Biography
The Smoking Popes was started as Speedstick by the 3 Caterer brothers of the Chicago suburb Lake in the Hills in 1990: Matt (bass), Josh (guitar, singer), and Eli, who left the band shortly after and was replaced by Dave Martens as drummer. Josh, as the singer, became heavily influenced by Elvis Costello and took on a pop sound. As Speedstick they recorded an 11 song studio LP which included a Smoking Popes staple, “Brand New Hairstyle.” The name was then changed to Smoking Popes: Smoking due to Matt and Josh’s excessive cigarette smoking and Popes after one of Chicago’s oldest street gangs that had apparently had a segment in their town, although this could have been a different, unaffiliated street gang going by the same name. Drummer Dave Martens became disenchanted with the group’s direction and simply stopped attending practices. The Caterers recruited Mike Felumlee of Article One.
Ben Foster became a fan and used his connections and recruited Mass Giorgini of Squirtgun to record/engineer the Smoking Popes first LP, Get Fired on Johann’s Face Records.
Josh became very involved in Christianity and wanted to devote his work to his faith and quit the Popes in January of 1999 and would eventually create Duvall.
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Members
Past Members