BandWagon Magazine ~ February 2024 ~ Danno Simpson

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PG.18

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CASPER ALLEN

MUSIC review

PG.6

heartsick herione

BANDWAGMAG.COM Publisher

ELY CORLISS

art director

CARTER KERNS

Editor

BANDWAGON STAFF

CONTRIBUTORS

GABE ALLEN NATE WILDE LANDON UNGERMAN

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Heartsick Heroine GEMINI

Nate Wilde

BandWagon Magazine

Historically, progressive rock and metal have been genres primarily reserved, or perhaps almost exclusively enjoyed, by a largely male demographic.

However, with their latest release, the female-led Heartsick Heroine not only smashes the stereotypes of progressive metal being a boys’ club, but they do it with a roaring ferocity.

Heartsick Heroine is the brainchild of husband and wife duo Allen and Hannah Maddox; a project that first took shape in 2019 after picking up the pieces following the breakup of their previous band, Scarlet Canary.

The band’s second full-length studio album, Gemini, was released on January 16, 2024, effectively setting the pace for the new year on a high, and loud, note.

Gemini starts off with the heavy and catchy prog metal anthem Kiss the Ring, showcasing each member’s impressive skills right off the bat. The track features intricate, disjointed guitar passages from Allen supplemented with intense double-kicks courtesy of drummer John DiGeronimo.

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At the forefront are the powerful, massive vocals from Hannah which showcase an incredibly wide range both in pitch and intensity. The singer’s voice can go from a delicate, melodic style to an all-out scream in an instant.

The album’s first single, Baseline, truly shows just how much Heartsick Heroine can rock.

Hannah’s vocals are reminiscent of staples of female-fronted rock bands such as Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale and Dorothy, with choruses of ‘whoas’ to add to the catchiness.

While the band technically formed in Denver back in 2019, the couple have since relocated to Minnesota. However, before heading out of town, they made sure to record a music video for Baseline featuring footage from five different concerts that took place in venues such as The Moxi Theater, Wild Goose Saloon, The Black Buzzard, as well as the last show they played in the Centennial State.

One of the album’s more sensitive moments is the emotional ballad Heavy Hearts, a track that somehow manages to be light and heavy at the same time. Pain can be felt in Hannah’s vocals as the track builds to a final climax, after which the chorus lingers in the listener’s head.

The album appropriately feels like a marriage between Allen’s progressive metal guitar stylings and Hannah’s rocking, powerful vocals with tastes of heavy staccato riffs similar to what you might find on a Disturbed album.

While the aforementioned prog influences can be heard throughout much of Gemini, some tracks like Dysmorphic Flower, the album’s second single, incorporate more of a straightforward hard rock vibe.

Prior to recording and releasing Gemini, Heartsick Heroine had already amassed quite the impressive list of acts that they opened for including Puddle of Mudd, Saliva, and Skillet, to name a few.

Despite being geographically apart from the rest of their bandmates, the Maddox couple assures fans that they plan to return to Colorado from time to time to play shows and if Gemini is any indication of how the shows are going to sound, you can rest assured that they will be hard rocking and fun times.

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THE LEGEND OF

COLORADO’S RISING OUTLAW COUNTRY STAR HAD TO CONFRONT HIS DEMONS BEFORE WE COULD HEAR HIS MUSIC 12 12

BY GABE ALLEN

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s Danno Simpson sat in the intake room of the Larimer County Jail sobering up, he tried to piece together the disjointed fragments of the night before. He remembered getting angry, swinging his fists and getting shoved into the back of a cop car. One thing was clear: he had been arrested.

With each move, Simpson was forced to start fresh — a new school and new friends. But, music was always there to keep him company. First Bob Dylan, then Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, then Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clarke. Every time he found himself friendless in a new town, his guitar was there waiting.

At this moment, two things occurred to Simpson. First, he had to quit drinking.

No more booze. Second, he had nowhere to go but up. So, why not try something crazy? Something he had dreamed about since he was 10 years old? Why not try to play music for a living?

“I would lean on it when we moved to deal with the social adjustment,” Simpson said. “Music has always been the one thing I could sit and hyper focus on for like six hours at a time.”

“I sort of had this come to Jesus moment where I was like, ‘man, I’ve fucked my life up really bad and I might as well do exactly what I want to do,’” Simpson said.

At this point, Simpson became a self-proclaimed “scenester” of the Fort Collins DIY punk scene. He was at every show and friends with all of the bands, but his own music was reserved for the beaten up acoustic guitar in the backroom of an afterparty.

