Courtesy Culture Bloom
Audio By Carbonatix
Jared Bakst and Jared Barnes are in their unofficial home base of Swadley Studios in Lakewood, mulling over the ethos of their new project, Culture Bloom. The group formed earlier this year, and and its debut EP, Aren’t You Proud?, will be released independently on Friday, October 20.
Culture Bloom started organically, as two friends messing around with some music that Bakst initially brought to the table. “I just reached out to Jared and said, ‘Hey, I got this new batch of songs,'” recalls Bakst, who moved to Denver from Florida in 2017 and frequented the local open-mic circuit as a singer-songwriter before teaming up with his fellow Jared to start the two-piece in March.
He and Barnes, who also plays in Denver bands Creek and Grather Way, knew each other from around town and were previously co-workers. “We listen to a lot of similar stuff,” Bakst explains, adding that Barnes brings a “heavier side” to Culture Bloom while he sees himself as more of the “alternative singer-songwriter side.
“I don’t know what it’s going to turn into or anything, but I think that’s what this whole project is for me – just see what happens, not having any gimmicks about it, but just writing and doing stuff that we like,” he continues.
The duo initially workshopped a song called “Orange Cinnamon,” a Bakst original that was released as a single in May, before collaborating on the new tunes that would eventually become the five-track EP. (The title, Aren’t You Proud?, was inspired by the abandoned Royal Palace Motel on Colorado Boulevard, which serves as the album’s cover art and displays the line as a graffiti-like tag.)
“I feel like we’ve found a cool formula that worked,” Bakst says of the EP. “I think this was a good starting point for us to try and find our sound.”
The two describe their style as “nostalgic indie rock” that’s equally melancholy and melodic – or “familiar,” as Bakst calls it. He says that it’s “good, but I’m hoping that we can find our own sound.”
Barnes, the owner and founder of Swadley Studios, consciously maintained a “through-line” on Culture Bloom’s first offering, particularly in Bakst’s acoustic guitar licks, while interspersing his own guitar, bass, drums and vocals across the tracks. His band Creek also played on the song “Waiting Room” (no, it’s not a Fugazi cover).
“Neither of us have major expectations of what we’re looking for out of it,” Barnes shares. As a producer, he says, it’s “really easy to go along to get along,” but that’s not the case with Culture Bloom. He points to “Waiting Room” as a good example of the pair’s process. Barnes felt that the song “needed drums,” but after tracking them, it was clear that the percussive addition “was not it,” he recalls.
“We were both so willing to let the songs be what they needed to be,” he explains.
Bakst says the lyrics for “Waiting Room” were influenced by spending a lot of time in hospitals for his previous job in the medical-devices field. “A hospital is a weird place to be for extended periods of time,” he says. “I was constantly looking out the window and seeing all these people coming in and going through hardships.”
The brooding tune captures what was going through his mind while “sitting around in hospitals all day,” he explains. “I used the band to feel better.”
Pulling from Midwest emo acts such as Into It. Over It. and Foxing, Culture Bloom prefers a more DIY punk approach over building a brand. But Bakst has plans for Culture Bloom to become “a full, collaborative band” by its “next iteration.”
“I kept saying this word ‘culture.’ I got really into the old ’90s Taylor Steele surf movies. The culture of having a group of people together would be sick,” he explains. “I want to bring in a bunch of people and add something more that’s not just me. I think we were able to do that when I came to Jared with it. I’d like to bring in more people – hopefully more Jareds – and get a real, cohesive band together.”
Without any upcoming shows scheduled or a burgeoning social media presence, Culture Bloom has been busy doing just that by focusing on forging relationships through Barnes’s musical social network and studio. The band also released a homemade music video to accompany the EP’s debut single, “Nightmare,” on September 29.
“I want us to get back into the same room together and be more of a community,” says Bakst. “No one’s waiting for this EP, so it’s more like, ‘Let’s just put out songs and then people will know.'”
“We’re already getting other people involved and excited,” Barnes concludes. “Music is all about connections and connecting with other people. That’s all I can ever ask for.”
Aren’t You Proud? will be available on all streaming platforms October 20.
