Two front teeth. That's what Shanda Kolberg, lead singer/guitarist for local punkers the Swanks, feared she would lose when her band played its first gig in the summer of 1999.
Band on the tracks: The Swanks.
Details
With the Geds and the
Double-Barrelled
Slingshots
9:30 p.m. Saturday
March 15
Larimer Lounge,
2721 Larimer Street
$7,
303-291-0959
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She had good cause for concern. For one thing, her fellow Swanks had a serious predilection for losing their own front teeth and having them replaced with synthetic surrogates: Bassist Shay Moss lost his to an errant ground ball on a schoolyard baseball diamond; and lead guitarist Rex Burdick once looked up during a rock-climbing outing only to see a chunk of rock on a collision course with his choppers.
So when an overzealous fan approached the stage at the Cricket on the Hill and began chest-butting Kolberg's microphone, putting her upper incisors at risk, she decided to thwart the course of destiny. She planted a boot-clad foot in the middle of the aggressor's chest, knocking him into a nearby table and toppling pitchers of beer.
"Fuck that guy," says Kolberg, without a hint of remorse in her voice. "Like I didn't need that tooth."
That scene pretty well sums up what to expect at a Swanks show. You might not get a boot in the chest -- unless you really ask for it -- but you'll definitely be assaulted by an earful of lean, mean and to-the-point punk songs. Ornery, raw and aggressive, the band is fueled by Marshall stacks, rapid-fire guitars and heated vocals. The outcome is a controlled burn that's tighter and more melodic than the usual punk wreck, but suitably volatile and intimidating.
"It's in-your-face rock," says Moss. "The type of music that we play -- and there are other bands in Denver that are playing this kind of music, and national bands that are touring on a semi-independent circuit playing this kind of music -- it's not chug rock, it's not samples, it's not Creed. It's fucking rock and roll." (Chug rock? Moss explains his term by imitating an accelerating choo-choo train, adding, "Kid Rock's for kids. Punk rock's for real men.")
For Kolberg, dishing out down-and-dirty music is something of a cathartic necessity. "I've gotta to do it; I can't help it," she says. "If I keep that shit inside, I will explode and probably become a mass murderer or something."
Volume is a key concern for all of the Swanks, but it's of prime importance for Burdick, a veteran of -- of all things -- Hawaii's heavy-metal cover-band scene of the early '90s. "I just love loud rock and roll...skulls and flames," says Burdick. "My volume knob broke off at eleven."
"We'll all stand around and act stoic when the sound man tells us to turn it down," says Moss. "We'll act like we don't know what the fuck they're talking about."
There really hasn't ever been anything quiet about the Swanks since they formed on Easter Sunday nearly four years ago. The band's ramp-up was fast and furious, thanks in part to a backlog of songs penned by Kolberg during a five-year hiatus from band life. (In her home state of Iowa, she played in a punk band called Period. "We broke up, and then two weeks later, Fugazi calls us up and says, 'Do you want to go on a U.S. tour with us?'" Kolberg recalls. The response: "'Yeah, we would, but we hate each other.'")
A onetime member of the Ted Bundy Band, Moss also had a few originals he was itching to perform. With a full set of material already in hand, Kolberg and Moss recruited Burdick and original Swanks drummer Steve Schwind from another local punk act called Intelligence Is Dead. Phil Atencio stepped into the drummer position after Schwind quit in 2001. (At the moment, Atencio is doing a year's worth of contract graphic-design work in Vegas; his temporary replacement is Doug Hopper of St. James Gate.) The bandmates all shared a vision of an unkempt throwback to the glory days of hard rock, the '70s.
Within six months of their first practice in a dingy downtown closet -- literally -- the band was in the studio, putting the finishing touches on a self-titled debut record. Self-released in 2000, the CD features fourteen tracks that nicely capture the band's live energy, with minimal production gloss. Under the original plan, a follow-up disc would have already seen release and the band would have a tour under its collective leather belt. But that plan was derailed in a major way, due in part to drummer Schwind's departure and the purchase of a citrus-sour van that the players pooled their money to buy in 2001.
"We spent $3,000 on a van that wasn't worth a dollar," says Moss. If the van's engine hadn't imploded, he adds, "We probably wouldn't even be in Denver tonight to do this interview."
"We had people betting us money that we'd be the next band out of Denver to be signed," says Moss. "It didn't turn out that way."
"The state of the Swanks is one step forward, 32 back," adds Kolberg. "We're going nowhere fast."
In addition to automotive troubles, Kolberg says the band had a hard time finding a producer who understood its uncooked aesthetic, which further delayed the completion of its second album.
