Jordan Altergott (@jordanaltergott)
Audio By Carbonatix
Denver’s indie music scene is broad, diverse and absolutely thriving right now. With live music available across the city, including at hubs on South Broadway and along Colfax, Denver music fans are in a true oasis of sound. “It’s amazing how you can go out any night of the week and see five, six, even eight or more really great bands, all doing original music,” says Felipe Patino, bassist and singer for Peruvian-punk band Bricheros and owner of Green Door Recordings.
Nearly every genre of music is well represented in Denver, but the punk scene has a long, rich history going back decades, though defining punk can be challenging, with so many derivative terms: punk, hardcore, post-punk, pop punk, melodic hardcore, Midwest emo, riot grrrl…the list goes on, all describing what is essentially raw, scaled-down rock music with high energy and attitude
Candy Apple
Candy Apple’s brand of hardcore punk is equal parts sinister, jagged, catchy and vulnerable, fitting right in with the punk and hardcore weirdos over at Convulse Records. The band put out its second album, “Comatose,” on Convulse in 2024, sporting the blistering opener “Paralyzed,” its fellow single “Heaven’s Gate,” and the thoughtfully arranged, noisy closer “Coma / Coda,” among several other bangers. Candy Apple is one of many great bands today that finds itself seamlessly blurring the lines between hardcore and punk, seeming just as comfortable behind fat, laggy beats as they are in face-melting skate punk anthems. The band has maintained relatively regular appearances on punk and hardcore bills in Denver and beyond, last year joining Lessercare for a few dates on the road, including a date at The Crypt. In March, Candy Apple shared the Seventh Circle stage with labelmates American Culture, along with other Denver acts Spin Move and Blackberry Crush.
Cheap Perfume
With the seminal Riot Grrrl punk-rock outfit Bikini Kill hitting the road for a North American tour in August and lead singer and guitarist Kathleen Hanna releasing her best-selling memoir, “Rebel Girl,” any Denver punk-rock story would be remiss if it didn’t mention Colorado’s premier fem-core band, Cheap Perfume. Cheap Perfume opened for Bikini Kill last August, before going on to play a Mission Ballroom date. Additionally, the punk outfit released its full-length album, “Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask.” in the fall, sporting 11 aggressive in-your-face punk tracks. The band has been tearing up the club scene between Denver and Colorado Springs since 2017 with a punk-rock aesthetic that is unapologetically political and in-your-face fierce. With hard-hitting, fast-paced screeds like “Yes, It’s Ok to Punch Nazis,” “Fauxminism” and “No Men,” Cheap Perfume songs pull no punches. And the band’s live shows are raucous, riotous celebrations of energy and attitude, especially when singer Stephanie Byrne charges into the crowd from the first chord.
Cop Killer
Denver hardcore punks Cop Killer, named after a song produced by Ice-T and Ernie C under the punk moniker Body Count in 1992, have only one EP under the same name, released on Braeburn Records last November. The release clocks in at just 15 minutes, sporting five fast-paced classic punk tracks, including a cover of the aforementioned titular track by Body Count. This one’s a great pick for anyone who loves gang vocals, unrelenting fast-paced riffs, and straight-up hardcore protest lyricism calling out corruption in law enforcement. The EP opens with thick, dense bass on “Police State,” as well as a Stokely Carmichael quote responding to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s approach to non-violent protest, in which Carmichael says that, “in order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
Dead Pioneers
Since releasing its self-titled debut album in September 2023, Indigenous Denver punk band Dead Pioneers has been on a meteoric rise, garnering international attention. Led by acclaimed visual artist Gregg Deal, the band hit the Denver scene in January opening for Cheap Perfume at the Skylark in a show that was attended by punk icon Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame. Since then, Dead Pioneers has signed a three-album deal with Hassle Records, a London label, with band releasing “Wagon Burner” last month, following suit with a release show at Bluebird Theatre on July 3. With a searing sound of raucous punk-rock chords and riffs from guitarists Josh Rivera and Abe Brennan over Deal’s scathing spoken-word lyrics about social justice and Native activism, Dead Pioneers represents punk rock’s new conscience. The band’s debut single and video, “Bad Indian,” has racked up thousands of views on YouTube and nearly a million streams. With heavy influences from Minutemen, Rage Against the Machine and Rollins Band, Dead Pioneers has crafted a unique and impressive sound that represents the best of the punk-rock ethos and the Denver indie scene. The band is currently wrapping up a European tour with Petrol Girls and Jools.
