Best of Denver Winner the Sickly Hecks Rebrand as Moonpool

After six years as the Sickly Hecks, which won a 2024 Best of Denver for Best Sad-Boy Psych-Punk Band, Raymond Suny and Steven Hartman have officially changed their band name to moonpool.

“The problem with a band name is it's generally static, no matter what shifts may occur creatively," says Hartman, who plays drums. "It can be limiting. For example, it’s hard for me to imagine Slowdive playing anything other than shoegaze because of their name. I can’t imagine Nine Inch Nails sounding like anything other than industrial rock. The Sickly Hecks were a garage-rock band, though there was some dabbling in other sub-genres, too.

"For one reason or another, the name felt like it misrepresented the art that we have been creating," he explains.

Lead vocalist/guitarist Suny was also open to shifting the moniker. "After a while, [the name] stopped feeling like us," he says. "I still look fondly on most of the music we made in that time period, but it no longer reflects where we are artistically or as human beings anymore."

When guitarist Izaiah Miller joined the band, Suny adds, "The music we started fleshing out felt a lot different."

After seeing Miller's guitar skills, Suny couldn't resist inviting him to jam. Miller recalls, "I had been familiar with the Sickly Hecks for a while, seeing them at a few different shows around Fort Collins and Denver. After joining on, I was delighted with how casual and natural it felt."
With fresh new energy, the moonpool sound began to form, further exploring alt-genre territories and excavating the nooks and crannies between grunge, shoegaze and punk. "By the late 2010s, the garage rock scene felt a bit stale so we started bringing in some of our other influences. We naturally drifted towards the more melodic and powerful elements of heavy shoegaze,” says Hartman. 

Miller also brought his own influences to the table. "A lot of the riffs I tend to write are both a direct influence of current and past Denver bands," he explains, "as well as a history of listening to bands like the Dead Kennedys, Sonic Youth and DIIV as a more modern influence."

You can hear the rebrand's result when moonpool's single "Crystalline" drops on Friday, February 21, with the trio playing a show at Globe Hall the same night, opening for Cardinal Bloom and Neighborhood Watch. "Crystalline" serves as a teaser for the first moonpool EP, Nothing Sacred, which will drop on Friday, March 7. The single is a perfect introduction, too: Ominous yet shimmering sounds wash over listeners as Suny pours his heart into each lyric.
"‘Crystalline’ is one of those songs where the words came out before I really had time to think about what they meant," Suny says. "Looking at it now, the song deals with how grief and loss are transformative experiences. Some parts of the track feel melancholy and desperate, but always return to some form of acceptance and growth.

“The crystalline form of a material is often the purest form, or at least it had to go through some transmutation to reach that point. It feels thematic," Suny continues. "We don’t want the listener to feel like they’re being preached to. If anything resonates with them, then that’s great. Nothing is sacred unless you believe it to be, I suppose.”

While airing out existential questions and ideas with the upcoming EP, moonpool is a wholesome partnership at its core, offering a musical sanctuary amid the "uncertainty" of the world, as Miller puts it.

“At the end of the day, all we can do is lift each other up through music and shared community," he concludes. "I am excited to see how people receive moonpool, but am more excited to keep having fun making music with these fellas."

Cardinal Bloom, Neighborhood Watch, moonpool, 7 p.m. Friday, February 21, Globe Hall, 483 Logan Street. Tickets are $20 to $25.