The Rise and Fall of DORK

Donovan Welsh considers playing just before punk legends NOFX on the main stage at the Vans Warped Tour in 2005 or 2006 – he can’t remember the exact year – to be the highlight of his time with Denver pop punk outfit DORK.

The low point, of course, was when the band, which had since evolved into Animo, disintegrated in a most acrimonious manner in the parking lot of an Arvada Red Robin about five years later.

“I’ve always heard the term, ‘You’ll be the biggest band in the world as long as three things don’t get in the way: drugs, alcohol, money and women,” Welsh says. “We broke up over all three, and we barely had any.”



For the record, Welsh, the bassist in the band, says DORK always played sober, because they weren’t talented enough to pull it off drunk. It was kind of a rule.

Welsh says the level at which band members have reconciled varies widely, from somewhat to not at all. He’s also tried to accept the role he played in the band’s untimely demise. It can be difficult under any circumstances for a group of men in their twenties to get along, and DORK was no exception. But one other member has been ready to get the band back together: singer Brian Knoble. Welsh and Knoble, with some new musicians, will reunite at Maris the Great’s Halloween show on Friday, October 28.

Welsh says the partially reconstituted DORK has been practicing and has nailed down a forty-minute set that includes, among other oddball antics, an homage to Top Gun called “Top DORK.” There’s more, but he wants it to be a surprise.

“We are going to play some covers,” Welsh says. “We’re going to play our originals. Our show has always been funny and entertaining. Brian and I do well together with jokes.”

The plan currently is one more for old times' sake, but future shows remain a faint possibility. He’s looking forward to the gig, because it’s for fun. The business aspects of being in a band, he says, can go to hell.

“Enjoy music for music’s sake,” he says. “Not be like, ‘What’s the next gig? Who do I need to meet after the show? Who do I need to network with?' None of that’s there. I’ve never experienced that.”

In its heyday, DORK played a style of pop punk that lived somewhere in the neighborhood of Dude Ranch-era Blink-182 and bands on the Lookout Records roster. Welsh calls it "Blink-183." On a somewhat related note, Welsh says he was afforded the opportunity to work as a bodyguard for the strippers that Blink-182 brought to perform during its set during one Warped Tour. This was prior to his stint in DORK, but a pleasant memory nonetheless.

The massive pop punk explosion in the early 2000s helped propel the band into its quick success, he says, adding that the rapid rise of bubblegum punk bands such as Fallout Boy sent kids scrambling to buy any and every CD that might sound even remotely like it.

“I think our genre of music is basically the Beach Boys, but fifty times sped up,” he says. “It’s different, but it’s the same shit. It’s all southern California. We didn’t have a hardcore edge of any kind, and we didn’t pretend to.”

As the self-professed least-talented member of the group, he never considered himself a musician, and only took up guitar at the behest of a psychiatrist who felt it wise for Welsh to pick up a hobby. He’s amazed at what the band accomplished in such a short time, and the people they met along the way. Welsh says Arturo Vega, the graphic designer behind the iconic Ramones logo, made one for DORK, and Welsh considered him a mentor of sorts.

Welsh ensconced himself in the music business, and some of the knowledge he picked up has served him well in subsequent years. As bad as it ended, Welsh, who has sobered up (mostly) and now runs his family’s auto parts business in Denver, enjoyed his moment in the spotlight. The band also had quite the prolific output – Welsh says they tried to have new music for every Warped Tour – some of which is now available on Spotify. But there are some songs that Welsh hopes no one ever hears again, because it’s “embarrassing as fuck” in hindsight.

“Looking back, we were extremely successful for what most bands deal with,” he says. “I got to live a life for a minuscule part of time that 98 percent of the world wishes they could. Being on a tour bus once was fucking cool.”

DORK, Friday, October 28, 8 p.m., The Venue, 1451 Cortez Street. Tickets are $20.