LITTLE ROCK — For more than a decade, Little Rock indie rockers The Big Cats have gathered around the holidays for a show or two. Things like day jobs, other gigs and geography have long kept the Cats from being a day-to-day concern for the quartet, whose members have been friends since high school.
Things weren’t looking good for this year’s show, however. Despite the fact that the group had just released The Ancient Art of Leaving: Two Parts, the brilliant companion to last year’s The Ancient Art of Leaving: High and Low, schedules were not aligning, family issues had arisen and it looked like this year’s show wouldn’t come to pass.
Then Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day checked himself into rehab after an onstage meltdown at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in September, and a window of opportunity opened for the Cats.
Wait, you ask: What does Armstrong have to do with the Big Cats?
Well, Cats guitarist Jason White has played with Green Day for more than a decade, and that group was gearing up for a massive tour in support of its three new albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre!. Also, White’s wife is due to deliver their baby in early January, and a December trip to Little Rock from his home in Berkeley, Calif., was simply not in the cards.
“It didn’t look like we would have a chance to play, and then all of this stuff happened,” says Burt Taggart, Cats singer/guitarist and owner of Max Recordings, the Little Rock label that is home to the Big Cats and a bunch of other Arkansas-based rockers. “We talked to Jason a little bit to make sure everything was cool.” But they didn’t broach the subject of a Cats performance.
After a few weeks, however, drummer Colin Brooks, who plays with New York-based Grammy-winning children’s group Dan Zanes and Friends, broke the ice with an e-mail to the band suggesting that, hey, since White’s day job was on hold for a bit, how about a Cats show, and things fell into place for two gigs Saturday at Little Rock’s White Water Tavern.
A 6 p.m. all-ages show will feature opening act Bad Years, while Kevin Kerby opens the 10 p.m. set.
“I’m not glad about the deal with Green Day,” Taggart, 37,says, “but I’m thankful we are getting a chance to play.”
Taggart’s affection for his friends and his band, which also includes bassist Josh Bentley, is obvious. He’s quick to laugh and has a clear enthusiasm for the music he makes with the Cats, who have been around since 1993. The band is also a continuing tribute to Shannon Yarbrough, an original member who was killed in a 2000 car crash.
Yarbrough’s guitar playing actually appears on a hidden track at the end of Two Parts.
“We were getting the second batch of songs ready and came across some stuff Shannon had been working on 14 years ago,” Taggart says. “We’re always thinking about Shannon and we’ve referenced him on albums before.”
Two Parts, released Nov. 6,is the end result of a fevered period (“A guys’ weekend that lasted a month,” Taggart says with a chuckle) of writing and recording that produced 25 songs, all of which Taggart and the Cats wanted to preserve. While the bulk of the work was done in that month, White and Brooks ended up flying back to town to touch up some of their parts, while “Josh and I pushed the ball down the field,” Taggart says.
“It was an ungodly amount of songs to tackle,” says producer Barry Poynter, “but the guys decided that no matter how long it took, they were gonna do it.”
The sessions took place in late 2010, Poynter recalls. “It was the Christmas season and the guys were all doing things in the daytime and they’d come together from around 7 to midnight. They were hellbent on working on these songs. ... It was a lot of labor, but there could not have been a bunch of better friends and artists that all had such good ideas.”
The duty of dividing up the songs between the two albums fell mostly to Bentley.
“We established that we were not going to make a soft record and a loud record,” Taggart says. “We didn’t want to go down that path. We wanted a mix of good stuff on both. ... Eventually Josh said, ‘Here’s the way I hear it and here’s why’ and Josh won the day.”
The collection is available on two CDs or in digital format, there is also a limited run of 300 vinyl records, with all 25 songs in a beautifully designed three-album set. It’s available at maxrecordings.com, along with the band's other releases.
High and Low was released last December, with a spring release planned for Two Parts, although the album was delayed when Taggart decided he needed some help getting the word out and hired a publicist. Along with his Max duties, he and his wife have three kids, and he works at Taggart Architecture, the firm co-founded by his father in 1974.
“I have a limited amount of time to do what I do with Max Recordings and it’s hard to reach people out of state about these records,” he says. “We spent so much time and made such a financial commitment to making these records. ... It’s enjoyable and I love it, but this is my last shot at promoting this project and I decided to ask for some help.”
He adds, however, that he doesn’t expect The Big Cats to hit it big or anything. “I’m not trying to break the band or make some career change. I’m not delusional,” he says with a laugh. “But I wanted someone to mind the store and do as good a job as possible after all of this effort.”
With the Fine Art of Leaving albums pretty much behind him now, is Taggart ready to crank up the next Big Cats project?
“No,” he says quickly and with a laugh. “I’m going to open a bottle of wine and stare at the artwork. I love writing songs, but I think I’m just going to enjoy this and enjoy getting to play with the guys. There will be songs waiting when the mood strikes.”
The Big Cats
Saturday, first show at 6 p.m., second show at 10 p.m., White Water Tavern, 2500 W. Seventh St., Little Rock
Opening act: Bad Years (6 p.m.); Kevin Kerby (10 p.m.)
Admission: $5 each show
(501) 375-8400
whitewatertavern.com
Style, Pages 29 on 11/20/2012