Boldtype's DIY aesthetic comes with an emotional history

"I broke up with a girl that I was going to marry mainly for the fact that she said, 'Quit playing music and you can be with me, or not,'" says Dew, noting the sacrifices involved in being in the band. "Obviously, there were many more things involved, but that's what it really came down to for me."

Iku-Turso represents a new chapter for the long-running band. In a way, it's also a symbol of the central struggle that the members of the band face and overcome every day. "It's the eternal sea monster of life," explains Waterhouse of the album's title. "It's a creature with several arms from the deep. Each arm is a different emotion, and it's just wrecking shit. That's what humankind has to deal with every day — a sea monster wreaking havoc on our lives. You deal with that every day. That's what comes across in the music."

Location Info

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Herman's Hideaway

1578 S. Broadway
Denver, CO 80210

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: South Denver

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Details

Boldtype, with Red Stinger, No Bueno, Nemesys and Too Late for Tomorrow, 8 p.m. Friday, March 22, Herman's Hideaway, 1578 South Broadway, $5-$10, 303-777-5840, 21+.

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More About

• Manny Lopez
• Jeff Dew
• Chris Tafoya
• Punk Rock
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

That's a strong sentiment, the kind fit for a pullquote — and it's completely fitting for an act called Boldtype. "I wasn't around when the band made its name," says Tafoya, "but I always thought that when you see something in bold type, it's louder than the rest of the printed words, and I thought that Boldtype was very much about 'If you're gonna say it, mean it.'"

"It's the name of a song," reveals Dew, letting the air out of Tafoya's earnest theory. "I think it was the first song we wrote together as a whole band — the first song on the first record, which was about seventeen minutes long."

Boldtype has obviously come a long way since then, and part of its progression has come about as a result of Tafoya's having joined the band. "Chris's writing is a lot more angular," Lopez observes. "He can do different types of breakdowns and singing, and he attacks things in a different way" than his predecessor, evidently. "Josh Costello's writing was more like a '90s, straight-ahead thing," says Lopez. "We got to where we were kind of writing the same songs. With Chris, the songs don't sound like '90s punk songs."

"Everybody used to always say, 'All of your songs are about death or dying or something dark,'" says Lopez of the band's earlier material. "These songs are still a little bit along the same lines, but each emotion is more fleshed out, and it's not all dark."

"Some girl said, 'These guys have a lot of angst,'" Waterhouse concludes with a grin. "I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing."

Whatever the case, it's a safe bet that she was singing along.