A few years, a couple hundred gigs and countless nights in the back of his truck later, Simpson is on the way to his dream.

He is quickly becoming the leading voice of the Americana scene in Colorado. His song Honest Work, which was recorded in a cramped apartment bathroom, has more than a million plays on Spotify.

Last summer he shared a festival bill with Wilco, Old Crow Medicine Show and the Steel Woods, the last of which he then went on tour with. This February he will take the stage at Oskar Blues Colorado Springs on the 16th, and at The Moxi Theater in Greeley on the 17th for two nights of honest, gritty music.

For a 26-year-old kid that was booking all of his own gigs until about six months ago, it all still feels a bit surreal.

“I’ve gotten a chance to see all my heroes in real life,” he said. “It’s been crazy.”

The seeds of Simpson’s passion for music were planted early. His childhood was a happy one, but it was by no means conventional. His Dad was an ex-professional wrestler and serial entrepreneur who kept the family moving in pursuit of new business ventures. When he was a kid, they moved back and forth between Texas and Georgia twice before landing in Colorado, where his Dad hoped to start a cannabis farm.

“I tried to write punk music and my buddies all laughed at me,” he said. “They were like, ‘dude, those are country songs.’”

The same songs that never quite fit into the punk scene found an ear elsewhere.

The year after his arrest, Simpson recorded an EP of original Americana tunes in his bathroom and put them on streaming services during the height of the pandemic. The songs spoke for themselves, and Honest Work began to slowly amass streams from country fans.

A few months later, he played his first open mic at the Swing Station, a rustic venue just outside Fort Collins in Laporte.

After he finished his set, a talent buyer for a country bar way up the Poudre Canyon approached him and offered him a gig.

“I realized I could make 100 bucks just playing guitar,” Simpson said. “It was this weird meeting point of opportunity and necessity. I just ran with it.”

Within months, Simpson was able to leave behind the hard-labor jobs that had put food on the table since his run-in with the law. He threw a sleeping bag in the back of his truck and became his own tour manager. Over the past two years,

the young singer/songwriter has covered a lot of ground in Colorado, Texas and everywhere in between.

Wherever he goes, Simpson’s music has a way of drawing people in. From afar, the songs sound like standard, though beautifully sung, Americana fare. But Simpson’s true talent is his lyricism. The stories he tells are clever (but not too clever), emotional and, above all, full of vivid, human characters.

In Pearly Gates, Simpson dedicates a verse each to three people that passed.

One for a father that drank himself to death, one to a friend that took a bullet to the chest in a bank heist and one to an ex that was consumed by a meth addiction.

These aren’t the vague caricatures of humans that are found in lesser songwriter’s stories, these are affectionate, emotionally-wrought portraits of people struggling to get by in the modern West. By the time the chorus rolls around, Simpson offers some wry advice.

“And if you find yourself at them pearly gates, you oughta lie through your teeth not to seal your fate,” The characters in Pearly Gates and Simpson’s other songs aren’t entirely real (Simpson’s dad is alive for one), but they aren’t entirely fictional either. They are pieces of himself and pieces of the people he’s known. And they all have something in common, they’re all down on their luck and close to giving up.

When I asked him why this was, he invoked something Townes Van Zandt once told a reporter who asked him why all of his songs are sad: ”They’re not all sad, some of them are hopeless,” Van Zandt said. Those songs, the hopeless ones, were the ones that stuck in Simpson’s head when he was a lonely kid in a new town. They’re the ones that he leaned on when he was getting sober.

And they’re the type of songs that, after having been through all of that, he’s eager to share with the world.

“Letting hopeless people know they’re not alone is a way of giving them hope,” he said.

CATCH DANNO SIMPSON LIVE AT OSKAR BLUES COLORADO SPRINGS ON 2/16 AND AT THE MOXI THEATER IN GREELEY ON 2/17. TICKETS AVAILABLE AT BANDWAGONPRESENTS.COM 13 13

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CASPER ALLEN THE HONESTY OF A BROKEN VOICE

BY LANDON UNGERMAN

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n the ink-stained tapestry of Casper Allen's life, the meanings behind his tattoos, even the regretful ones, serve as a vivid narrative of his crazy journey. "I like that the not-so-good tats are there because they remind me of where I've been, and my favorite ones, my wife's name and mom's name, remind me of where I'm at now," Casper reflects. The Colorado-based singer-songwriter has a story to tell– one of addiction and destruction and the healing that followed, and he’s narrating it with guitar strums and rugged vocals.

