Courtesy the Spikes
Audio By Carbonatix
Iago Haussman is settling into his new Boulder surroundings.
The Rome-raised musician who plays out as the Spikes has been coming stateside since he was a child, so there wasn’t too much of a culture shock when he decided to make the college town his home nearly three years ago, after recording his 2023 self-titled debut EP here.
“I knew for a while that I wanted to leave Rome,” the 22-year-old says. “Not because of any specific reason, but just because the music scene in Rome is not as strong as it is in Boulder. I feel that Boulder has a bit more of a scene, more of a live music city.
“I’ve traveled to Denver, to Lafayette, Longmont, and I really, really like how each place here has its own subculture, its own scene beneath the scene,” Haussman continues. “You can tell how important music is here inside of the U.S. and Boulder a bit more clearly than Italy. You can see how it changes people, how it can affect the way people think, the way people feel, their style, their emotions. You can really feel that.”
He also feels he can make a similar impact in Boulder, given its breadth and support of independent artists.
“It really does depend on what you’re doing and creating. I feel that there is a lot more opportunities here, smaller venues for up-and-coming artists, the open mics and, I think you guys call it, the jam sessions here,” Haussman says. “I feel like for people who are up and coming, it’s a pretty good scene.”
Embracing an alter ego and finding a new sound
And that’s where he currently is with the Spikes. After breaking up with his high school punk band, he wanted to shift his sound and reflect a more mature version of himself as a musician. “The Spikes” moniker is more of an alter ego of sorts, and allowing him to do that. Honing in on indie alt-pop, Haussman is now showing exactly what this is with his first long-play, First Light, released independently last Halloween.
“I didn’t quite know what I was doing,” he says of the sonic sea change. “I was trying to figure out my voice and what the next sound was for me. I knew that I wanted to try something different, and I knew that I wanted to explore more of my lyrical chops, I would say.
“I just started to write, and the first EP was really just me trying to figure out my voice. I was trying to find my sound, trying to experiment with anything,” he adds. “I feel that First Light is a much more refined and raw version of my first EP.”
While heavily inspired by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, particularly more modern albums Push the Sky Away (2013) and Ghosteen (2019), Haussman, with his baritone voice, pulled a lot of creativity from other mediums. As a poet and painter, he turned to American literature and film while writing First Light.
“Yes, it was not just musical inspiration, but another huge inspiration for one of the songs was The Great Gatsby,” he says of previously released single “Dancing (In the Palm of My Hand).” “I was also inspired by films like Apocalypse Now,” which served at the jumping off point of track “Jungle Boy,” he notes.
“It was a mixture of all forms of media that inspired me to create this album, but I feel that mixture helped me with creating the full picture here,” says Haussman, who prefers wearing simple black suits and unbuttoned white dress shirts.
Typically, he doesn’t try to hinder the music muse, but harness it whenever it does strike — whether he’s consciously working on it or focusing on another artform.
Courtesy the Spikes
“It really does depend on what I am writing. There are some moments where I’m inspired by other forms of media, there are some moments where I start to write and the song comes out fully formed,” he shares. “For me, in songwriting, I never found that there is a specific method that I use for songwriting. It varies and changes always. It’s constantly shifting for me.
“I would say I don’t try to bleed the artforms together; in some weird way, it naturally happens. There are times, for instance, when I have written poems and those have become songs. There were times where I was painting something and I thought of a song idea,” Haussman continues, considering the question, and his response, carefully. “It’s hard to put into words, but it’s that being caught in the moment as you’re doing something else that that hit of inspiration happens, and you have to rush and get pen and paper to figure your thoughts out.”
A good example of this type of open-ended process and melding is the song “The Exit,” the last track on the EP, which has now become a setlist stable.
“That song was originally a poem I had written for my poetry book,” he says. “Then I just brought it into the studio, and we were messing around with it, trying to figure out if it would work for a song. Now it is a closer for most of my shows. It’s taken its place there.”
Upcoming Concert and Music on the Horizon
Haussman is bringing the Spikes to Trident Café, a spot he’s played before and grown fond of, on Saturday, March 7. Boulder band The Much Too Much is also on the bill.
Since performing First Light, he’s found that his shows are becoming more somber, in some ways, and bardic.
“It really varies from what I’m feeling at the moment. Am I feeling angry? Am I feeling sad? Am I feeling happy? But this new record, I feel like it’s going to be a lot more slower, more poetic,” he explains. “Something I want to try to do is make people actually experience the music and the lyrics and stories I’m trying to create, and the scenes and feelings I’m trying to convey. I would like people to be transported. I would like people to be able to plug in their headphones, listen to the album from front to finish, and be in another world. I want them to feel the stories.”
That can manifest itself in many ways, he’s already discovered, as people have opened up and shared their perspectives and sentiments on the Spikes.
“You can always hope for people to do certain things with your songs, but there are moments when people tell me their own experiences and it surprises me when someone has a completely different experience than what I intended them to experience when I originally wrote the song,” he adds. “I do like when people have their own emotional take on the music, and I always take it in. It’s hard to put into words. I find it quite beautiful when people tell me their thoughts and feelings and what they were perceiving when they heard a song.”
While the Spikes is technically a solo project, Haussman isn’t going at it alone and has recruited other musicians, including Boulder peer and producer Max Davies. He’s also done some recording at eTown Hall’s studio. It’s all helped him build community in Colorado. “I am constantly collaborating with people, but he’s been somebody who I have been working with for about two, three years now,” he says.
Haussman hints at a sophomore follow-up, as well as a covers EP, and even though he still splits time between Boulder, Rome and Berlin, he’s excited to work on the Spikes out in the Rockies.
“I like the peace and quiet here. I feel like it helps me write,” he shares. “I also like the juxtaposition of having a quiet place here and then afterwards heading back to Rome or Berlin and having the craziness there.
“I’m somebody who always likes to be on the move,” Haussman concludes, “but for now, I would say Boulder is feeling pretty good.”
The Spikes, with The Much Too Much, 6 p.m. Saturday, March 7, Trident Café, 940 Pearl Street, Boulder; the show is free.
