Ballad earns band Pearl Harbor gig

It started as a call to a generation on the verge of war: Remember the Arizona.

Whitefish musician and songwriter Luke Lautaret revived the cry in 2010.

His “The Ballad of the USS Arizona” was intended to honor the servicemen who died at Pearl Harbor as well as remind listeners two or more generations removed about the ship whose sinking prompted the United States’ involvement in World War II.

But the song has reached an even broader audience and earned Lautaret and the rest of his band, Kalispell-based Marshall Catch, an invitation to perform at the Pearl Harbor Day 70th Anniversary Commemoration in December.

Lautaret (the lead guitarist), drummer Jared Denney, bass player Aidan Foshay and guitarist Aaron Danreuther hope to travel to the ceremony in Honolulu, Hawaii, in six weeks. Marshall Catch is the first rock band to receive an invitation to an event that typically features performances by military bands, Lautaret said.

“They don’t really have a place for drums and guitars. It’s not that sort of event,” he said.

“For us, it’s just an unreal honor,” he added.

Always a history buff, Lautaret was intrigued by the story of the USS Arizona. The battleship was used to train sailors off the East Coast during World War I and helped bring American servicemen home from Europe after that war.

The Arizona later was used for training and peacekeeping missions, and then the ship was overhauled and sent to join the U.S. fleet in Hawaii. There, on Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft struck the ships docked at Pearl Harbor. The Arizona was destroyed and sank, killing 1,177 sailors and Marines on board.

Only 107 crewmen’s bodies were positively identified, according to the National Park Service. Others were buried as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. The rest are still inside the ship and considered buried at sea.

The 334 survivors may have their cremated remains interred inside the Arizona, which has leaked oil ever since it sank. There is a legend, Lautaret said, that when the last serviceman assigned to the ship on the “date which will live in infamy” returns, those oil “tears” will stop.

Lautaret was so captivated by the ship’s story that he wanted to write a song about it. Each verse in “The Ballad of the USS Arizona” describes a different era in the ship’s life.

“It seemed like the only way to do it was to accept the fact that the ship was more than pieces of metal,” he said.

The song “came out pretty fast once I realized the ship herself — I don’t want to say is human, but there’s honor there. There’s valor there. There are all these things you normally would attach to a person,” he added.

While recording the song, band members discovered they had several World War II connections. Lautaret’s great-uncle was a Nazi prisoner for nine months. Denney’s great-uncle was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Danreuther’s grandfather was awarded the Bronze Star.

Those connections made the song “a powerful example of the heritage that each of us holds,” Lautaret says in commentary about the song on the band’s website.

Marshall Catch posted the ballad on YouTube shortly before Dec. 7, 2010. Denney shared the link with friends, who shared it with other friends, and soon, Lautaret said, “it got shared all over the place.”

On Pearl Harbor Day alone, the video got thousands of hits, he said.

The song was intended to remind younger people — those from 29-year-old Lautaret’s generation — of an event that shook the nation.

“We want to make sure our generation doesn’t just forget,” he said. “We look at September 11; it makes us forget all those other things that happened before. We don’t want to blow off the generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy.”

But the ballad has resonated with Pearl Harbor survivors and their family members as well. The band has received emails from people all over the country describing how the song has impacted them and sharing their own stories connected to the USS Arizona.

“It is cool how it affects so many people age-wise,” Denney said.

The song also attracted the attention of Pacific Historic Parks, a nonprofit that supports educational programs at Pearl Harbor and other national parks in the Pacific.

The group and the National Park Service are co-hosting this year’s 70th anniversary commemoration and have invited Marshall Catch to perform twice during the weeklong celebration: once on Military Day, Dec. 4, and again at the official commemoration ceremony Dec. 7.

“It’s a pretty big deal to be invited,” Lautaret said.

The recognition is really a dream come true. Marshall Catch’s biggest goal, he said, is to make music that matters to people.

“We want our music to mean something,” Lautaret said. “We want to be a band that’s known for stuff like honoring the veterans.”

To that end, a portion of proceeds on iTunes from sales of “The Ballad of the USS Arizona” will be donated to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. For additional information about the song or the band, visit www.marshallcatch.com.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by email at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.