You would not expect such a poetic explanation from stoner-rock fans talking about why they love the straightforward, guitar-driven rock that raises the hair on their necks. But there it is, knocking you over with its pointed everyman honesty:
“Instead of an intellectual response, which a lot of people think you have to have with music, it’s more of a visceral thing, a gut thing, an emotional thing,” said Chris Lee, frontman for the New Orleans-rooted Supagroup, which plays the Larimer Lounge on Tuesday. “You’re a human being, and there’s something about a Gibson and a Marshall smacking you in the face.”
Fueled by the howling sustain of Gibson guitars and throwback stacks of Marshall amplifiers, stoner rock doesn’t ask much of its fans. And vice versa.
“It’s just jeans and T-shirts and hair,” said Kim Danner, beloved Bluebird Theatre bartender and notorious fiend for Nikki Sixx and all things ’80s-rock. “The music isn’t angry or about maintaining an image. It’s actually more simple than that. All these guys care about is rocking out.
Seriously, it’s like summertime keg-party music.”
Inspired by the churn and thunder of warhorses such as AC/DC and Black Sabbath, the musicians cast a longing look over their shoulders even as they plot their music’s future.
This brand of burly guitar rock – from Nebula to the more soulful Giraffes, from the automobile-obsessed Fu Manchu to the dirge-digging of Black Lamb – is all about girls, cars and pursuing a buzz. It focuses on the hormonal imperatives of the good time, the constant goal for the bands, which tend to be full-on road dogs.
“Everybody likes primitive rock ‘n’ roll,” said Scott Campbell, who has made a living off guitar-rock bands the past eight years of booking his own Larimer Lounge and the 15th Street Tavern before that. “It’s a natural evolution. You listen to punk rock in your teens, indie rock in your 20s, and as you mature musically, you move out of punk and indie and listen to bands like Turbonegro and Fu Manchu.
“Those are the shows that are the most fun. Those are the shows where we sell the most liquor. Those are the shows that are all about debauchery.”
The genre almost found a poster child in Josh Homme, the man behind Queens of the Stone Age. But it was a lazy misnomer calling Queens stoner rock just because Homme’s previous (and lesser-known) band, Kyuss, fit the bill. The bands that faithfully worship at the altar of AC/DC are still underground and without radio, TV and big-bill exposure – no matter their swagger.
“We recently toured with Alice Cooper, which was sweet,” Supagroup’s Lee said by telephone from Phoenix earlier this week. “It was our first time in big rooms – including hockey arenas in Canada – and while we’re pretty good in a club, we’re way better on a big stage. We were built for the arenas.
“And hopefully we’ll get big enough to where we can play them all the time.”
Even with the release of this week’s excellent “Rules” LP, Supagroup won’t headline arenas any time soon. No matter their collective obsession with Motorhead – the group plays the role of the autonomous road warrior fighting the good fight to a limited audience.
“We’re the new punk rock of today,” Lee said. “The kind of bands that would have been punk rock in the late-’70s and early-’80s, we’re those people today. We’re largely ignored by the big media. We’re completely ignored by TV and radio. But all these bands don’t quit; we’re still out there persevering.
“And I’m proud to be part of this class, because just like it was in high school, all of us are the same age and we came up at the same time.”
Lee and his peers are fighting the same battle. He has traveled several times with the Nebula boys, some of whom came to the group via Fu Manchu, and has an upcoming tour with the similarly minded Alabama Thunder—–.
While the bands are all out there nightly, representing the cause and rocking fans to their cores, they can’t help but wonder if this is it, if this is the big payoff and the pinnacle of what they can accomplish with their chosen artistic weapons.
“That kind of guitar rock has always done well for me,” said Campbell, “but I don’t know if it’s doing better now than it ever has.”
Asked if Supagroup finally will be discovered and launched into the glittering stratosphere of popular culture, Lee sounded resigned. “I’ve given up hope on that ever happening,” he said. “Although I do think that there are more guitar- driven bands out there than there have been in the last 15 years. There’s one in every town.”
Often more than one. Campbell brings up one of his Denver favorites, Black Lamb. And bartender Danner talks up the hard rock of Audio Dream Sister with a fervency born of familiarity. Still, that only scratches the surface of the Denver scene.
As art-rockers such as the Mars Volta and garage rockers such as the White Stripes reach absurd levels of adoration, you can’t count out the possibility of stoner rock – with all its ’80s revisionism – rising to multi-platinum sales and chart domination. It might seem unlikely, but five years ago the chances of fame and fortune didn’t look so good for Mars Volta’s Cedric and Omar or even the Stripes’ Jack and Meg.
And just look at them now.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Supagroup
STONER ROCK|Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer St.; 9 p.m., Tuesday with Hervis, Johnny Eager and Gina Go Faster opening|$10|at the door.