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The tale begins with a childhood immersed in the rhythm of West Texas, a place steeped in the legacy of rock and roll. "I started playing guitar with my Papa," Casper shares, reminiscing on the summer spent playing church songs with his grandpa. He recalls the pivotal moment when his papa handed him his first guitar—a humble piece-ofcrap toy that would become the vessel for his musical passion.

Starting with the echoes of his grandfather’s affinity for artists like Buddy Holly, Casper's introduction to music unfolded through an eclectic mix of genres. From Elvis’ Love Songs record to the Beatles, his family's record collection became a treasure trove of inspiration. "I loved music from artists that people my age had no idea about from as far back as I can remember," he muses. The grit of Texas’ emerging hip-hop and punk scenes during Caspers highschool days rounded out his palette and shaped pieces of his artistry that he’s carried with him ever since.

The road to Denver, where Casper currently calls home, was a rocky one.

Before finding solace in the Mile High City, he was consumed by addiction.

"Before COVID, I was touring 200-250 days a year," he confesses. "I relapsed hard once quarantine hit. I burned every bridge that I came to. I gave up on music. I smashed my guitar, I broke a piano.

I hung it all up."

Around the same time, he made a trip out to Denver for a funeral, where he found not only refuge but also love.

"Faith, sobriety, fatherhood, and a partnership with my wife have become big, rewarding parts of my life," he reflects, a

testament to the ongoing pursuit of being a better person for everyone around him. For Casper, the past couple years have been a journey of making amends to friends and fans alike, and he’s been able to do that on tour.

As the curtain of honesty rises, Casper's perspective on performance undergoes a profound shift. "A big part of my fan-base struggles with substances currently or they're recovering," he acknowledges. This realization prompts him to approach his art with newfound sincerity, breaking down the barrier between performer and audience. "It's nice to come at it from an angle of honesty this time," he adds, emphasizing the importance of being a person to the audience, not some glorified, untouchable creature on a stage. “​​ I’m spending a lot of time trying to be of service to others, when in the past I’ve been an over-indulgent, self-serving person.”

Music becomes the anchor in Casper's journey to sobriety. "When I'm playing music, I'm a better father, husband, and friend," he confesses. From the memories of that first toy guitar, to the angst of the one he destroyed, every strum and pluck now serve as a lifeline, keeping him grounded in moments of vulnerability.

corded old-school," he shares. The raw, grainy, and low-fidelity sound harks back to the days when he recorded songs on a 4-track tape recorder in high school. When asked about what inspired his rough, powerful vocal delivery, he replied, “There’s a saying that goes, ‘You can’t play the blues on a guitar that’s never been pawned.’ I kinda feel that way about my voice. I took the beatings in life, and when I came back to singing, my voice was what it was.”

Casper Allen has ambitious plans for this year. On February 26th, a fulllength album titled Short Stories comes out, followed by 2 EPs and another album later in the year. The styles range from electric blues to honky-tonk, with every release transcending sonic and emotional boundaries.

As the story of Casper Allen unfolds, it becomes clear that his journey is not just about music—it's a testament to resilience, redemption, and the transformative power of art. In the echoes of his melodies and the tales etched in ink, Casper Allen finds his voice, inviting listeners to join him in recovery through music.

“My life falls to pieces whenever I put down a guitar and pickup a crack-pipe.

I don’t want to stray from music again.”

His latest single, 77/64/83 (For Elisabeth), is a testament to the sanctuary he’s found in his rock, Elisabeth, telling a love story through the three cars they’ve purchased in their time together, one of which having blown up on Colfax after selling it. His next single, Pawn Shop Hero, set to release on February 5th, is about how Casper lost his favorite gun and guitar at the pawn shop.

In a nod to the old-school, Casper's recording approach embraces lo-fi aesthetics. "It's all run through tape, re-

CATCH CASPER ALLEN LIVE AT THE BLACK BUZZARD IN DENVER ON 2-1 AND AT OSKAR BLUES COLORADO SPRINGS ON 2-2. TICKETS AVAILABLE AT BANDWAGONPRESENTS.COM 19

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BANDWAGON PHOTO OF THE MONTH | PHOTO BY: ANDREW ORTEGA CHARLEY CROCKETT | THE MISSION BALLROOM - DENVER | 1/19/24

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