In the autumn of 2003 the lead singer of Kataokas, Kalle Kataoka, was unemployed. He spent most of his days drinking coffee and cheap Danish beer together with his friend Lars in a downtown Gothenburg shady coffee shop. Apart from writing obscure short stories never to be published Kalle and Lars started listening to fine old country music (grace mostly to Lars). Together with among others Johan Fredin, they founded the band Le Sheriff and the search for the perfect country and western song was set off.
Lars left Kalle for Stockholm in 2007. Together with former Le Sheriff-member Johan Fredin Kalle started out the search for new people and a new sound. This took a great deal of time but in 2013 Kataokas finally released their debut EP “Kataokas”. Determined to keep up speed in the aftermath of the release the band played live and managed to deliver three babies and an album in less than a year, thanks to successful external co-operation.
But in the fall of 2014 everything was about to fall down. The accordion-playing art director of the band, Lydia, declared she was about to move from town. Also, trumpeter and singer Alma graduated, applied for seven jobs and scored all of them. Calle the drummer sold his drums, Pelle the keyboardist floated into jazz music and base playing Johan Bergstroem started running. Somehow, they all got it together and played shows like never before in 2015!
On new release “Anthesis” Kataokas keep their promise from the EP 2013: Play it simple. Spot-on harmonies backed by a folkish crocked comp. This is the essence of effective music-writing. If these songs don’t take you places, then you’re truly lost.
Kataoka is a quite common Japanese family name, although this is an old samurai family which of course makes it more desirable.
The samurais are:
Kalle Kataoka, Johan Fredin, Alma Ihre, Lydia Sandgren, Pelle Eriksson, Calle Carlsson, Johan Bergström