Ballyhoo!-Interview

Jenn Cohen | June 1, 2012 | 0 Comments

by Tim Wenger

photo: Claire Burkhardt

“This is mind blowing!” says Howi, Ballyhoo!’s energetic front man, about the band’s experience during the 311 Caribbean Cruise in May. “We’ve been playing with 311 for about four years now, just sporadically,” he says. “Their fans let them know they wanted us on the boat.” The four guys took a few minutes from their myriad of shows during the endless party that cruise turned into, to sit down with Colorado Music Buzz and talk about their upcoming plans and how stoked they are to be coming back to the Mile High City in a few short weeks.

Now that the cruise is over, the group is gearing up for summer and is signed up for the entire 2012 Vans Warped Tour, which will be stopping its summer-long party wagon at Sports Authority Field @ Mile High on June 17. “We’re looking forward to it, the whole experience,” he says, and they are particularly excited about the Denver show.

“Denver’s a great city and a great music town,” says Blaze, keys and tables extraordinaire for the band. “We were talking about it earlier, pretty much everybody goes through Denver, every major act. Geographically, it’s perfect.”

The band has been touring nationally for a while, and although they currently have label support, and are doing big things like Warped, they carried on the punk rock, DIY tradition, and jumped in head first when they first hit the road. “Basically in 2006, [we] set up a six-week tour, our first big tour ever, just to go out and see what it was all about,” says bassist JR.

Their most recent record, Daydreams, was released last fall on LAW Records, run by Yesod Williams of Pepper. Ballyhoo! is known for a lively party-time stage performance, but their records are worth checking out as well, perhaps because they get the opportunity to perfect them before anyone else can listen. “You get second chances in the studio,” says drummer Bid D. “When you get in that zone, you’re focused. You just lock yourself in there, and that’s what you do.”

“Day after day, you start hearing the layers piling up,” says Howi. “You start hearing the music you’ve been writing in that format, the songs we’ve been playing for a while live but never recorded, and you finally get that.” Lucky for us Denverites, we get to hear the tunes nice and raw on the 17^th. “Come to the Warped Tour and check us out!” says Blaze.

Online: ballyhoorocks.com

Tags: Tim Wenger, Colorado Music Buzz, blaze, ballyhoo!, 311, 311 caribbean cruise, vans warped tour, sports authority field @ Mile HIgh, jr, daydreams, law records, yesod williams pepper, Bid d