Hard times a catalyst for Kalispell band

Despite hard times in the last few years, Marshall Catch hopes to remember the Great Recession as the time its dreams started coming true.

Since forming two years ago, the Kalispell band has played all over the Flathead Valley. The group’s song, “Ballad of the USS Arizona,” landed it an invitation to perform at last December’s Pearl Harbor commemoration ceremony. This year, the band is launching a campaign to get its songs played on radio stations across the country.

It’s been a whirlwind, frontman Luke Lautaret said.

“For us, bad times are a catalyst for real growth,” he said. “We’ve had time ... to practice, time to write songs, time to record, time to book shows.

“It’s been a pretty incredible journey. After just a couple of years together, stuff is happening really fast.”

Marshall Catch was born out of hard times, Lautaret said.

He and his wife, Heather, had both lost their jobs within a month of each other. They had no income and “you could only not pay your mortgage so many months in a row before the bank decides they should own your home instead of you,” he said.

Foreclosure, unemployment and other challenges led the couple to pursue a fresh start. For Lautaret, that meant chasing his music dreams.

He joined forces with Jared Denney, Aaron Danreuther and Aidan Foshay, who shared his passion for making real music.

“We got incredibly lucky with the band members we got,” Lautaret said. “Two years ago, we picked drama-free, super solid guys. We know they’d be at practice. They’re hard workers.

“I couldn’t have asked for better guys. I write the songs and lyrics, and I’m the front man, but the guys doing all the work are the guys behind me.”

After playing together around the valley and recording their own album, “Ad Meliora,” Marshall Catch launched a national campaign this winter.

Its album sold out its first pressing and sold well locally, but “it was too much,” Lautaret explained. “We had 17 songs, but nobody’s ever heard of us. We had a hard time getting radio stations to pay attention.”

Manager Kevin Sutter of Kirkland, Wash.-based Tazmoe Records, who has worked with artists such as Norah Jones and Jethro Tull, told them their record was too long.

“He told us our record had too much content,” Lautaret said. “No one is going to listen to an hour’s worth of music by a band no one has ever heard of.”

Sutter suggested Marshall Catch record a four-track EP, which the band did in Portland, Ore., with Rob Stroup of 8 Ball Studio. All four songs on the EP, “Make Noise,” had appeared on “Ad Meliora,” but were retracked and shortened to radio length, Lautaret said.

In January, the band and PR company MAD Ink mailed hundreds of copies of the EP to radio stations across the country. In late February, radio stations — including 103.1 The River — started playing the lead single, “More Than Myself.”

Bee Broadcasting program director Brew Michaels has been very supportive of Marshall Catch, Lautaret said, and he knows the song is “not just something us guys did in the basement in Evergreen.”

Lautaret said he wrote “More Than Myself” for his wife after he started pursuing his music dreams.

Heather Lautaret has been one of the band’s biggest supporters from the beginning, he said. She was the group’s first sound person. She and her friends would dance at concerts to encourage others to get on the floor.

“It’s my way of saying to her, ‘I love you more than I love myself,’” Lautaret said of the song. “She can decide where we go. This music thing is my dream, my passion; it’s always been my passion. ...

“But with the band, I gave her the freedom to say, at whatever point she wanted me to quit chasing my dream ... she can say, all right. We’re done.

“If she wants me to go out and get a better job, move to a city — she’s followed me to hell and back, so she’s earned it.”

In addition to pursuing radio play, the band has people trying to get Marshall Catch’s music on big-name television shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy” or “House,” Lautaret said.

But the band hasn’t forgotten its loyal local fans.

“More Than Myself” is available at www.dailyinterlake.com as a free download, and Marshall Catch will play an EP release show at the Great Northern Bar & Grill in Whitefish. The concert, which is sponsored by The River, starts at 9 p.m. Friday, March 23; there is a $3 cover.

The band is trying to do all it can to pursue its dream, Lautaret added.

“We want to be the first band in Montana to make it. In the biggest recession there was in the state, in a valley that was hit incredibly hard, we want to be the guys who say, ‘We did everything we can. You can still live the dream,’” he said.

This Week in the Flathead editor Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.