In 2009, Cavo seemed to come out of nowhere like a knockout punch in the first round with their #1 song “Champagne.” The band was formed in 2001 and battled it out in the musical trenches before “Champagne” catapulted them into the national spotlight. The band was soon on the Carnival of Madness tour with Halestorm and Evanescence, as well as touring with Shinedown and a spot on Motley Crue’s Crue Fest. The band’s last album Bridges was released in 2016 and the guys had been a bit quiet until late last year when they released a single and video for “Wolves.” The song garnered quite a bit of attention for the guys and they continued on that track. Here we are in this crazy year that we’re going through i 2020 and the guys just dropped another song and video called “Muscle Memory.” The song is really starting to get a buzz growing about these very talented guys. I had a chance to sit down and speak with lead vocalist Casey Walker again. This time, we talked about the new single, how the band is getting by during this crazy pandemic and his first Halloween costume.

Great to talk to you again Casey! You and I talked right before Bridges came out.

Casey Walker/CAVO: Yeah! I remember that. I think I was at AEG Live then. I remember I stepped out into the hallway to talk to you. 

AEG Live. Wow, live music. I’m sure you and I both really miss it.

We actually had a streaming concert planned for July. We were going to do it here at a big concert venue and the pandemic hit. A week before that, I got Covid. We had to cancel it, so we haven’t played in a long, long time.

Wow! Oh my gosh. Are you okay?

Yeah, I didn’t have real symptoms. My wife didn’t feel good and I was on the phone with her in my office at work. My boss was standing in my door waiting to talk to me and he’s like “Your wife doesn’t feel good?” Like “No, she has a headache and I think she’s just really tired.” He goes “You mean, like Covid?” and I said “I don’t think so” but he said I might want to go tested. I said “If you want me to get a test I will” and he says “If you don’t mind so we can put it out of our head.” Low and behold, went and got a test. They asked “what are your symptoms?” and I said “nothing.” They asked “Then why did you get a test?” I told them my boss asked me to. I didn’t feel a thing the entire time. 

Wow.

So I’m lucky. Unfortunately, a lot of people out there can’t say the same. 

Unfortunately we’ve lost way too many people. Then, I hear so many different levels of how people are recovering and still fighting this. Here in North Carolina, our numbers have spiked up higher than they have ever been.

I lived in St Louis/St Charles and we completely shut down. They shut down St Louis county and St Charles eventually became one of the hot beds in the state. Still, people went out like it was no big deal. Hopefully we’re on the other side of this thing.

Man, I really hope so. The music venues finally opened here, but they’re open with stipulations. We have a big amphitheater here, which I think you guys actually played on the Carnival of Madness with Evanescence and Halestorm.

Yeah!

I can’t remember if you played Raleigh or Charlotte, but we saw you on that tour.

I can’t remember which one it was either. I know it was in North Carolina and I think that was the last show we played with them before we had to go meet up with Shinedown.

Well they’re pretty much identical. If someone drops you into the venue, you’d have no idea if you were in Raleigh or Charlotte. They are made exactly the same. Anyway, just imagine that venue and you’re only allowed seven percent capacity.

Oh wow! They’re doing a lot of drive in theaters here. People can either drive in and watch the concert or they can bring their lawn chairs or stand in their little square. I can’t wait to play again.

I bet so; it drives me nuts. There for awhile, we were covering two to three shows a week. Then I would go see a show in a dive bar just to see a show. Let’s get back to you guys though. You guys have released over the last year quite a few singles and you’ve done videos for them. Were you just doing the singles approach leading up to an album? How did you decide to go down this specific route?

When we were working on Bridges, we wrote and ended up with 60-some odd songs. I’d say about half of those were just the chorus and bridges or some verses and maybe just did not work. Overall, we had about 35 completed songs and a lot of them were demo’d out to some of the studios here in town. After Bridges, we all separately had listened to the remainder of these songs over and over again and realized we have some really good songs that didn’t make it on the album.

