photo by Gutter Mouth Photography "There's no reason for us to play this show tonight," David Herrera, lead singer of The Color Of Money, admits frankly. "No one's going to be here, we're not going to make any money...but the reason we're playing is because we want to play. It's a chance to play."
And though the room before them echoes more than it moves, they take that chance to play and play it hard. Herrera plays it hard enough to break a sweat by the second song, Miguel on drums plays it with an unrelenting exhilarated grin, they all play it with a brazen, blazing energy that seems to know what is ahead of them.
After an unlikely first place in an online weekly music competition and on the edge of change, The Color Of Money talks to The Overcast.
The Overcast: How did you guys meet?
David: We were all in different bands in Greeley. We laugh because all those projects collectively sounded like crap. But, these guys were involved in the scene and we met, so we wanted to form a brand new band.
How would you describe your music to someone who's never heard it before?
Aaron: Psychedelic dance rock. That's how we heard it once.
David: Psychedelic dance rock??? I would say...indie...post-punk...modern rock...with jazz, Latin, funk...
The Colorado scene is pretty Denver-centric, so what is it like being a band outside of the metro area, in Greeley?
Spear: It's kind of hard. We're gonna rep Greeley until we die, we love Greeley, but as far as like, branching out to other cities it's really hard because...
Aaron: ...people hear "Greeley," and, there's not really a real positive name out there for Greeley. There's not a scene there really.
Spear: There's not as many people who come to shows, there's not as many venues to play.
Oliver: It's just kind of frustrating.
Honestly, being a mostly-Mexican band, do you ever run into certain expectations? What kind of reactions do you get?
Aaron: They keep asking us to load in their stuff. They give us tips occasionally too, which helps.
David: If anything, I think it's a factor that actually helps. I think every band needs something that separates them. What really sticks out, honestly, is not the Mexican thing, it's the white guy thing. It's three Mexicans and then this white guy.
There's definitely some Latin influence in your music.
Aaron: Since we're all Mexicans (except for Spear but he's honorary), that's just what we represent. That's just something that was important to us, so we put it into our music and into Spanish lyrics and stuff.
Oliver: See, for me, I grew up listening to a lot of stuff that my dad would listen to, a lot of Latin, jazz, a lot of soul. So I think that's part of where I grabbed drum grooves from and I kind of take it back to that. The Latin flair.
You recently qualified for quarterfinals on a MusicNation.com, putting you closer to compete for a development deal with Epic Records. What are your reactions? What does that mean for you guys?
Spear: It's really...exciting. I don't know exactly what the word to say it is. I'm in shock I guess.
Oliver: That is a good word.
David: It's actually really huge. We're taking the quarterfinals of Music Nation very seriously. We're still chewing on all of this stuff right now, but we're really looking to push that and really take advantage of being blessed by that opportunity. We actually had a lot of people voting in California and Florida and...that makes no sense. And to win Week One with no music video and mainly demo recordings, and you can't even fake accounts on Music Nation...
Aaron: Definitely a shock.
Where did the concept behind the Love/Hate EP come from? Is Amanda a real girl?
David: Well, Amanda is a real girl, but the whole situation is based off of just the song "Brecken McGraw." I already wrote the chorus and I just started thinking about this girl Amanda I used to date who I loved in eighth grade, and all of a sudden she was a cool kid in ninth grade. As far as the concept of Love/Hate, we didn't sit down, and say, "Let's write a concept album!" We already had these songs, and it was like, "How can we make these songs into a concept album?"
What exactly happened when your then-bassist Matt left the band in March?
Aaron: I guess it was just kind of a conflict of interests.
David: When it comes down to it, we all had one set of goals and he had another, and he was just not about being controlled. He basically came and said we were stealing all his ideas, we were holding him back, and quit the band. It was hard for me because he's been a good friend for a long time, but he's been so weird lately anyways...it's just a weird thing.
After he left, Spear (then on keys) took over bass. How has this affected your band and your sound?
David: The whole time, we all really wanted Spear to be our bass player because he plays bass really well. When Matt decided to opt out, it wasn't like, "Oh no, what are we going to do?" It was like, "Well, you can play bass now, we'll just figure out how to do the keyboard stuff." But Matt's influence to the band was a prevalent hip-hop type of feel. So when we started playing some of those old songs, it was actually really different. There's some songs that we ended up getting rid of, and we started writing like crazy.
Aaron: It's a different band.
Spear: We sound a lot different. But also because of some of that we're making more new friends. It's just a matter of time.
How'd you decide to do the Dance Robot Dance remix album?
Spear: No one in the Greeley scene that we knew of was really doing remix albums, so that was like a fun thing to do. It was really fun and it helped us expound our musical abilities.
Oliver: It was just fun to take songs that we've already done and try to morph them into something else.
David: We were joking about maybe putting a couple of remixes on the end of Love/Hate, but then we went with the concept album idea. As soon as we had time, in one night we recorded all of it. And to be honest, I really liked this project a lot more than Love/Hate.
Aaron: It was a lot more natural.
Spear: It was a good bonding time for just the four-piece.
So, what does get you to do it? What makes it worth it to play in a band?
David: I get a rush when I'm singing to music in the shower. When it's for a live band... It's a hobby and it's an addiction at the same time. I think every one of these guys, whether it's with this band or on a side project or at a worship band in the church or backing up some acoustic project in the future or anything, will always be doing something with music, because it's a passion, it's a love.
Oliver: It's also a lifestyle. And it's kind of like a high--but a good high, not high where you want to fight people. But just like people will want their adrenaline rush and they'll go jumping, this is my adrenaline rush. And every time I get up, even if it's for, like, five people, it's always fun to play, no matter what, especially with these guys.
Spear: And I'm sure everybody has had it happen to them where you listen to a certain band and somehow or another they change your life or it helps you, and I would like to be able to do that to someone else too. Music gets people through a lot of weird stuff and whether you know it or not, the music will be affecting someone. And not only that, but it's one thing I'm good at and love to do. I couldn't see myself doing anything else really.
Aaron: I think I view it as, your purpose is what you love to do and what you're good at, and so for us it just makes sense. We all grew up just playing something or doing that anyway. That's just something we all know, that's what we all love to do, that we're good at it, if there's anything we can say that we're good at.
What's coming up for the band?
Spear: New recordings. We just got the van, so that's exciting, we can play shows...
David: Yeah, a lot of flexibility to do shows outside of Greeley, and even possible little weekend stints to different places. I think a big priority is just to get into a studio and record.
Were you guys talking about a new music video?
David: What we want to do is really get our foot in the competition for the Music Nation quarterfinals, 'cause a big thing that will help is having music videos. We threw out a few ideas. The song "Juan Shot," there's a basic concept for that. The one we were really talking about is doing a video for "Siamese," but that would really require some serious video editing, so that's something we're still talking about.
Anything else you'd like to say?
Oliver: Vote, vote, vote at MusicNation.com.
Aaron: It starts again in August for us.
David: Really, really awesome opportunity, even if we come in second.
Aaron: Vote, please. We appreciate it.