The group formed a base of operations in a house at 29th and California streets in Five Points and called it Mouth House. It had been the Pitchfork House, where many folk-punk shows had taken place in the first decade of the 2000s. For three and a half years, Mouth House was a place where you could go and feel welcome. The sheer variety of music you could hear there reflected not only the varied tastes of the people who lived at the house, but also an ethos that included cooperation and an openness to new ideas.
“We wanted to try something crazy, and it ended up being people doing various things better than others,” says Sutton. “Some people were better with recording; I was better about putting on shows and festivals. The goal for Mouth House was to bring the whole idea of Mouth Bomb into a community that could make anything possible for all the artists. I don’t know if we achieved that or not, but that’s what we were trying for.”
Sutton and most of his fellow Mouth Bomb co-founders grew up in Elizabeth. They all got into punk rock in their youth and started bands right out of high school. Clay DeHaan and Sam Tallent (two other Mouth Bomb members) started the post-punk band Red Vs. Black. Sutton, as a member of Sparkler Bombs, went on his first two tours with Red Vs.
During its run, Mouth House partnered with other DIY venues and more conventional small venues to make Denver an easy stop for touring bands on the underground circuit. So if Mouth House couldn’t accommodate a date, it could network with Seventh Circle Music Collective, Rhinoceropolis, Glob or Carioca Cafe (aka
“You meet [Seventh Circle Founder] Aaron Saye and you don’t want to not hang out with him,” says Sutton. “It’s not about the competition; it’s about helping. We didn’t want to not be able to help a band out because we were overbooking. The goal was to build a strong community.”
Mouth House did just that, hosting punk, folk, noise, psychedelic rock, hip-hop and impossible-to-pigeonhole music and art for the duration of its existence. The building wasn’t really up to code and some guests occasionally caused a ruckus, but for a time no one interfered.
“I remember one time this girl lit a chair on fire and was pushing it around for photos for Instagram or something, and we were like, ‘Oh, my
That minute ended last October.
“The last Halloween festival we threw, the Haunted
Sutton had already moved out of Mouth House to focus on his schoolwork when the raid happened, but the remaining inhabitants were forced to relocate with a week’s notice. That experience may have changed some people forever in terms of wanting to be involved in such endeavors again. But Mouth Bomb Records remains, the people of Mouth House remain
For the most recent edition of Festibowl, Mouth Bomb member Richard Ingersoll coordinated the extensive
“I’m OCD, and I can’t watch anything and not want to do it,” explains Sutton. “It’s what I breathe. The first time I sat down and played the drums, I felt that way. The first 4/20 festival and there’s 500 people in the house. The first time you paid a touring band two hundred bucks and you remember the first time you made two hundred bucks for a show on tour in another state. That’s always the thing that drives me. I want to be able to travel with my band to Asia, and I want bands from Asia to travel to Denver. That’s what keeps me motivated to do it, for sure.”