We decided, why don’t we put out our favorite group of those songs and maybe an acoustic version of some older songs. Then, the whole process kind of started slowly. I think “Wolves” was the first song we actually put out from that. It actually got a lot of radio play. In our hometown it was like the most requested song for like three months I think? So we were kind of like ‘Wow, this could be something.’  We’re planning on  a digital release with extras like old demos that didn’t make it on Bright Nights or Thick As Thieves.  Maybe an acoustic version of “Let It Go” or something like that. Then with Covid, we weren’t able to get together and write, so this just made more sense.

It’s weird how everything is different. I guess you could go back to when you guys first released “Champagne” how much the evolution of the market and how things have changed. You almost have to stay on music listeners’ radar these because there’s a short attention span. I do dig what you’re doing and I think it’s great.

Thank you! I agree; I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day. Pearl Jam just released their MTV Unplugged. You know streaming and all that stuff and I’m buying it. I was listening to it and it really brought me back. Back then, Pearl Jam was really the first one’s to kind of change my world, changed my view on the kind of singer I wanted to be and what kind of music I wanted to write. I had to go to the grocery store and go to the magazine aisle and buy every magazine I could find on Pearl Jam to read about them. Now, stuff has changed so much. It’s like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I mean… some of these things are in your face five to six times a day. I completely agree with you.

I was definitely going to ask you during our talk what your take is on social media. I grew up in the day and age of stuff like Metal Edge Magazine and Cream. You had to wait every 30 days to get some news on your favorite band and now a lot of that mystique is gone. Some bands oversaturate their social media, even pre-Covid. You almost know when you favorite lead singer is going to the bathroom or something. 

(Haha) That’s the truth. I think it’s so much better for bands, but also I think it’s so much worse for bands. Like you said, there was a mystique of these bands coming out back in the day. Now, before the record even comes out you’ve seen the pictures and you pretty much know the words to their songs before the song even comes out. 

I grew up like you did. To me, I like the mystique and that separation and waiting. I’d wait wait and wait for Pearl Jam to put out a record again. Then I’d have to stand in line at 12 o’clock at night and there’d be a line all the way down the block. It was cool to me. 

Now you can check your Facebook, and there’s every single band that you love. It does help out the smaller bands and some of the younger bands that are just trying to get their name out there. 

So these songs are other tracks that didn’t make it on the Bridges album. Is your newest single “Muscle Memory”  one that didn’t make it on Bridges or this from a different writing session?

“Muscle Memory” was actually one of the first songs we wrote for “Bridges” and it’s kind of one of those songs that’s hard to say. It still has that Cavo sound in it because it’s us, but it’s kind of one of those songs that opened our eyes when we were writing. I think for Thick As Thieves we did a lot of co-writes and we did a lot of trying to capture a moment or certain sound. On “Bridges,” we kind of hauled ourselves in the studio and we just wrote. On the first five or six songs, we felt like we were going down the same path. Then we wrote something like “Nights” which was the first track off Bridges. Then we wrote the new one, “Muscle Memory.” That was kind of ours and we were like “I love this song.”

Did I read you guys have something coming out next year. Is that going to be all totally new material?

It’s going to be a mix of the stuff that we have now. We were planning, before this all happened, to get together and write songs to add on to it but we don’t know how long it’s going to be. With travel, we can’t get in the same room and we can’t find a place to practice at. So it’s still up in the air how we’re going to finish out that album. For right now, we have a lot of older stuff we’ve demo’d that we have to mix and they’re really good sounding songs. That’s not that far, but I’d like to get together so we can write a few songs. 

It’s sounds bad to say this considering how many people have passed away from it, but Covid really did mess up a lot of plans that people had. A lot of bands were in the studio and already beginning to do stuff and all of a sudden they had to hit the breaks. They can’t even be in the same room together.

Yeah, I mean……that’s life. I think we’re going to see the repercussions of it for many many years to come, even after we find a cure or a vaccine.

So you just did ‘Muscle Memory’ and I know there’s restrictions, but what are you guys looking at to finish out the year? Do you have anything laid down you can talk about?

