Courtesy Matthew Novak
Audio By Carbonatix
A lot has changed in the thirteen years since the Dirty Few boys officially got together. The party-rock three-piece were kings of the Denver bar circuit in the 2010s, regularly playing to packed rooms and rowdy audiences before a final farewell show in 2019. Lead singer Seth Stone, who currently plays in Colfax Speed Queen and Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille, recalls those simpler times, those “old Denver vibes,” as he reminisces about his former band’s beginnings in a city that’s gone except in memory.
“It was all house parties, rent was less than $300, we didn’t have a car, we used to bring my drums in a shopping cart to shows,” he remembers. “We didn’t care about the music-industry side of it at all. Those vibes.”
Wearing a cheetah-print button-up and dark sunglasses, Seth shakes his head as he looks back on all the debauchery that he, his twin brother, Spencer, and Justin Forrest evoked and endured during Dirty Few’s heyday. It was a time marked by a 2012 debut album, Get Loose, Have Fun!, and not giving a fuck. The earring hanging from his right lobe swings back and forth when he laughs as the trio recalls the shopping cart days.
“We’ve had multiple shopping carts in our lives,” says Seth, who still lives in Denver and continues to regularly book shows throughout the city.
Forrest chimes in that he still “has the shopping cart” in his backyard, the former Dirty Few headquarters. “The house that we all lived at was a block away from Safeway,” he explains.
“Yeah, people would leave them in our neighborhood all the time, so pretty much any day of the week, you could walk around and get you a shopping cart for free,” Seth adds.
Spencer, who moved back to the Stones’ hometown of Nashville not too long ago, tries to recall the shopping cart’s exact origin story, but to no avail. At this point, who really cares?
“I can’t remember exactly how that went down, but I think our ride fell through, and we just had a shopping cart in the backyard,” he says.
Like most Dirty Few stories, there is no real rhyme or reason behind it. Things just kind of happen, and the dudes always roll with it, never really thinking too much or too hard about anything. But that’s why the band epitomizes the carefree attitude of the local music scene of the time.
The brothers Stone spent years trying to break into the fast-and-loose rock circuit of Music City. When that didn’t quite work out, they moved to Denver in 2010 without any big-city musical aspirations or plans to start a new band.
“We just didn’t have jobs, and our lease was ending. Someone said we could crash on their couch in Denver, and we moved here with zero dollars,” Seth says.
“Zero dollars, a bike and a backpack,” Spencer adds.
Seth admits that they “gave up on music” at that point, even though they were still cool with bands back in Tennessee such as JEFF The Brotherhood, Turbo Fruits, Natural Child and Diarrhea Planet. “Nashville was rough for us when we were eighteen to twenty years old. We didn’t know what we were doing whatsoever. We moved here, didn’t even bring any of our music stuff, and just wanted to party. That’s how it started,” he says. “We didn’t know our sound yet. We had a band out there [in Nashville], and every song was different.”
Audiences in Denver were unaware of the garage punk that the group was about to unleash, however. “That’s when the whole Nashville scene exploded, so when we moved to Denver, we just wanted to mimic all the Nashville bands,” Spencer explains.
“We finally got in with all those people and started to go to all of those shows, right when we had already decided we were moving, so we just brought that with us and wanted to start doing that,” Seth adds. “We started throwing our own house parties, and from there it just spiraled. We started this band not caring about touring, not caring about anything. We just wanted to have a good time.”
Get Loose, Have Fun! proudly displayed Dirty Few’s rally cry with such songs as “I Wanna Party With You,” “Whiskey Business” and, of course, “Get Loose, Have Fun.” After its 2019 farewell show, the band got back together for a one-off in 2021. There were absolutely no plans to host a ten-year anniversary for Get Loose, Have Fun!, but that’s exactly what’s happening on Friday, June 16, at the hi-dive, which was the band’s home away from home for so many years. Local punk bands White Lightning Co. and the Sickly Hecks are also on the bill, while comedian Matt Cobos is the evening’s official host.
“Brian Beer [of Bud Bronson & the Good Timers] asked us to play a show with the old-school-lineup three-piece. I texted the boys, and it just happened to be the ten-year anniversary of us three recording our first record,” Spencer explains. That initial idea to play it last year fell through, so it’s technically an eleven-year anniversary, he adds, “but if Brian didn’t ask us to do it, we wouldn’t be doing it.”
The album isn’t the only reason to celebrate, anyway; the concert also happens on the twins’ birthday. “I haven’t been back to Denver in a while, so it’s like, ‘Let’s party about it, boys.’ Me and Seth are turning five,” Spencer jokes, “and our album is turning ten. It just worked out that we can have a little get-together about it. This show kind of just happened randomly, and I haven’t really thought about it.”
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Seth agrees, but the hi-dive show is “more about nostalgia and bringing back the old Denver vibes, for sure.” He’s also dedicating the night to late White Lightning Co. drummer and friend Alex Mixson.
“If anybody still cares about Dirty Few is the question,” he adds. “This band has gone through, I don’t know, six or seven different lineups. Me and Spencer started the band in 2010, so this would be the second lineup [with Forrest]. We’re going super old-school with it and playing all of our old songs. I don’t think we’re playing any of the new ones.”
The former Westword cover boys, Westword Music Showcase performers and multiple Best of Denver winners still don’t take themselves too seriously, but when they do take a minute to think about Dirty Few’s legacy in their adopted hometown, they admit the band made an impact in some ways.
“We showed Denver that this scene exists, and it happened organically. Party was number one, music was number two, dude,” says Spencer, who currently isn’t in a band – “ironically, in Music City.”
Forrest – who also plays in Denver post-punk bands Caspian, SOM, Memorydrip and My Body Sings Electric – joined Dirty Few back then out of necessity, but it worked out for all of them.
“I’ve been playing music in Denver my entire life, and there wasn’t a band like Dirty Few before these two moved here and I started seeing them play around,” he says. “Eventually they lived in my house, and eventually they didn’t have a bass player. Then it kind of spiraled out of control.”
While he’s playing in more serious bands nowadays, Dirty Few provided Forrest with “an easy way of just not taking things too seriously.” Or, as Seth says, it’s just “no pressure.”
“It doesn’t matter if you have a cracked cymbal or your guitar’s out of tune,” he adds. “There’s a lot of times with our other bass player – his cable would get pulled out all the time and he wouldn’t even notice, and no one really cared.”
The reunion-anniversary show will reflect that ethos, too. “I think if you watch the video for ‘You Want Me,’ it’ll look just like that,” Spencer says of the upcoming concert.
“It’ll look exactly like that,” Forrest agrees.
“We just want everyone to get loose, have fun and remember to party – or don’t,” Spencer says, referencing the band’s 2015 album, Party or Don’t.
Seth takes a sip from his Twisted Tea can.
“That’s right, baby. We’re just trying to drink Twisted Teas and goof and have fun. Literally just trying to get loose, have fun for this one,” he says. “We’ve been around a little bit. It’s our second rodeo.”
Dirty Few, 9 p.m. Friday, June 16, hi-dive, 7 South Broadway. Tickets are $18-$20.
