Over the past three years, the subgenre’s revival around the city has become impossible to ignore whether you’re a fan or not, leaking into surrounding areas and beyond at this point. New bands seem to be appearing on stacked local bills every other week, while those who are plugged in tirelessly champion the still somewhat-unknown phenomena.
Hunter Bates points to the pandemic as the nascent calm before the storm. “I feel like everyone locked away and started writing and forming new projects,” he says. “The second everything opened back up, all of these new bands and communities of people were popping up, whether they’re moving here or were teenagers who started a band. It’s really cool to see.”
Bates, who plays bass for blues-rock group Shady Oaks, co-founded independent label Mean World Records in September 2023 in an effort to build the scene he’s so passionate about. Since then, he’s shared music from local new-wave darlings Tiny Tomboy and Tarantula Bill, among others.
He’s quick to talk about all the bands he’s digging, especially budding acts. Most recently, Bates and Mean World teamed up with Blackberry Crush, a swooning shoegaze trio that’s readying to drop a new EP, My Own Backyard, on October 4 by first sharing the single “With/Without,” which comes out Friday, August 15. “I’m just trying to put out good music. Genre doesn’t really matter,” Bates says.
For the record, “emo" is more of an umbrella term for this popular type of alternative rock and its many related subgenres — shoegaze, pop-punk, screamo, Midwest emo, indie, etc. But let’s not get lost in minutiae here (looking at you, edgelord gatekeepers). The fact of the matter is that there is a groundswell of groups grinding it out, DIY-style, regularly putting on shows in the city’s glut of mid-sized venues, and making it happen by themselves for themselves, and ultimately, the close-knit community they’ve spun.
For example, after playing Larimer Lounge’s Southwest Emo Fest last year with his band A Place for Owls, Ben Sooy got to thinking. “I was like, ‘Shit, we got so many really good emo and emo-adjacent bands in Denver and the Front Range, we can just do our own thing,’” he explains.
Why not showcase all the local flavors in one place?
Now that will happen at the first-ever Denver Emo Fest, set for Saturday, August 16, at the Marquis Theater. The lineup is a twelve-pack of the latest and greatest native acts right now: In no particular order, A Place for Owls, Blackberry Crush, Flower Head, Creek, lobsterfight, Years Down, the Losers Club, EDITH, Adolla, POST/WAR, Buddy Bench, and Oh, Drifter are all set to take the stage.
“We tried to book a diverse set of bands,” Sooy says.
Blackberry Crush is one of the local acts that will be playing at Marquis Theater on Saturday, August 16.
Courtesy Mean World Records
Mission accomplished. The Losers Club is zany pop-punk that always keeps it fresh and a little weird. Oh, Drifter is a close running mate, at least musically. Denver duo Buddy Bench is more of a throwback to MySpace-era emo, similar to Sooy’s folksy A Place for Owls. Creek is having a moment, as the local grungegaze group spent part of the summer touring the East Coast and now has over 12,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Then there’s lobsterfight (25,000 monthly listeners), which is bringing its jangly, indie-emo up from Pueblo.
“It is so niche and somewhat fragmented. There’s a good screamo scene and metalcore scene, but there’s not really a rallying place for a bunch of different alternative subgenres to come together,” Sooy explains. “And emo is probably historically the most accessible subgenre in that punk-hardcore world. It’s called Emo Fest, but really, we hope it’s a good representation of the really good alternative music that’s in the state.”
For some, Emo Fest will be the first opportunity to play the Marquis, too. “The Marquis is iconic and classic,” Sooy says. “I’ve seen so many tremendous shows in our genre there, so it feels really special to be at the Marquis downtown.”
That’s a big deal, especially since the show is all-ages. “A lot of times bands don’t even get discovered by people who are the same age as them because they’re always playing 21-plus shows,” Bates explains. “So this is very accessible for everyone.”
Sooy agrees, while showering Bates and Mean World with praise. “They’re the best of folks that I know in the scene. I’m so stoked that Mean World is kind of becoming a Denver institution. Every band that’s on that label I really, really love and respect. What I love about Hunter and the whole crew at Mean World is they’re in it for the right reasons and they’re super supportive of other bands,” he says. “That is my philosophy as well, and hopefully together over the long haul we can make Denver one of the best places in the country to start a band.”
National acts such as the Lumineers and Nathanial Rateliff & the Night Sweats have put Denver on the map in their respective genres, and as Sooy sees it, emo has the breakout potential to be the next big thing from here. “There are tremendous things happening in folk and roots rock, but can our city be known as a music city for all these genres?” he asks.
That's a fair question, and one without a definite answer at the moment. But if all goes well, Sooy isn’t opposed to putting in the work and making Emo Fest a more regular, or at least annual, occurrence.
“The hope is that this is the first year out of many years that it becomes an institution,” he shares. “We need more opportunities to show off what a good and robust and beautiful scene we have, and we’re trying to do that with this.
“It’s just building a real robust community of fans that can help some of these super DIY, obscure bands become bigger,” Sooy continues. “The hope is that by booking all local bands that we can rally together to where our fans cross-pollinate, the different sub-scenes cross-pollinate and it can be a benefit to all the bands that are playing.”
The foundation for that is already in place; now it’s time to continue with the framing.
“It’s the freedom to build community like that, where you can put together a show where the bands are all a little bit different,” Bates adds. “It’s cool to just be able to do that as a community and come together and be like, ‘What if we all just put together a show at a big venue so we can all play together?’”
That’s really what it’s all about. There’s no detrimental cliquishness that intimidates musicians or their fans from being a part of what’s going on. A rising tide lifts all boats. Or in this case, a sold-out show stokes all bands.
“More than if it becomes an annual thing, I think it just helps the scene grow a lot,” Bates says. “There are so many different bands all bringing their friends and fans, and all of those people are discovering new bands that they’re going to go see and buy merch from and support. It really creates a much better community for local music.
“Even if you’re going for one band," he adds, "you’re seeing twelve, so you’re probably going to end up liking at least half of them after the show."
From a fan’s perspective, isn’t that one of the best things about going to a concert where you aren’t familiar with all the bands? Getting turned on to your new favorite artist or seeing a group before it blows up and telling everyone about it? That’s how movements happen, after all.
If you’re still on the fence about checking out Emo Fest, Sooy has a simple pitch: “If you like slam-dancing and emotional music and yelling lyrics and smiling and hugging and crying then you should probably come to this.”
Emo Fest, 1 p.m. Saturday, August 16, Marquis Theater, 2009 Larimer Street; tickets are $48.