We’ve actually talked about rescheduling that last streaming show because we were extremely excited to play it. I hated having to make that horrible phone call to everybody. Now that we’re all cleared up, we’re talking about doing that live streaming concert again. Like you said, some of these concert venues are talking about making letting people in. I think the one thing that we do have kind of on the books and talking about is figuring out some kind of a release show. Towards the end of the year or maybe after the first of the year. That would be cool. I can’t wait to play again.

The indoor venues re-opened here, but there are only a certain amount of people allowed in.

Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about here.

It’s definitely not going to be profitable for any national bands to come through. It’s just not a lot of people allowed into an indoor or outdoor venue right now.

I know, man. I honestly think we’re going to have to start like helping the venues out and have people there, but also live streaming it. The problem with that is you can’t really do a tour off of that. You know? If I just watched them while they played the show in North Carolina, I don’t have to watch them the next night too.

Earlier you said something about all of you getting together and writing. Is that generally how you do it? You write your material with everyone together?

I’d say it’s a mixture, but we do really truly love being in the same room. We’ve even tried where someone will come up with an idea, record it on their computer, and send it to someone else. Which is all great, but we really love the feel of playing live. I’d say for a record like Bridges that we literally got together Thursdays through Saturday night when Andy can come to town and stay and for 4-5 hours and just write and write and write. A record like that is a lot of jamming and working, but we’ve always kind of been that band.

With everything that’s going in the world today, with Covid, and the Black Lives Matter movement, and this upcoming election. I didn’t know if that was affecting your songwriting. Maybe that’s not the case if you haven’t gotten to get together.

There are songs on all of our records that I may just write in my room. “Champagne,” our first single, is a song that I wrote the chorus in my head and I recorded it on my phone and I showed it to the band almost as a joke because I wasn’t sure if it was good or not. They started playing something and it just fell out in like ten minutes. I agree with the climate and there’s a lot of areas there. We’re not really a political band, but it does change who you are as a person. You know what I mean? It changes how you view the world and I think that’s always going to come through in your music.

Right. So is there anything else we didn’t talk about that you want to mention or plug in there before I have to let you go?

Thanks, I think you touched on a lot of things. It’s nice to be back in the mix and it’s really cool to see that the core fans haven’t really gone anywhere. It’s really cool to be gone for a bit, start to figure stuff out, and people are not forgetting you. Between Facebook and Twitter and Instagram messages, it’s just amazing that people still care. I think it just goes to show you how hungry people are for new music.

Very cool man, very cool! One thing we like wrap up with is something we call 3 For The Road and there are three fun, off the wall kind of questions. With this being October, what was your favorite Halloween costume growing up?

My favorite Halloween costume when I was growing up, was when I was Dracula. Back in the day my mom got me a white shirt, black cape, painted my face all white with blood coming down from my mouth. You could see the fake fangs that glow in the dark. Yeah, that was my favorite.

I think we’ve all done Dracula at some point. It’s always a great go to that we love to do! Do you remember the very first album that you bought with your own money?

Hmm. Yes I do. I guess I would have to say it would have to be I think Pearl Jam Ten.

Oh, nice! Nothing like a classic being your first purchase!

I used to and I regret this now, but my brother who was five yrs older than me used to do that Columbia House deal. Ten records for a penny, and that’s how they got you? Well I used to take them from him, I have a lot of albums from that. Pear Jam Ten was the first one I got from cutting grass money and I went out and spent my own money on it.

I think just about every one of us from our generation took messed around with Columbia House on one level or another! Lastly, I know you’ve seen in movies where they’ve got a narrator for the character’s inner voice. If you could have anyone be your inner voice, who would you choose it to be?

Mhmm. Wow, that is a great question. I would go with Roger from “American Dad.” I would love to get inside that dude’s head. He is one of the funniest characters on TV.

That would be hilarious. What a great inner voice! 

Totally awesome! 

I know you have some things to do, so I thank you for your time. It was very cool to talk to you again. I am a big fan of the Bridges album. I’m excited for a new album and some live dates from you guys, so I wish you all the best.

Thanks Johnny and thanks again for the continued support. It really means a lot to us; stay safe!

By I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price