Photo By Smoking Popes

Smoking Popes singer/guitarist Josh Caterer (second from right) split the band up when he felt his faith and the band's music could not co-exist.

If a band's greatness can be measured by the celebrity of those who sing their praises, the Smoking Popes were truly one of the great contemporary Pop/Punk groups of the '90s. The Chicago quartet, formed in 1991, signed to Capitol Records in 1995 and retired just before Christmas, 1998, had been heralded by everyone from Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz and Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba (both claim their bands would not exist without the Popes) to Alt.Rock icon Morrissey (who called the album Born to Quit "extraordinary").

And if the Popes' greatness was further exemplified by the nature of their comeback, they might be headed for Hall of Fame status. After a seven-year hiatus, the band reunited last year for Chicago's Flower15 Festival, a benefit to support local charities; the Popes' show sold out in 36 minutes.

The show was filmed and recorded and resulted in the just-released CD/DVD combination package, Smoking Popes at Metro. And this year found the Popes playing to an enthusiastic and incredibly large crowd at the 2006 Lollapalooza festival. Vocalist/guitarist Josh Caterer was at somewhat of a loss for words at the immensity of the band's presence at the festival.

"It was pretty weird," Caterer says. "It was apparently the largest group of people we've ever played in front of. I was actually surprised at the number of people singing along in the audience. I thought we were going to be winning people over at this thing."

That kind of adulation has been scattered at the Popes' feet nearly from the start. After forming the teenage Punk "parody" band Speedstick, the reconfigured/renamed Smoking Popes -- featuring the Caterer brothers (vocalist/guitarist Josh, guitarist/backing vocalist Eli, bassist Matt) and original drummer Mike Felumlee -- attracted a slavishly cult following around Chicago through constant gigging and occasional vinyl releases in the early '90s. In '94, Punk label Johann's Face released Get Fired, which impressed the members of Green Day enough to invite the Popes to open for them.

Later that year, the Popes released their freshly-finished Born to Quit, which spawned a college radio hit in "Need You Around" and sparked a label frenzy. Capitol came away with their signatures in 1995 and rereleased Born to Quit. But as much as Capitol liked the Popes, they never seemed to understand the band or its audience.

"They kept giving us these video ideas like, 'You guys are playing and there's a bunch of 16-year-old kids with liberty spikes and combat boots and they're moshing and skateboarding,' " says Caterer. "This is how they saw the band, as being identified with these really identifiable teenage Punk images. We kept resisting that and saying, 'Why don't you work the angle that we're the Punk version of the Rat Pack and do a video that's a version of Oceans 11?' But they never quite grasped that or were willing to embrace a slightly more sophisticated way of presenting the band to the world."

After three years of touring and 1997's acclaimed Destination Failure, the Popes may have been ready for a break but they weren't ready for what happened next. Josh Caterer, newly converted to Christianity, decided that the Popes' music and lyrical message was inconsistent with his faith and he dissolved the band. He threw his energy into the church, recorded a solo guitar Gospel album titled Why Me, and started a Christian Rock band with brother Eli called Duvall.

"After I became a Christian, I thought I would just stay in the Popes and somehow incorporate my faith into the band," says Caterer of his conversion. "I had written 'I Know You Love Me' about Jesus, and I'd save that song for the end and then I'd give this 30-second introduction to the song where I said it was about Jesus and that faith had really changed my life. It went over slightly better than you might expect, but it seemed a little weird to me. My fear was that my faith as a whole was in danger of being a phase because I couldn't successfully squeeze it into what I was already doing."

The Popes' fan base remained steadfast in the face of their break-up. Chicago label Double Zero released Smoking Popes 1991-1998, a collection of rarities, then a live recording of one of the Popes' final shows and Party's Over, an unreleased album intended for Capitol. With time, distance and a steady stream of archival recordings, the Popes' legacy grew even as Caterer sought to remove himself from the Rock milieu.

But a funny thing happened on the way to footnoting the ex-band. Caterer began to miss the Popes. Since he had instigated the break-up and gave no hope for reversing the decision, Caterer's tentative steps back toward the Popes were a shock to his brothers.

"They were both really surprised to hear me say I was interested in doing this, and then slightly skeptical that it would be cool to do a reunion," says Caterer. "They said, 'Let's just get together and play before we set up any shows. Let's see how it feels and take it from there.' We got together and it was fun and it felt great. At the end of the first practice, we said, 'We've gotta run with this thing.' "

With new drummer Rob Kellenberger, the Popes contacted their old management team and told them they were looking for shows. They came back with the idea of doing the Flower15 benefit, which was then filmed and recorded for the Sanctuary bundled release. It is an astonishing document, considering the performance was literally the band's first show in seven years.

"We were a little nervous, and you can tell," says Caterer. "We seem a little bit stiff to me, but we were having fun. The energy on that DVD is coming from the crowd. The electricity in the room wasn't necessarily just coming from our performance."

With a couple of tours under their belts and Lollapalooza successfully behind them, the Popes are looking ahead to more roadwork and, eventually, an album of new material in the near future. There are a few songs that Caterer won't do live anymore as he feels their messages conflict with his still deeply felt faith. But other than those tweaks, the Smoking Popes are back in championship form.