Destiny Bond
Formed in Denver in 2021, Destiny Bond has quickly cemented its place at the forefront of the modern punk canon, especially after releasing its sophomore effort “The Love” on Convulse Records lasy October. The band is made up of Convulse co-founder Adam Croft, Cloe Madonna (also of Cherished), Amos Helvey (also of Angel Band), Rio Wolf and Emily Armitage. While Destiny Bond has been playing Denver a little less frequently than in its early days, the band has remained busy since its inception, recently touring with Fiddlehead, Narrow Head and Knumears, and capping off tours in Canada and Japan within the last several months. In a conversation with Westword last fall, Madonna, who is trans, tells us about the single “Peace as a Punchline,” and how she re-wrote the lyrics several times before release.
“It wasn’t until it fell on this theme of just putting myself back in the shoes of who I was before I had come to terms with my identity and come out to people around me and lived life like that, this person that felt hidden and pushed away, especially by my home culture, which was a Southern Baptist, Southern United States culture,” she explains. “It’s almost a full story of how much work happens to get from being that person that felt pushed away, to where I am now, and how, now, some people use what it was like being trans, coming out as trans and queer, and like finding myself in that, people will use that as a punchline.”
Flight Kamikazee
Jeff Howell started writing music in 2008, but while serving as a roadie for Six Shooter in 2014, his friend Micah Morris encouraged him to start a band. After recording songs with Bricheros bassist Felipe Patino at Green Door Recording, Flight Kamikazee officially formed with a new bass player, Krayon, and drummer Mike “Duder” Dillard to release the album “Moxie” in 2023. Howell says he’s heard the band’s sound called “power-pop punk,” with its influences driven by mid-’90s skate punk from such bands as Screeching Weasel, Dead Boys and SNFU. Musically, Howell says he likes to “keep it simple” with three-chord downstrokes, and most songs are around two minutes long and constructed to “make people want to bang their heads and have a good time.” Lyrics are about making a human connection and focusing on “trials and errors and the hardships in life,” Howell adds. Cody Templeton of Teenage Bottle Rockets provides backing vocals on “Moxie” and also connected Flight Kamikazee with the Dallas label Clearview Records. In pure punk fashion, the band’s name reflects its “no-expectations” approach. “It’s a suicide mission,” Howell explains, “just going as hard and as far as we can.”
Horse Bitch
Describing the madcap sound of Denver band Horse Bitch defies nearly all genre limitations, but the band’s songwriting and live shows evoke the high energy and unapologetic authenticity of punk. The listening experience is festive, fast and often wildly irreverent. Attendees of the Horse Bitch show at the Aggie Theatre in Fort Collins at FoCoMX last April know the band’s live shows are nothing less than a raucous celebration of loud music. It may also be the best use of a punk-rock fiddle since the days of Camper Van Beethoven. The band’s sound incorporates basic rock structure with guitar, bass and drums but then throws in a fiddle and steel guitar to create a sound with elements of emo, honky-tonk, rockabilly and more. From the mosh pit down front at the Aggie, this band is the best that punk-rock energy can offer. In fact, the band has so much fun on stage, it’s difficult to tell whether the pit or the stage is more frenzied. Horse Bitch released the single “Mountain Climbing” in March, its first new music in several years, and the song’s prominent fiddle riff evokes an Irish jig with punk cred in the vein of Flogging Molly or amped-up Waterboys. Horse Bitch is playing a tour kickoff show at D3 Arts on August 6.
