Cadet Carter: "A Few Bad Weeks"
It's a thing with expectations. Other people have them for you. You have them on other people. And you have them on yourself, of course. This is also and especially true for bands like CADET CARTER. With their debut album, released in early 2018 on Uncle M, the German-Walisian indie punks based in Munich had caused quite a stir and delighted fans of Jimmy Eat World, the early Foo Fighters or Weezer. Critics from VISIONS to FUZE praised the catchy but never arbitrary songwriting, the clear 90s influences and the refreshingly relaxed approach of the band. After almost one and a half years with countless shows, including tours with Dave Hause, Itchy, Blackout Problems or Touché Amoré, CADET CARTER had also earned a reputation as an energetic and exciting live band.
When work began on the infamous "difficult" second album in the summer of 2019, "they" were back: the expectations. "We were surprised ourselves at how many people liked our debut album and could identify with our songs and us as a band," admits singer and guitarist Nick Sauter. "But we still didn't feel any pressure from the outside. We were more looking forward to showing these people a new facet of us, but our own expectations, the demands we had on ourselves, on our songwriting and on what we wanted to say with the album - that was already there. And so the first songs that came out during the studio sessions didn't end up on "Perceptions". "We worked on so many ideas and tried to find our own style," Nick says.
The breakthrough came with "A Bad Few Weeks", the first single of "Perceptions". "I had a really bad phase in my life, made stupid decisions and put myself through way too much - and I couldn't get anywhere with songwriting. So one evening I sat down with my guitar, played a few chords and sang whatever came into my head: It's been a bad few weeks and I'm scratching the walls until it stops and that feeling is gone. Twenty minutes later the song was finished, it just flowed out of me. When we played the song for the first time at some concerts, it quickly became clear: With this song, with these lines, we are addressing something that an incredible number of people can identify with: Everyone has a bad patch, does stupid things, and has to pull himself out of the shit by his own hair."
With "A Bad Few Weeks" CADET CARTER not only found their very own sound, but also the lyrical theme that runs through "Perceptions" and gave the album its name - an album, by the way, that the band produced in collaboration with Fabian Tormin, who is also known for his work with bands like Buffi Clyro or The Killt. "Perceptions is often about how you perceive something, what ideas and expectations you have about people or things, and how different others' perceptions of the same thing can be. People look at and evaluate things differently. If something is the same for everyone, it is not necessarily the same for everyone. It fascinates me."
And so songs like "Telescope", "Windshields" or "End/Begin" deal with how perspectives can change with time, how people can live apart and alienate without realizing it. Musically CADET CARTER have refined their style and made it unmistakable: Dark lyrics meet hymnic choruses and euphoric, pushing beats, creating catchy but sophisticated Indie-Emo-Punk-Rock, which is trained to the 90s, but still stands in the here and now.
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