Destiny Bond Is Shaping Denver's Hardcore Scene

Although she grew up in Wyoming, Cloe Madonna cut her teeth in the Denver hardcore scene. As a teenager, she’d regularly make the trip south to catch tours that skipped over her home state. And after graduating from high school, Madonna hit the road with her own bands and almost always stopped in Denver, where she recently relocated after living in Colorado Springs for the past six years.

Now, as lead vocalist of hardcore rioters Destiny Bond, Madonna, who is a trans woman, is one of the scene’s most visible and inspiring movers and shakers. She talks about the “renewed enthusiasm” surrounding Denver’s still-growing hardcore underground with the same passion that she shows when discussing those early days.

“It’s been really wild. It was pretty vibrant when I came down in those years, and maybe it felt bigger because I was younger, but definitely over the past couple years. Pre-pandemic was feeling exciting, and then now it feels like people have a desire for music from all angles,” she says. “Kids are making fliers and zines. Everybody’s back to cassettes and learning to screen-print. It feels really cool, because it feels like we’re going back to this older style of DIY punk. With Convulse [Records] and all the bands that we have going on right now, we saw on a recent southeast tour, there’s just this moment right now, nationally, even with young kids or 'Day 1s' [people who have been part of the scene for a while], where everyone is out and excited about it and wants to support it.”

Destiny Bond’s sound is rooted in those DIY heydays, particularly the sounds of genre originators like the Ramones, Black Flag and Dag Nasty. The band’s 2021 promo and 2022 demo are so fast that they end before the sonic shock has a chance to fully set in; the songs average around one minute in length. Destiny Bond is electric and merciless, in that sense, as Madonna commands the mic behind a vocal barrage akin to a howitzer. With an LP on the way, Madonna adds that there will be more “melodic” elements, “even though that sounds like a dirty word to use for a hardcore song.”

“I like to think of it as a collection to document that first two years we’ve been a band. There’s the stuff we started out with together and the stuff we’re working toward. Really, really hyped on that,” she says of the upcoming album. “We definitely still keep it on the fast and screaming side, literally. We just want to keep the urgency, but have a little bit of fun with it.”

And fun will be had when Destiny Bond plays the hi-dive on Friday, April 7, with Candy Apple, Zero Function, Crime Lab and Supreme Joy.

While the average age of the bandmembers is “thirty, probably,” Madonna and Co. take pride in their more veteran status and mentor-like role within the scene nowadays, which includes welcoming younger musicians and fans into what is quickly becoming a self-sustaining, inclusive subculture. Drummer Adam Croft is also the do-it-all founder behind local record label Convulse Records, while Croft and Madonna had played in bands together in Laramie, Wyoming.

“I don’t think I knew I could do it, and I also don’t think I knew that people would want me to do it,” says Madonna, who is 29. “It was always just purely passion. Now it’s a really bizarre and cool feeling to know that I’m part of the mix of cultivating a thing that a lot of people are really excited about.”

Destiny Bond’s overarching theme has always been about “community and inclusivity and motivation and doing stuff with yourself and the people around you,” she adds, before recalling a recent Destiny Bond show in Tennessee while lawmakers there were writing in bans on trans health care for children.

“I think it’s an important time to have that community, that collective, where kids can come to feel safe when they’re coming under attack from the people who are supposed to serve them,” Madonna explains. “Honestly, it’s just so exciting to see that these kids can feel comfortable to come and present themselves as fully as they want, and learn.”

Calling the current Denver scene “a massive melting pot of different influences and different vibes,” she likens it to former hardcore hot spots such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

“Everybody’s under the banner of hardcore and punk. It’s exactly what got me into hardcore, but it does feel more open. It’s a really cool moment,” Madonna adds.

A recent Show Me the Body show at the Gothic Theatre served as further proof that hardcore has further taken root in the city. Madonna called it “one of the biggest hardcore shows I’ve seen there in a decade.”

“We’re still the outcasts. We’re still on the outside of everything. We’re still doing everything our way. But now people want in; people want to know what it’s about. That’s the way to keep it new and fresh, keep kids and new voices coming in to help,” she adds. “We’re literally finding a way to hand these kids something that we might have had to take for ourselves.”

Destiny Bond, 8 p.m. Friday, April 7, hi-dive, 7 South Broadway. Tickets are $15-$18.