In the Teeth
Colorado Springs four-piece In the Teeth released its debut album, “You’ve Done Enough,” last summer. With a sound rooted in post-punk and ’90s grunge, In the Teeth creates hard-edge guitar rock with great hooks, riffs and melodies. “I don’t even know what to call the sound anymore,” laughs bassist Mike Nipp, who played in Salt of Sanguine with guitarist Jojo Johnson before they joined drummer Jeff Fuller and singer Aaron Bubeck in In the Teeth. The band’s influences include everything from Mountain Goats to the Smiths to Refused. “I’m a big fan of Sunny Day Real Estate,” Nipp adds, saying maybe the punk vibe is rooted in songs with “angsty shitty vibes.” The songs are simply about life and relationships, Nipp explains, “and we’re just having fun playing loud, fast music.”
King Rat
“We were thrift store when thrift store wasn’t cool,” screams Luke Schmaltz on the 2017 single “Thrift Store Kids.” Celebrating thirty years in Denver’s indie scene, the working-class punk rockers of King Rat can lay claim to being all sorts of things before they were cool. And that makes King Rat one of the coolest punk bands in the Mile High City, which it’s been rocking since the early ’90s. With all the energy of a full-blown mosh pit, King Rat is a longtime punk-rock mainstay that simply refuses to stop. With ten studio LPs and one live album, King Rat has a monstrous catalogue of gritty old-school punk rock that spotlights the vicissitudes of life, from joy to rage. Though most songs clock in at a hard, fast two-minute pace, King Rat’s incredible anthem and tribute to first responders “EMT – a Punk Rock Parable” is worth every second of its nearly four minutes. Putting the indie in Independence Day, King Rat just had a rad thirtieth-anniversary show on July 4 at East Fax Tap.
Moon Pussy
Denver punks and noise rockers Moon Pussy released their third album, “At The Pace of Outrage,” on The Ghost is Clear Records in April, and it’s another one for the books. The release boasts an experimental noise rock sound that’s a little hard to pin down genre-wise at times, floating between grunge-y alt-rock and and heavier doomy moments, all of which feels authentically punk in spirit. The band started in Denver in 2017, with Cristina Cuellar on bass and vocals, Ethan Hahn on guitar, and Cory Hager on drums. Cuellar shows off her range of vocalizations from shouts and yawls to a few more melodic singing moments. Over the years, Moon Pussy has played with bands like Metz, Pile, Old Time Relijun, fellow Denver band Muscle Beach and several others, recently also opening for Daikaiju and appearing at Ghost Canyon Fest last summer.
Moon Pussy is playing at Hi-Dive on September 24 with Mr. Phylzz and Church Fire.
Poor Me
Poor Me has been in the Denver scene since 2010. With loud, melodic arpeggio leads against some truly aggressive chords, the songs come at listeners hard and fast. The sound is pure power punk, and vocalist Brett Delaney says it has even been called “melodic hardcore.” The songs are energetic, and Delaney is not shy about screaming and yelling lyrics to match the strong leads and heavy beats. He finds a solid balance in the punk spectrum, noting the band’s sound is “not quite death metal, but not pop punk, either.” Influences include Bad Religion, which listeners will find in both the loud, fast guitar chords and the socially conscious lyrics. Other than a recent show with No Bueno at Moe’s Original Barbecue in Englewood, Poor Me hasn’t been playing live much lately while the band finishes its next and perhaps final LP, “Nevermore.” Not shy about emotive lyrics, deep sociological themes and bold political statements, Poor Me represents the best of loud, meaningful punk rock.
Plastic Mystic
Denver trio Plastic Mystic formed in 2022, playing an exciting batch of jagged post-punk songs. Their sound is deeply rooted in the especially dark elements of early post-punk, while regularly lurching forward into lo-fi, garaged-out, psychedelic rock moments that feel straight off of a Fugazi record. The band is made up of guitarist-vocalist and principal songwriter Kieran Woodiwiss, bassist Joseph Grobelny and drummer Bobby Lirette, and the trio released its debut album, “PLASTIK MYSTIK,” in May. The album features 12 toothy tracks across 34 minutes, ranging from spacious discordant moments like at the beginning of “Declarify” and angular riffs atop talk-singing, to the faster-paced and spirited closer “Good Buy” and the heavier, blistering opener “Shrine.” Nestled somewhere between today’s most exciting post-punk, no-wave and punk bands, Plastic Mystic offers a bold take on the blend of genres, and Denver should consider itself lucky to have them.
