What happens when a local music scene goes international and multiplatinum?
Denver is not the next Seattle, but its musicians are on the march. Just ask any number of the them who have played a part in the recent, unprecedented wave of major-label signings out of Colorado.
Local artists have contributed plenty to the world of popular music throughout the years – the Astronauts, Firefall, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, the String Cheese Incident. But never has there been such a focused eye on local musicians as there is now.
“I went to music school for a career in music, and it actually happened,” said Patrick Meese, the singer-keyboardist whose band, Meese, just signed a contract with Atlantic Records. “It’s exciting that it all meant something.”
Meese is only the latest group to be brought up to the big leagues. This all started when the Fray, whose CD “How to Save a Life” was released in late 2005, went gold the following May and double-platinum by January 2007. That means the band moved more than 2 million copies of the full-length record. And that doesn’t even count the million-plus downloads of its two lead singles, “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “How to Save a Life.”
“When the Fray was in rotation here on KTCL before they got signed, it was a wake-up call in the music scene in Denver,” said Nerf, program director at KTCL 93.3-FM. “Suddenly the local bands realized, ‘We don’t have to concentrate on packing Herman’s (Hideaway). We can go for something bigger, even beyond this town.’ And then people started aiming their sights higher.”
The Fray’s successes have yet to be replicated, but there are bands in the running to be the next big thing out of Colorado.
Single File. The power-pop Westminster band signed to Reprise Records earlier this year on the strength of the single “Zombies Ate My Neighbors.”
OneRepublic. The hit “Apologize” – remixed by Timbaland for his record “Timbaland Presents: Shock Value” – is all over FM radio and will be released in single form via its Interscope Records debut. OneRepublic formed in Colorado in 2004, but moved to L.A.
Photo Atlas. The dance-punk outfit’s “No, Not Me, Never” saw release and distribution via Stolen Transmission (an imprint of Island Records) earlier this year.
Drop Dead, Gorgeous. The road-wise, Denver hardcore band signed to Suretone/Geffen Records earlier this year.
The more, the merrier
“The more bands that are signed,” said Alex Brahl, Meese’s Kansas City-based manager, “the better this scene’s going to be.”
It’s happening. Other Colorado bands including Born in the Flood, Tickle Me Pink, 3OH!3, Nathan & Stephen, Saving Verona and others are label-ready, according to experts interviewed.
“Denver’s got this great thing going on, and we’ve been talking about it for 10 years,” said Mayor John Hickenlooper, who has called Denver the “cultural capital of the West.” “The light is a little different here, and the creative juices flow differently because of the pressure here at a mile high.”
You can see it happening all along the Front Range. When the Fray played three sold-out dates at Red Rocks last summer, the band hand-picked two different local openers for each show – a move that put Meese, Bright Channel, the Flobots, Dualistics, Born in the Flood and Single File in front of the largest audiences of their careers.
And while you’ll rarely see the Fray’s Isaac Slade or the Photo Atlas’ Alan Andrews around Denver – this past week the Fray was in Amsterdam and the Photo Atlas was playing North Carolina – Meese will hold its signing party at the Bluebird Theater on Dec. 14.
Two weeks later, Born in the Flood will play its year-end show at the Bluebird, featuring appearances by local luminaries Jeff Suthers, Machine Gun Blues, Ian Cooke and others. Born in the Flood – this year’s No.1 band in The Denver Post Underground Music Poll – is using the show as an opportunity to celebrate the vibrant scene.
Talk outside of town
“There’s an overall feeling that something’s happening right now in Denver,” said Bart Dahl, a manager with Madison House in New York who recently signed Born in the Flood and is working to secure them a major-label contract. “Even outside of Denver people are talking about Denver.”
Mollie Moore works in artist development for Atlantic Records in Los Angeles, and was surprised when two Denver bands blew her away at this summer’s Monolith Festival.
