Illinois State University's student radio station WZND has partnered with the Castle Theatre for a Battle of the Bands next week. Dubbed a “next gen” battle, the event features seven up-and-coming bands playing 20-minute sets vying for one of two prizes.
Contestants are all age 18-25, representing the bands Blind Baby, Loose 9000, Cats and Dragons, From Within, Peng, Short Notice and The Occasion. There’s a cash award for winning the crowd favorite and an additional nod from an adjudicating panel of judges.
“I low-key kind of forgot what you get for winning the judges vote,” said Josiah King, guitarist and co-songwriter of Cats and Dragons, an indie alt rock band King formed with drummer and vocalist Caleb Durian. The band's origin story begins in Durian's basement in Geneseo, a town of about 6,500 people just east of the Quad Cities. He and King were sophomores in high school — at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was not much to do," Durian said. "So, we were kind of like, hey, you play guitar. I play drums. Why don’t we just start a band and do some recording?”
A cat who lives in Durian’s basement near the recording studio [outfitted by his dad, who is an audio engineer] and King’s nickname, the Dragon, is how Cats and Dragons got its name.
“Unfortunately, it’s not as interesting as you’d think,” said Durian.
Keeping the band together was one reason Durian, a business major, and King, who studies audio and music production, chose Illinois State University for college.
“I kind of wanted to stay in Illinois,” said King. “I think Caleb was feeling he wanted to go wherever I went. It’s nice to have a friend. It just so happened Illinois State has a pretty good business program.”
King and Durian head home about every other weekend to work in their studio. Since arriving at ISU, they also outfitted the band with three new members to make in-roads in Bloomington-Normal’s live music scene. The live band includes three additional ISU students: Logan Noble plays drums, Asher Nelson is lead guitarist and Paul J. Aguilar plays bass. [Full disclosure, Aguilar is a student reporter for WGLT.]
“Last year when Josiah and I had first become friends, he casually mentioned he had a group,” said Aguilar, a senior studying journalism at ISU. “I looked it up and kind of expected it to be maybe one or two singles and demo quality sound. I listened to it and was like, ‘What? How is this possible?’”
Indeed, Cats and Dragons has a big, polished sound and has been working at a feverish pace, producing three albums, multiple singles and an EP in just four years on studio grade equipment. A rangy set of influences include The Strokes, Vampire Weekend and the Beatles, with enough output to already start culling a sound all their own.
“It brought back that desire to play in a band,” Aguilar said. “I had been in a band in high school, but it wasn’t at that same level. Because they already had all those albums out, I was like, ‘Don’t you guys already have a bass player?’”
They didn’t — not a consistent one, anyway.
“So, I said, ‘Now you do.’”
The band primarily plays underground venues hosted in residential garages, basements and backyards. These mostly cater to students and form the foundation for the Twin City indie live music scene, which has few legit places to play —making a chance to play at the Castle all the more meaningful.
“We’re really hoping that we can win, but there’s a lot of really good bands,” said King. “We also just want to keep building a following.”
Being students, the future of Cats and Dragons isn’t quite yet determined. All its members have backup plans, but want to take the band as far as it can go.
“We’re definitely going to be doing this as long as we can,” Durian said.
“I would definitely love to continue playing with this group,” Aguilar said. “One thing some friends of mine told me after we started playing live was that the group should be famous. If this group had emerged 30 years ago in the mid- ‘90s, it probably would be. That’s encouraging and makes me want to keep working with these guys and see what we can build.”
Battle of the Bands: Next Gen takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14 [doors 5:30 p.m.], at the Castle Theatre, 209 E Washington Street, Bloomington. Tickets are $15-$20 online and at the door.