Plastic Mystic just played Blucifer’s First Rodeo and UMS, and has a show at Drop To Pop Records on August 8.
Public Opinion
Arguably on the lighter side of this list is Denver’s Public Opinion, a ripping, clean-vocaled rock band with a definite punk influence. The band is made up of vocalist Kevin Hart, bassist Sebastian Stanley, guitarist Kevin Johnson and drummer Austin Latare. Sonically, it leans toward pop-punk and early 2000s rock, with hooky choruses, big riffs and driving uptempo beats. Last year, the band toured with Convulse Records’ Militarie Gun and Liquid Mike following the release of its three-song EP “Perpetual Motion Machine,” including single “Laughing Academy,” complete with a feature from Drug Church.
Public Opinion is releasing the full-length album “The Curse of Public Opinion” on SideOneDummy Records on August 7, and the band will be playing a release show at Gothic Theatre on August 23 with Quicksand, Bane and Soul Blind.
Reno Divorce
The sound of longtime Denver punk-rock band Reno Divorce is hard to ignore, but it easily makes you to want to get in the pit and dance it out to power chords, hard-driving bass and intricate lead runs. The 2023 release “Sweeten the Pot” represents a perfectly pleasing blend of old-school punk, classic rock and ’90s indie-alternative elements. Since releasing its debut album, “Naysayers and Yesmen/ Laugh Now, Cry Later,” the band has toured the world, playing everything from dive clubs to major stages, and released eight full-length albums plus numerous singles. Reno Divorce has always thrived in Denver, and has seen the highs and lows of the local scene. Nearly a quarter-century down the road, Reno Divorce continues to evolve musically and professionally.
Replica City
Guitarist Cory Fruin and bassist Matt Dunne play together in Denver’s stadium-emo band Broken Record, but Fruin says they “wanted to do something a little harder and edgier” with Replica City. The trio, which includes drummer Nathan Rodriguez (Deth Rali, Cherished, Pout House), plays a blend of hard-edge noise rock with a dash of melodic ’80s post-punk. Replica City formed in the spring of 2022 and recently released its debut full-length album “A Better You” on Power Goth Recordings. The band’s 2024 EP “Gift of Knives” also included an incredible cover of the Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off.” After seeing a live performance of the song, Fruin says he felt “the structure translated well to a post-hardcore sound” and then made it his own. The band’s influences range from Mission to Burma to ’90s Midwest emo’s Drive Like Jehu. Rodriguez has an ear for pop and hook-driven melodies complementing Dunne’s loud, riffy bass solos and Fruin’s vocals. Most songs are narrative-driven with a self-reflective tone, but “Crowd Work” is a satirical story of a comedian with a dark side as a serial killer.
Replica City recently celebrated its new album at Skylark on July 9, following a Northeast tour last month with Dagwood.
Robot Tennis Club
If rowdy good fun is a hallmark of punk-rock shows, then Robot Tennis Club has it down. The three-piece punk band puts on an energy-filled live set with catchy but heavy songs. Led by talented guitarist-singer-bassist Laura Steadman alongside drummer Nina Dorighi, the Fort Collins band has been rocking since 2021 with guitar provided by Erich Albrecht and Eli Schulz. Steadman and Dorighi first connected through a music teacher in Denver and released the full-length LP, “If These Walls Could Talk, You Wouldn’t Listen,” in 2023. Thematically, the songs run the spectrum from crappy relationships to random camping trip adventures. The best part of an RTC show is how much fun the band has, as it demonstrated to a packed house at the Coast during last year’s FoCoMX. Steadman is genuinely thrilled to be in front of a crowd, kindly, even gently thanking those in the audience before throttling them with a sonic blast. She moves around the stage like a kid running across a playground, and she might even do an inadvertent stage dive (check YouTube for the replay). Robot Tennis Club plays regularly around Denver and Fort Collins, so fans should watch the band’s Insta stories for news and announcements.
