a tragic car accident in May 2022. At the time, Katastro were looking forward to a months-long summer tour with Atmosphere and Iration, and had just wrapped up an intense week of studio time together with Dirty Heads, writing and recording ideas for their next album. Out of those sessions came a demo of Chaves singing a feel-good melody with the lyrics, “And if you wanna live the good life, well this is what it looks like… And if you wanna have a good time, well this is what it looks like.“
Those words now have an added weight to them, their sentiment amplified by Chaves’ untimely passing. Completed by Katastro’s remaining band members together with Dirty Heads’ Jared Watson and Duddy B, “Good Time” now serves as a heartfelt, uplifting, and beautifully bittersweet reminder to live in the moment and cherish life’s good times as you’re living them.
It’s a poignant and powerful tribute to Andy Chaves, who for fifteen years fronted Katastro as he and his best friends-turned-bandmates brought their captivating mix of rock, funk, hip-hop, and blues to audiences around the world.
And if you wanna live the good life
Well this is what it looks like (mmmm mmm)
And if you wanna have a good time
Well this is what it looks like
Well me and you out late until the sunrise
Good Friends, Good Times, We feeling alright
And we got nothing to lose
We livin’ life to the fullest, set control ride the cruise
We out here living every moment like a memory
Cause i ain’t tryin to look back and regret anything
Cause time will never stand still
So I still stand by the ones who stay real
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the music video for Katastro’s “Good Time,” featuring studio footage from the band’s final sessions interwoven with shots from their last live show, on April 30, 2022, at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Working off Chaves’ initial demo recording, Katastro’s guitarist Tanner Riccio, drummer Andrew Stravers, and bassist Ryan Weddle collaborated with Dirty Heads’ frontman Jared Watson and vocalist/guitarist Duddy B to create the closest thing they could get to a fitting sendoff: A song that speaks to friendship, special moments spent together, and living life to the fullest:
And i got lovin all day
So if you need some feelings you can find it my way
It’s in the moments we make
So if you need some lovin you can find it my way
And if you wanna live the good life
Well this is what it looks like (mmmm mmm)
And if you wanna have a good time
Well this is what it looks like
“Good Time” is the lead single off what will become Katastro’s tenth and final studio album, set to release next year and featuring collaborations with members of Dirty Heads, Iration, The Maine, Rome Ramirez of Sublime with Rome, and others.
“This song holds a huge place in our band’s catalog, being one of the final recordings of Andy ever taken,” Katastro’s Ryan Weddle tells Atwood Magazine. “This has been the hardest project we have ever worked on and we have taken as much time as we felt we needed to get it to a spot where we feel it can stand on its own as a great Katastro track, regardless of the story behind it.”
“I really hope people that watch this video can see the story behind it,” he adds. “We compiled some of our favorite memories as a band from both before and after losing Andy. Working on this song was a massive part of our healing process and it made me realize that the good times can be the hardest to look back on. Seeing everything put together like this makes me appreciate how lucky I am to be a part of something so special and we are very happy to be able to finally share it with everyone.”
The story of “Good Time” starts with Katastro’s final sessions together, in May of last year.
“In May 2022 we set up a writing session in California with the guys in Dirty Heads,” Weddle explains. “We had just got back from playing a show at Red Rocks with Sublime w/ Rome and Gza, and had a few weeks of time before we headed out on a national tour with our friends Iration and Atmosphere. We booked an Airbnb for about a week in Costa Mesa and immediately went to Maple Sound Studios, a place recommended by Dirty Heads. Our main goal was to get a rough start on our new album, so every day we just threw around a bunch of ideas and built on them piece by piece. ‘Good Time’ was one of the first tracks we actually started that week. Duddy B of Dirty Heads started the main acoustic guitar riff and we all worked on getting the chorus vocal melody together. Our singer Andy Chaves tracked a rough “scratch” recording of the chorus as a placeholder and we moved on to start the next track not knowing that a few days later on our last night there our singer Andy would be killed in a car accident.”
“Dirty Heads were some of the first people we called when we got the news that Andy passed, and Jared Watson (of Dirty Heads) immediately told us that anything we needed they had our back and that they wanted to help finish the songs we started with them. We took a few months to go through our grieving process and kinda reevaluate everything going on in our lives before booking another studio session in Globe, Arizona, a small mining town about an hour and half from Phoenix. We went there to work with our friend and longtime collaborator Matt Keller to open up all the sessions and see if we had anything that was usable.”
“This turned out to be incredibly difficult both emotionally, and in realizing the difficulty of piecing the tracks together and writing new music to the vocals we had left. Fast forward a couple months from then, we go back to the same studio in California that we started the sessions in, this time joined by Dirty Heads producer and hit songwriter Ryan OG. Both Duddy and Jared wrote their parts for ‘Good Time,’ which brought out a whole new perspective to the song. It was very emotional to be in the same spot we were at when we lost Andy but, it also felt like we were suddenly working on something much bigger than we had originally set out for.”
I’m on that driftwood flow
I don’t worry where i go
I don’t hurry take it slow
I got a pocket knife, a bag of bones
A lighter and a OZ
I don’t play no tricks
Yeah i try to live it low key
You’re a fat squirrel on a thin branch buddy
You coming to a breaking point
Where life is gettin muddy
Double sided coin
When you’re down ain’t it funny
On the dark side of the moon
But the other half is sunny
Originally I think it was just supposed to be a happy up-beat party track but with the new perspective of loss and grief it has personally moved more into a song about realizing the good times as they are happening and appreciating the special moments before they pass.
And i got lovin all day
So if you need some feelings you can find it my way
It’s in the moments we make
So if you need some lovin you can find it my way
And if you wanna live the good life
Well this is what it looks like (mmmm mmm)
And if you wanna have a good time
Well this is what it looks like
A reggae-rock reverie, “Good Time” encourages its audience to be present and in-the-moment for life’s highs as they’re happening to us. It’s a “Glory Days”-style song with a positive and more hopeful spin – trading melancholy and nostalgia out for appreciation and awareness. The song ends with Katastro’s surviving band members all singing a tender outro together, after a slight tweak to the chorus lyric: Following “this is what it looks like,” Watson adds, “It was a good life.”
“The day after [Andy’s] death, I remember sitting in the grass listening to that demo, trying to process it,” Katastro drummer Andrew Stravers shares. “Five months later, Duddy and Jared [Watson] were back helping us finish it with that lyric. That’s when I had to leave the room.”
And if you wanna live the good life
Well this is what it looks like (mmmm mmm)
And if you wanna have a good time
Well this is what it looks like
Yeah this is what it looks like (oooh)
Yeah this is what it looks like (oooh)
It was a good life
The song concludes with everybody singing, “I wish that we could stay right here forever… I wish that we could stay right here together…” It’s a cathartic, painfully bittersweet, and heartbreakingly beautiful finale – one that aches from the inside out as the band honor the life of their late lead singer.
Watch Katastro’s “Good Time” music video exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more to come as Weddle, Stravers, and Riccio prepare to release their tenth and final studio album, completed with the help and collaboration of friends throughout the music industry.
But more than anything, take the message of this song and video to heart and do all you can to soak in life’s good times as they’re happening. Whether you’re goofing around in a convenience store snack aisle, laughing and cracking jokes over drinks, or just hanging out on a friend’s couch, it’s those sweet little fleeting moments, more than anything else, that we remember and carry with us for the rest of our lives.
I wish that we could stay right here forever
I wish that we could stay right here together
I wish that we could stay right here forever
I wish that we could stay right here together
It was a good life
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“Good Time” – Katastro ft. Jared Watson & Duddy B of Dirty Heads
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