Features

Interviews and profiles from the Northern Colorado and Wyoming scene.

583 stories · Page 7 of 30

FeaturesNo More Running: Seth Beamer Shines SoloStrong inspiration can carry you a long way.Kevin Johnston · Jan 11, 2023FeaturesTreaty Oak Revival: An Alliance Between Punk and CountryTreaty Oak Revival didn’t really have a choice but to be a country band.Dan England · Dec 15, 2022Features100 to 16, Now Down to 4: BandWagon’s Battle Of The Bands Closes in on Title BoutEternal Glory, $5,000 and the cover of BandWagon Magazine are grounds for musical fisticuffs in Colorado.Kevin Johnston · Dec 6, 2022FeaturesLanghorne Slim: A Semblance of StillnessLanghorne Slim’s “Strawberry Mansion” was the result of a burst of creativity that emerged from the pandemic and after winning a battle with clinical anxiety and prescription drug abuse. He’s still happy to talk about that time and his never-ending struggles, and he remains honored to share his experience with mental health organizations. But sometimes he has to remind people that those are things he’s dealt with his whole life. They do not necessarily define him. “I’m also having fun too,” Slim said with a laugh in a phone interview with BandWagon. “It’s not beating me every day. For the first time ever, I was finding some semblance of stillness. I wasn’t running from myself because I wasn’t able to.”Dan England · Nov 3, 2022FeaturesNothing to Hide Behind: Wheelwright’s Jared Kolesar After The Mill“I think there’s an element of a lonely cowboy out on the trail,” Jared Kolesar of Wheelwright tells BandWagon. “There’s many songs now with a story that is best told while I’m alone with my guitar.” The reworked songs give his Jared & The Mill fans a chance to preview his new sound, one he calls more sonically interesting, with more synth and more effects to his vocals to go with some new hip-hop vibes. He calls the sound Neo-Western and compares it to a mix of 80’s futurism and Americana. Or, in his own words, “like Blade Runner with more cowboy vibes.”Dan England · Oct 10, 2022FeaturesFinding Herself: Briana Harris Steps Up as Band Leader on Debut Album When We’re FoundOn a whim, Briana Harris submitted a grant proposal along with a demo of her soulful song “Ground Up” which she had performed for The Burroughs’ Virtual Telethon in 2020.Valerie Vampola · Oct 5, 2022FeaturesBirth, Death and Time In The Sun: SUSTO’s Justin Osborne Finds new Dimesion“There were ravines growing between me and people in my life,” Justin Osborne tells BandWagon.Kevin Johnston · Sep 12, 2022FeaturesPermission to Shine: Shinyribs’ Kevin Russell Goes BigKevin Russell was nearing age 40, and given the upheavals in his career, should have been facing the clichéd mid-life crisis.Dan England · Aug 24, 2022FeaturesPlay it For Your Mates: Tones And I Rises Up Solo; Puts the “I” in Team-MacklemoreYou’ve heard it. It was written by a busker, in a closet, for a few friends at a youth hostel but somewhere on Planet Earth in the last three years, you’ve heard it.Kevin Johnston · Aug 11, 2022FeaturesThe Bones of J.R. Jones: Desert Rhythms and Dancing Through the BluesJ.R.’s life as a touring bluesman came later than some. In his late 20’s, he was living in Brooklyn, bartending and teaching at a pre-school. He had a masters degree in printmaking, but the medium was quickly being usurped by digital alternatives. Still, he needed a creative outlet. A few years before, J.R.’s college roommate had introduced him to a song that made him fall in love with the blues. It was Blind Lemon Jefferson, a 1920’s singer and guitarist who is sometimes credited as the “Father of the Texas Blues.” “I had never heard that raw, gritty passion in anything else,” he said. “It just kind of leveled me.” From then on, J.R. spent his in-between time — in between work, school, relationships and everything else — playing the blues. “There were a lot of DIY venues that popped up in loft spaces or garages. They were perfect for the type of music I was playing,” he explained. “All you needed was a condenser microphone, a picnic table and a cooler of PBR.”Gabe Allen · Jul 14, 2022FeaturesMichal Menert: Things Burn DownMichal Menert has been thinking about fire.Gabe Allen · Jul 12, 2022FeaturesA Century of Country – Greeley Stampede’s New Stage Set for Brad Paisley and MoreThe Greeley Stampede’s new stage was built with Brad Paisley in mind. The last time he played here, in 2007, Paisley had 10 semi-trailers full of equipment, said Justin Watada, executive director of the Stampede. Way back then, three “up and coming” acts performed with Paisley, including a young lady named Taylor Swift. The brand new stage is bigger and much better, with all the fixins you’d expect from a show at Red Rocks, including a platform that will allow the artists to walk 50 feet out into the crowd. And Paisley is back as the Stampede’s biggest act in a lineup that includes Stone Temple Pilots, Jon Pardi, Cole Swindell and Jordan Davis.Dan England · Jun 21, 2022FeaturesOGT: To Re-Write a LegacyKodean IX doesn’t know where he would be without music, but he knows it wouldn’t be good.Dan England · Jun 15, 2022FeaturesHow The Arcadian Wild was Loved Into BeingThe Arcadian Wild really listen. You can see it in their patience with fans, their gentleness with each other, and most of all in the cohesive interplay of each melodic line in their music. Like mycelium spreading nutrients throughout a forest, each individual is inseparable from the whole. The band began in an impromptu post-choir-class jam session in 2013. The lineup has shifted so often over the years that founding member Lincoln Mick refers to the band as a “revolving door,” but he remembers the band’s five-or-so departed members with much more sweetness than bitterness. “To take a turn of phrase from Fred Rogers, so many people have ‘loved this band into being’ over the years,” he told BandWagon.Gabe Allen · Jun 9, 2022FeaturesPolyrhythmics and the Definition of VibeWhen the Polyrhythmics first gathered in a Seattle recording studio a decade ago, they planned to make a vinyl record and then, perhaps, go their separate ways … “When we started, we wanted to perform the music we recorded,” Bloom said, “and now our live set is a living, breathing thing that we do every night. There is this ethos from the fans that they want to see something new, and that feedback has played into what we do live. We are still sort of trying to reach something every night. We are trying to leave room for magic.”Dan England · May 31, 2022FeaturesBlast N’ Scrap is Back on TrackMichael Gormley’s scrappy nonprofit has reemerged as the centerpiece of Fort Collins’ DIY scene.Gabe Allen · May 17, 2022FeaturesSon Lux Scores Everything and Frees Up Their TomorrowsIf André 3000 playing a Mayan double flute for your band’s movie score isn’t proof that the multiverse exists, we don’t know what is.Kevin Johnston · May 11, 2022FeaturesHorse Feathers: The Endearing Nature of Justin Ringle’s Earnest SoundHorse Feathers’ spin on traditional folk and Americana spans barn dance to backyard reverie, airy ballads to full-blooded country jigs. Justin Ringle launched Horse Feathers shortly after moving to the Pacific Northwest at a time he says “all the cliches from Portlandia were being developed.” Rent was cheap and you just needed a shitty job to keep your creative aspirations afloat. “It was really less preposterous for me to try to become a professional musician than it was to get a job in graphic design at the time,” he said. Though dispelling any romantic notion, Ringle points out, “There was really high unemployment in Portland and it was just kind of tough going. Everything was really close to the bone.”Beau Baker · May 5, 2022FeaturesGoatwhore: With a VengeanceEven with a name like Goatwhore, there’s room for subtlety. Yes, there are Satanic overtones in Goatwhore’s lyrics — duh — and their music reflects it, with the kind of hardcore black metal crunch you’d expect in the drums, guitars and, of course, the vocals (also duh). But the last record’s lyrics come from a concept album, Vengeful Ascension, which portray Lucifer as an underdog slighted by a God who was equally oppressive. L. Ben Falgoust II, the band’s singer (and keeper of one of the best metal monikers in history), uses historical references to color the themes, but Zack Simmons, the drummer, likes to apply the lyrics to real life.Dan England · May 4, 2022FeaturesCloud Catcher: Carry the Heavy TorchSome kids grow up listening to Barney, Elmo or Little Einsteins.Dan England · May 3, 2022