29 Apr The Band To Watch: Florida’s Own Casaveda

One of the things I dearly love about SunFest is the festival’s ability to catch acts on the rise and showcase their talents before they get big. And we’re talking really big. There is a long standing history of SunFest giving a stage to performers who then go on to top the Billboard charts and snag Grammy Awards. As a journalist, it’s excited to scope new talent and try to predict who is going to explode.

This year, my money is on Casaveda. I deliberately left the Florida-based band out of my previous round ups, just so I could reach out and learn more about them and their sound. The quartet of talented men (Chase Everett: keys, vocals; Jared Bakst: rhythm guitar, vocals; Dylan Malugen: lead guitar, bass; and Trevor Greene: drums) create some pretty spectacular music.

My first taste of “Labyrinths and Limousines,” the title track off their latest release, had me scrambling through my catalog. Bakst sounds so much like The Kook’s lead singer Luke Pritchard that I literally play their songs one after another, to my own delight. This world needs more of Casaveda’s quirky, indie rock.

Naturally, I had to know more. So I reached out to the talented band:

Hi Chase, Jared! Can you tell me how your band formed?

Bakst: Chase and I met working their first shift together at The Social, which is a downtown Orlando music venue. Within five minutes of talking, we had plans to get together and play music. Dylan was a longtime friend of Chase,, and we met Trevor at a coffee shop called Vespr, which ended up being the place of our first live show. We all came together very naturally.

What are you most proud of on your album “Labyrinths and Limousines?”

Everett: Definitely the cohesiveness of how all the songs sound together. We wanted to make sure that it felt like a journey as you listen to it all the way through. That, and the fact that we made it almost entirely on our own. After just meeting each other, we decided to lock ourselves in a beach house in Ponte Vedra, Florida for 10 days and record as much as we could. It not only solidified that we could make good music together, but also enabled us to become great friends extremely quickly.

What can fans expect to see and hear from you at SunFest?

Bakst: Terrible jokes and our mothers screaming their heads off. Just kidding, but not really. We will be playing some of the tracks from Labyrinths and Limousines, along with some new songs.

Can you tell me a little bit about the music video for your album’s title track?

Bakst: That was a super fun experience for all of us. We shot that with our good friend from Univogel Productions and came up with the concept along with director Jordan Weinberg. The idea is slightly esoteric, but we wanted to try to grasp the general notion of the song. If you notice in the video, there are external characters that show up intermittently. Each one of them has a certain common personality trait and don’t necessarily interact with the band. It shows the mundaneness of their lives compared to the bands which is constantly moving.

We also wanted to grasp the concept of what it’s like traveling and playing music with your friends. There isn’t much personal space and you are constantly on the run. The track title, “Labyrinths and Limousines,” is the juxtaposition between something very holistic and something that’s a little more materialistic so we wanted to have different shots that represented each of those topics.

What can we expect from you in the rest of 2016?

Everett: We have another music video coming out very shortly which we are all extremely excited about. Immediately after SunFest, we are getting into the studio to work on the next batch of songs. Along with recording, we are working hard setting up a good batch of shows along the east coast come late June.

Last question, tell me more about your band’s unique name.

Bakst: We wanted a name that raised some questions and was unique to us. We were just bouncing some names back and forth and for some reason, it sounded perfect. A lot of people have come up with some cool interpretations and thoughts on it. Someone once came to us with the interpretation “house of life” which we think is pretty cool. The band does feel like a home to us.

Don’t miss Casaveda on Friday, April 29, on the Jet Blue Stage.