Josh Caterer (born April 1972) is a Chicago-area musician, best known as the lead singer, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter of punk band The Smoking Popes, which he founded in 1991 along with his brothers, Eli Caterer (b. 1975) and Matt Caterer (b. 1968). Caterer has also written and recorded a considerable body of Christian and gospel music. In addition to the Smoking Popes, he founded the blues band Jackson Mud.

Early life

Caterer's father was a successful businessman and his mother, the salutatorian of her high-school class, was a homemaker. Although his parents were of a spiritual bent, they were not overtly religious, and the family never went to church and rarely discussed religion when Caterer was growing up.

Caterer graduated in 1990 from Harry D. Jacobs High School in Algonquin, Illinois, a city neighboring his hometown, Lake in the Hills, Illinois, a far northwest suburb of Chicago. After graduation, Caterer held several menial jobs such as a job as a machine operator at a plastics company.