Bad Astronaut “Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment”
Album Reviews | Jan 12th, 2007

Record Label: Fat Wreck Chords
Genre: Indie Rock
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link
I never listened to Bad Astronaut before. I don’t know why but maybe it’s since I always gave Paul these CDs to review; but since he doesn’t write for the website anymore, I get all the Fat Wreck CDs! Woohoo! Bad Astronaut is the indie rock side project of Joey Cape of the Lagwagon. The rest of the members consist of former drummer of Lagwagon, the late Derrick Plourde, as well as Sugarcult’s Marko 72 and producer, engineer, and owner of Orange Whip Studios, Angus Cooke. This is the third and final album from the band, because without Derrick, there isn’t Bad Astronaut.
This album has been in the works for over 4 years. It started out with Joey & Derrick writing and rehearsing the songs. Joey Cape was thinking about not completing the album because it needed a lot of improvement, and he was very busy as well. So he couldn’t spend every waking minute on the project since he had Lagwagon and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes to worry about as well. Then the next day, Derrick committed suicide and understandably, Joey took awhile to get back into things. He felt the only way to honor Derrick was to complete the album and that’s what he did. What you have hear is music from over the last 4 years that was completed before and after Derrick’s death. Joey got some help from other musicians to finish this album. This album at times sounds dark, sad and is very emotional; in a sense the group and band have lost a band member and a very good friend. From what I heard, this is a different type of Bad Astronaut album but I think it’s a good album that closes out the saga of the band. For Derrick’s sake, you should go out and listen to this album, even if you’re not really a fan of the band. I liked the album a lot, but I don’t see myself listening to this all the time.
Bottom Line: A Good final album from the side project of Joey Cape, and the late Derrick Plourde
Notable Tracks: Ghostwrite, Stillwater California, Go Humans
Overall Rating: