Tag: Dan England

Features, Print

Still Thirsty: G. Love & The Juice Stir it Up

February 23, 2022

The band still carries his name, but G. Love is taking a step back from the spotlight. 

G. Love was as synonymous with the Special Sauce as a Big Mac and fries, but he’s now touring with The Juice, and the move signals a shift in musical direction, both in his music and the way he approaches it. 

“Special Sauce has been great, but I’d been thinking about a bigger band for some time,” G. Love said in a phone interview for BandWagon. “It was a chance to play with a lot more soloists instead of just a trio. It was a lot of fun for me.”

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Features, Print

You Can’t Bullshit Metal Fans: Soulfly’s Max Cavalera

February 18, 2022

“Little by little, my own tastes came through for Soulfly,” Max Calverra tells BandWagon. “As I get older, you’d think I’d get more mellow. But I like the heavier and heavier stuff. When you get older, you play what you like. You play what you feel.”

“Riffs are my church,” he said. “That’s my paradise. I will spend hours riffing on the guitar and just chugging on the guitar. I call it Chug Life. When you finally find a killer riff, man, it’s like you’ve won the lottery.

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Features, Print

TX2: A Punk with Pull

January 12, 2022

“There was a point where I was trying to end my whole life,” Evan Thomas – aka TX2 – tells BandWagon. “I felt worthless. And I had friends help me out. Once people feel like they’re alone, they need someone to talk to. I feel like that helps save lives.”

In addition to putting on cathartic, high energy pop-punk shows, Thomas is the founder of The X Movement, an online safe space for his fans (and anyone struggling) after battling with his own mental health.

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Features, Print

Pecos & The Rooftops: More Than One Damn Song

January 3, 2022

The night Pecos & the Rooftops wrote the song that gave them their breakout success, they really weren’t even a working band yet – just a bunch of friends who liked to hang out and jam to cover songs.

The quintet’s frontman, Pecos Hurley, had just begun writing songs, and he was playing the chords to one when magic struck: One of the other guys began singing a chorus to it. 

“Damn, that’s good,” Hurley recalled saying during a phone interview for BandWagon. “Do you care if I try to finish it?”

Finish it he did, and the result, “This Damn Song,” was a smash hit.

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Community, Features, Print

UPLIFT: FoCo – New Generation on the Rise

December 2, 2021

“My thinking was, ‘Yeah, get me off this bus,’” Andy Whilden said. He decided to leave touring as a musician for a job at The Matthews House, a place for underserved youth. 

Starting the Uplift: FoCo festival two years ago gave Whilden more personal satisfaction than he expected. The benefit festival will feature acts that are acoustically driven. “They can play any genre,” Whilden said of the house band, though the 2021 installment will also deliver something different, and, well, a little less tenured.

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Features, Print

BandWagon Expands: Tony Mason Hops On as Booking Stretches from Colorado Springs to Sheridan, Wyoming

November 30, 2021

After leaving his job as the lead talent buyer managing Lost Lake, Larimer Lounge and Globe Hall in Denver, Tony Mason saw a new position booking for the famed Gas Monkey in Dallas turn into a depressing slog of cancelling shows remotely from Denver during the pandemic.

Now, Mason will put his contacts to use to work for an expanded BandWagon enterprise which will offer a full-on, regional concert promotions and event production entity from Colorado Springs to Casper, Wyoming.

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Features, Print

Tech N9ne: New Torment in a Faster World

October 4, 2021

Even when he’s in bed, trying to calm his crazy mind so he can sleep, Tech N9ne keeps his phone within reach. He never knows when the next lyric will come, and when it does, he wants to be sure he gets it down.

“I hate to lose my ideas,” Tech N9ne said in a phone interview with BandWagon. “My mind races. I have that kind of torment. I can see things behind my eyelids.”

That’s the kind of devotion you’d expect from a rapper who’s recorded 14 albums — with a new one on the way soon — but it’s also the kind of work he has to put in (even as he’s about to turn 50) for his record label Strange Music. 

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: We Are William – We Are William

September 7, 2021

Listening to Fort Collins-based We Are William gives a refreshing perspective on just how difficult it is to play progressive metal, and the band deserves props. Though they may not have reached the peak of “metal Everest” on their self-titled, first full-length album, the effort is admirable and the band shows a lot of potential, and flashes of greatness can be heard.

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