“I see 20 bands a week, and I listen to 100 bands a day, and it’s not often I go to a show and think, ‘Now that was awesome,”‘ Moore said from her L.A. office. “But when I saw Nathan & Stephen and 3OH!3 – two totally different bands – play amazing shows with crowds that were going crazy for them, I knew there was something special going on in Denver.”
Denver has been a buzzword in certain L.A. and New York circles for years, largely because of bands such as DeVotchKa, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand and others.
“People used to laugh at us – ‘Oh, you’re just a Denver band’ – but they don’t do that anymore,” said Robert
Thomas, the manager for DeVotchKa, which recently signed to the quality indie label Anti-, home to Neko Case, Tom Waits and others. “Denver is the next Omaha or Minneapolis. I can’t remember a time when you’ve had five or six Denver bands that could sell 1,000 tickets apiece, and now it’s a no-brainer.”
Three catalysts
The catalysts behind the recent local-music renaissance are threefold: venues, talent and radio.
“Denver went through a lengthy period where there were a limited number of places people could play,” said Dan
Rutherford, co-founder of Morning After Records, the small label that signed numerous local bands to their first record deals. “If you weren’t a Herman’s band or a (15th Street) Tavern band, you were stuck. But now places like the Hi-Dive and the Larimer Lounge and the Walnut Room have given bands a great opportunity to showcase what they’re doing and increase their fan base.”
With more opportunities to play, the talent has matured, and now multiple scenes are thriving on collaboration. Everything Absent or Distorted is an ideal example of a communal band making waves. It’s debut CD cracked the College Music Journal’s Top 100 charts in 2006, and when it played the main stage of the inaugural Monolith Festival this summer, the large collective invited the three women of Bela Karoli and a four-person horn unit (including DeVotchKa’s Sean King) to play with them.
“The recent success of the local scene speaks to the synergy of everyone working together and everyone helping each other out,” said Matthew Fecher, co-founder of the Monolith Festival. “Dan booking Denver bands at his showcases in Austin at South by Southwest and the Twist & Shout newsletter getting passed around and the venues and promoters helping out bands. … (Bands are) being elevated on the shoulders of an entire city.”
The final piece of the puzzle is FM radio interest and participation. Anytime label A&R assistants see an unsigned band getting multiple spins on a major-market station like KTCL, they call Nerf or music director Boney to see what’s going on. Before the Fray, the station had a reputation for playing local music only on Sunday-night specialty shows. But they argue that the material and talent wasn’t there.
“There was a huge span between Big Head Todd and the Samples to the Apples, who floated around for a while, to when the Fray came on,” said Boney. “There wasn’t any local music that was quite ready for radio. … But now you have the piano-rock sound coming out of Denver.”
Outside of the glowing newspaper features and the Gothic Theatre sellouts, KTCL has been a driving force in the signings of the Fray, Single File and Meese. And now the station has “Typical” – a track from Fort Collins’ Tickle Me Pink – in regular rotation.
What’s it worth?
But is it good news the labels are finally mining Colorado talent?
“You don’t even need a major label anymore – not like you used to,” said Thomas, DeVotchKa’s manager. “It was funny hearing about Radiohead offering their album online for free, because it got me thinking about (DeVotchKa’s 2003 record) ‘Una Volta’ and how we wrote on the back of that record, ‘Burn this and give it to a friend.’ … It was just a matter of time before the tangible record had no value and it became all about the intellectual property.”
One of the local scene’s great success stories is the variety of bands that have been picked up and examined by the labels.
“Labels don’t look at bands, they look at whole scenes – and Denver has a developing scene,” said Ben Desoto, the talent buyer at the Hi-Dive and co-founder of Public Service Records. “You can’t deny that things are happening in Denver right now. I expect Born in the Flood to have a major-label deal soon. And it’s also great because no one wants to leave anymore.
“At one time, if you wanted to be successful, you left town,” he said. “And now you don’t have to do that. The infrastructure is now here – Morning After Records is here, Suburban Home is still here, and they’re staying true to the Denver market.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
