Backyard Hero: Jonny Barber

Tim Wenger | May 1, 2014 | 0 Comments

by Tim Wenger

Conceived in San Francisco during the Summer of Love. A title that, while there may be many alive who bear it, few have lived to the extent of Denver rocker Jonny Barber. Better known in some circles as The Velvet Elvis, others as that guy from Spiv, and yet other circles just as good ole’ Jonny the rockabilly musician-dude, Barber seems to be living the definition of the rocker’s life. His newest singles, “Go for the Moon” from Spiv and “The Barber, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker” from the Kofi Baker Trio, are out now. Barber made an appearance at Colorado Music Buzz’ April Industry Networking Party at Silo Sound Recording Studio and wooed us with endless stories and advice about touring, performing, and recording. We felt it was the least we could do to return the favor and share the story of a man who most certainly is one of Denver’s most eccentric characters.

“Elvis is the undisputable king of rock and roll,” says Barber with force, his eyes locked on mine, paralyzing me from any immediate reaction including a rebuttal (had I had one). In nearly a decade of performing as an Elvis impersonator in addition to fronting his own bands, Barber should know. But how did he get into doing this? Why, when I google his name, do I get links spanning nearly every genre of modern music with credits to his name?

“I got my start playing in church when I was probably about eight,” says Barber. “My biggest influence musically would be Johann Sebastian Bach. His pieces translate really well to six string guitar.”

His story reads like a living history of modern rock and roll. Barber grew up in Salt Lake City around the time that the punk rock scene exploded in the area (think SLC Punk) and that is where he first discovered the electric guitar. “Those guys owe me a royalty!” Barber says with a laugh. “A few of the characters in there were actually the older brothers of my friends. That was how I got turned on to punk. We were listening to Rush, Journey, and Foreigner. I just remember the older brothers hearing us listen to that prog rock and being like ‘Man, that’s not music!,’ and handed us our first Black Flag, 7 Seconds, Agent Orange and all that stuff.”

He played in some punk bands in the area, and due to the popularity of the style he played some of his most solid gigs in eighth and ninth grades. “We were playing school auditoriums for 2,500 kids,” says Barber. This time period solidified Barber’s love for punk rock and he has carried that raw, rebellious, self-reliant attitude with him ever since.

Following high school and his tenure in the SLC punk scene, Barber moved to Olympia, Washington to attend The Evergreen State College, right before the Seattle grunge scene took off. “I was a really accomplished guitar player at a really young age,” he says. “I spent so much time being able to play Van Halen’s “Eruption” on guitar, or Stevie Ray Vaughan. If you wanted to be a guitar player in the eighties, the bar was really high.” Barber was practicing in his dorm one day when he had an uninvited visitor. “I’m running these arpeggios and scales and this guy walks by my front window and he goes, ‘Oh man, you got it all wrong.’”

The guy threw a cassette in the window, the album Bleach from Nirvana. “It had just come out on Sub Pop,” says Barber. “He threw it to me and I’m like, ‘What’s this?’ I popped it in and I’m like, ‘Oh, hairbands are over!’” About a month later, Nirvana was playing in his dorm building.

Barber was fortunate enough to witness not only Nirvana but Beck, Eddie Vedder, Elliott Smith and others during their formative years in Olympia. “The amount of music and people coming through there, it was an insane period of time,” says Barber. “I ended up playing a show with Nirvana on the Evergreen campus in the library building. Kurt was a really negative, introverted guy. We couldn’t be more opposite. But I got to hang out and talk with them and some other bands. The Melvins were the band that everybody thought was going to be the big band.”

“I remember the day around Olympia when they said Kurt’s going to be on MTV,” Barber says. “Everybody gathered down at the East Side Tavern and sat around the bar. It was Riki Rachtman on there, it was the Headbanger’s Ball. He announced ‘This next band Nirvana. . .’ and some guy in the back of the bar goes ‘Man he still owes me money for dope!’”

