Moonpools and Caterpillars

by Jeff Jolley

If you've seen that sporty little Volkswagen commercial with that woman singing so scat-like, you've heard Moonpools and Caterpillars. They are a very fine-sounding new band who's debut album, "Lucky Dumpling," is performing quite well. Read on for a little interview we had with Tim and Gugut. And then read about them in concert.

RAD: Who's the resident Internet dude for your band?
TIM: We're all pretty much in it, except I'm the one who has the address on my system. We all have email and stuff and we're all constantly on it.
GUGUT: Yeah, Tim just forwards all the mail to everyone else in the band.
RAD: And have you gotten a lot of response?
TIM: Yeah, a lot. Every time I go in there, there's something new.
RAD: Well that's good, we like it too ourselves. It sounds like it's been a really good release for you. I know they're playing you a lot here. You guys have been around awhile, but this is the first time that you've gotten any airtime up here.
GUGUT: This is the fiGUT; This is the first time we've had any airtime anywhere.
RAD: Now, who's the primary writer in the band?
TIM: We're all pretty much the primary writers in the band. We split everything four ways. Lyrics mostly come from Kimi, with some lyric writing from Gugut from time to time. But everything else starts with a small riff somewhere and we just build up from there. You know there's no one guy that sits down or no two guys that sit down and pretty much monopolizes the whole thing. So, it's a four way thing.
RAD: What do you think makes Moonpools and Caterpillars so attractive? What got you your contract?
TIM: It's our exercising. We try to keep in shape and eat the right food. (Gugut starts laughing) I don't know. Gugut?
GUGUT: I don't know. No, I think like we got a whole package going. We look like a band. Everyone's about the same height, the music fits the way we look. The writing fits the way we are really in person. I think we work well together on stage and everybody's just, everything's all natural. We all smile at each other.
TIM: Yeah, we're having fun. That's what everyone says. We all look like we're having fun up there?
RAD: How>RAD; How did you like working with Richard (Gottehrer) and Jeffrey (Lesser) on the album?
TIM: Oh great, no complaints.
GUGUT: Yeah.
TIM: Just the coolest guys around, that we know. They were really enthusiastic, especially Richard. He was just ape. He would go ape all of a sudden and then we would go ape, and we would perform better.
GUGUT: Yeah, it was his secret, his secret formula.
TIM: And they both have really good ears for songwriting so they were good in that sense. They gave it a pretty good flavor. And they were able to capture the live sound which is the hardest thing to get in there. We've tried it before. We've gone like into studios and tried to make demos and stuff and people would always say it's your live sound you have to catch. That's what they kept harping on. And they were able to do that pretty much. Weren't they?
GUGUT: Oh yeah.
TIM: Yeah.
RAD: You moved from the Philipines?
TIM: Yes.
RAD: Did you all know each other in the Philipines?
TIM: No.
GUGUT: Well, I knew Jay in the Philipines. But we've all known each other for a long each other for a long time. I've known Tim almost ten years. Jay's known Tim almost eleven to twelve years; Kimi for eight years or nine years.
TIM: We all pretty much met in high school.
RAD: Now how did Kimi get involved? She wasn't obviously in high school in LA, I don't think.
GUGUT: She was a friend...
TIM: She was a T.A. for the ESL class we were taking. (They both start laughing) ESL which is English as a Second Language. I'm totally kidding.
RAD: I could tell, I could tell by your accent. (They laugh)
GUGUT: She was a friend of Jay's sister and we just met her and we all just started hanging out. Tim leaves for a call-waiting call.
GUGUT: And then we were all hanging out one night, and she was singing in the car and me, Tim and Jay already had a band going and we were just fooling around and we said, "hey we've got this band going if you want to try and sing for it." Back then it was all just hanging out then. It wasn't really serious. Actually that's how our attitude is even up to now, nothing's really serious, everything's all, we just take everything in stride. We asked her if she wanted to sing with the band and she did and we just did and we just started working from there. You know, the classic garage band thing for like seven years. We never really stopped going. We took a break here and there to finish school and all that.
RAD: What are some of the things you do outside of the band?
GUGUT: Well, Tim is a screen playwright. He went to film school. Jay is a financial internal auditor for a software company. And Kimi is a fashion designer, she went to fashion design school. And I'm a civil engineer for the City of Los Angeles. Everyone's got their own thing going on outside of the band which is healthy, I think.
RAD: Wasn't one of you involved in that new pyramid find in Egypt?
TIM: Oh that would be me.