Soy Celesté
Started by Celesté Martinez in 2022, Soy Celesté has been rocking the Front Range with the powerful sounds of Latin feminist punk. Originally a solo project, Martinez curated a diverse lineup of queer and Black musicians, with Stevie Gunter on bass and Saladin Thomas on drums, reflecting her belief in the vital importance of BIPOC and queer communities seeing themselves represented in music and on the stage. The band’s sound draws from classic punk with quick beats and chord-driven rock, while the songwriting is influenced by the Mexican genre of son jarocho, with Spanish and African elements. The result is a simple yet full sound that Martinez says “cracked open a rigidity instilled from classical music education.” Using music to tell Martinez’s story as a queer Chicana, Soy Celesté draws inspiration from such influences as Alice Bag, FEA, Mercedes Sosa, Lido Pimienta, Le Dame Blanche, San Cha and Selena. Feminista Manifestó, Soy Celesté’s first full-length album, drops on August 2, and showcases Martinez’s personal journeys and intersectional feminist politics. With such songs as “Feminism Is Intersectional” and “End All Genocide,” Soy Celesté’s music is unapologetically political and explicitly feminist.
Team Nonexistent
Team Nonexistent’s self-proclaimed “queer melodic punk” fits right in with some of today’s most well-known punk bands, offering straightforward, aggressive and in-your-face lyricism. Originally started by vocalist Sophie Labell-Plott in Florida as an acoustic project, the band is now based in Denver, adding a full rock lineup in 2022 with Jesse Newman, Billie Christ and Magic Mo. The band recently opened for Dead Pioneers at the band’s Bluebird Theater album release show on July 3, and they’ve had no shortage of tour dates beyond Colorado over the last couple of years. In 2024, Team Nonexistent released the full-length album “Teeth,” including the catchy, pop-punk-tinged single “11/20,” and faster, heavier tracks such as the opener “Collateral Damage,” and singles “Walk Home” and the shouty “Touch Me,” in which Labell-Plott passionately sings the following memorable refrain:
But hey, if you touch me,
I’ll fucking kill you
Tuff Bluff
Friends for many years from seeing each other’s bands in Denver’s indie scene, Ryan Heller, Sara Fischer and Tom Dodd were destined to come together in the power-punk trio Tuff Bluff. The band grew out of pandemic boredom, playing experimental music to fill the time, and officially formed in 2021 after Heller’s label Motorcycle Potluck released an album for Dodd’s band the Yellnats. With its fast, melodic, three-chord punk rock, Tuff Bluff’s EP “Poppies” was co-released by Snappy Little Numbers, and the band’s self-titled LP dropped in May. Tuff Bluff has many overlapping influences, but acknowledges a sound rooted in the late-’90s East Bay scene. With sharp, three-chord downstroke rhythms alongside heavy bass riffs, fast arpeggio-driven leads and clever transitions, the songs beg for dancing. After all, Fischer says when she’s writing the songs, she’s thinking about music that “makes [her] wanna move.” Thematically, the songs cover “how we collectively deal with the political stuff while at the same time have a little joy,” Fischer says – and, of course, still dance.
Wheelchair Sports Camp
Wheelchair Sports Camp is a genre-bending hip-hop and punk group fronted by activist, rapper and drummer Kalyn Heffernan and backed by guitarist Gregg Ziemba. While the band is known for its hip-hop-forward sound on previous releases, the band went viral and garnered attention from influential artists such as Peaches for its recent song “EAT MEAT!” off of their latest album, “oh imperfecta,” released in May. Heffernan told Westword in May that the track was “the fastest, simplest song we ever wrote,” adding that the faster, brazenly-punk speed of some of the new tracks forced her to strip back some of her lyricism and become less wordy. The rest of the album is also full of certified punk bangers, with Heffernan dipping in and out of rapping and shouting amongst a darkly-comedic set of social commentary songs.
Wheelchair Sports Camp just played with Devotchka at Red Rocks and participated in Blucifer’s First Rodeo.
