With years of playing with other local bands under their belts, the four guys in the ska-flavored rock group Savage Henry decided they were compatible after the singer dumped a beer in guitar player Stuart Miller’s lap on their first night out together.
In the year since, Savage Henry pooled such influences as 311, Dispatch and Tenacious D to craft “All In,” an album triumphantly released before the Aug. 9 screening of “The Goonies” during Film on the Rocks. We caught up to Miller, a private music teacher with the Colorado Drum Institute, to chat about Savage Henry’s guarantee that 98 percent of the people who see them live will have fun.
Q: Who is Henry and what makes him so savage?
A: It’s actually a character from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” chapter 3, page 19: “My Attorney hunched around to face the hitchhiker. ‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘we’re going to Vegas to croak a scag baron named Savage Henry.”‘
I guess he was a guy Hunter (Thompson) knew in the 1960s, and he wasn’t very pleasant but had a really hot wife. …
When we first got together, our lead singer (Damon Guerrasio) came in with four or five songs. What happened after the band got together is we totally changed the personality of those songs. So that title just seemed to fit our music, even though people always ask why there’s no guy in the band named Henry.
Q: Is the Las Vegas look of your album cover and website also a “Gonzo” tribute, or is the idea that whatever happens at Savage Henry shows, stays at Savage Henry shows?
A: It depends on the venue! It’s funny because there are really two sides to Vegas, the family side and the gambling/drugs/ prostitution side. It’s a melting pot of stuff, and so is our music.
The Vegas theme actually came from the title of our record, “All In.” We feel like this might be our last chance to make something happen in music so that’s what we’re doing, we’re throwing it all in the pot. We thought it would be funny to show a guy (on the album cover) with a really bad poker hand putting all his chips in the pot.
Q: Did any of you feel like Bono in “Under a Blood Red Sky” after releasing your CD at Red Rocks Amphitheatre?
A: Well, I play the guitar so maybe a little more like The Edge. We actually did our sound check that day and our drummer (Mike Rice) started playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” But just like the sign in the guitar shop in the movie “Wayne’s World” that says “No Stairway to Heaven,” there’s a big sign on the back of my amplifier that says “No Sunday Bloody Sunday Allowed.” By the same right, I’m not allowed to play “Freebird” or “Smoke on the Water.”
It was an incredible show. It was sold out and we had a big group of people dancing down in front of the stage. Driving home that night, I heard someone blasting our CD in their car. That was the high point for me.
Savage Henry plays Southside Johnny’s in Colorado Springs next weekend, the South Park Music Festival on Sept. 8, The Old Dillon Inn in Dillon Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and Quixote’s in Denver on Oct. 6.
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-820-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