Barber came to Colorado about twenty years ago, pulling out of the Pacific Northwest on a sad note; it was the same day that Mia Zapata (The Gits) was murdered. He started a warehouse rock space up in Summit County and played host to a multitude of well-known musicians, giving him the opportunity to play with (and sometimes hit the road with) them. “We did a tour with Hot Tuna,” says Barber. “We ran into all these musicians that were passing through Colorado and they’d just stop out at our house and jam and hang out.”

Cold weather drove Barber to Denver in the late nineties. He played his first gig here at the Lion’s Lair on East Colfax and fell in love with the city. “I remember when I first came Denver, I had an intuitive feeling that Denver is gonna have a big day in its way,” says Barber. “All these other cities have had their time, and Denver has never really had its time. This is going to be next.”

He formed a band called Spiv, which performed around the western United States and garnered some national attention with the songs “Songs to Sway to” and “Everybody’s a Rock Star Tonight.” The band has recently began recording again, following a break while Barber participated in numerous other projects.

He played lead guitar for a band called Mama during this hiatus. The Zeppelin-esque band came out of Barber’s desire to “make an album that I wanted to listen to.” “I didn’t care if anybody else liked it, I just wanted it to be something that when I turned it on, it rocked my face off.”

In 2004, Barber fell into a gig as an Elvis Impersonator, with the project coming to be known as The Velvet Elvis, because a fan once told him, “it’s not so much you look like Elvis as you do a painting of Elvis…” When looking at Barber, or at a picture of him, it seems very appropriate. “My hair was really long at the time,” says Barber. “I was at a friend’s studio. I turned around and she goes ‘Your profile is dead-on Elvis.’ Can you sing like him?’”

Barber sang to her and she was impressed, so he decided to see if he could make anything happen as an Elvis impersonator. “The way I got started was I cut my hair,” he says. “I got a pompadour going, and I thought, ‘I’m going to test it out. I’m going to dress up as Elvis and do random sightings all over Denver. I’m just going to show up, start rocking, and see if I get a reaction.’”

His first real reaction came on The King’s birthday, January 8, 2004, at Gunther Toody’s. “I go strolling in there right in the middle of lunch time with everybody sitting around and I just start rocking right in the middle of the floor, banging my guitar and shaking my hips,” he says. “About halfway through the song, I realize that over in the private party area there is this other Elvis impersonator already putting on a show. I basically walked into the middle of his show. I didn’t want to ruin the guy’s gig so I went over and started singing with him. He was so startled.”

He went and sang on the bus, at hair salons, down on the 16^th St. Mall, and anywhere else he could, collecting contacts which eventually led to paying gigs as an Elvis impersonator. Over the years the project has grown immensely. He got a band together, has toured around and has sung at Graceland, Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, MS, Europe, Vegas, and many other exciting places.

“Doing the Elvis led me to traditional rockabilly,” says Barber. He hooked up with a guy named Willie Lewis, founder of the Rock-a-Billy Record Company. Lewis helped Barber with making rockabilly records and Barber has since played guitar on many of Lewis’ records. Check out the music at rockabillywillie.com.

Recently, following a “death” of The Velvet Elvis (that was then followed by a resurrection), Barber has released a new single from Spiv, entitled “Go for the Moon.” He also released a single with another group he has been playing with, the KofiBaker Trio, called “The Barber, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker”, featuring Ginger Baker of Cream’s son Kofi on the drums. Listen for the tracks in rotation on Music Buzz LIVE Radio, Wednesdays from 6-8 pm on WorldViral.tv.

Barber is excited to continue recording as much music as possible and to be a part of Denver’s scene, enjoying the ‘mecca’ of music that we all hope it is becoming. He has also compiled fifteen songs written by various artists about Colfax Avenue and compiled them into a compilation cd. Learn more about this project at colfaxavenue.com. “If there was ever a time to get your poop in a group in Denver as a musician, it’s right now,” he says. “If there is one thing these music scenes have taught me, it’s that they don’t last. It’s not going to go on forever. All eyes are on Denver.”

Online: jonnybarber.com, thevelvetelvis.com, spiv.com