Elway Will Play a Rare Local Show at the Squire Lounge This Week

While it has no connection to John Elway, the punk-rock band Elway was once sued by the local football hero, who wanted to block the use of his name. But it’s never advisable to tell a bunch of punks they can’t do something, and the band has been doing what it wants for nearly two decades now.

The boys are back in town this month to record a new album and play a show at the Squire Lounge on Friday, August 16, and Elway fans should take note: This concert will not only showcase new music, but it could be the band’s only local performance in 2024, according to lead singer and songwriter Tim Browne. “We figured everyone is going to be out here, doing rehearsals and pre-recordings through the fall, so let’s do a show,” he explains.

Originally based in Fort Collins, the bandmembers are now spread around the country, with Browne in Denver, guitarist Brian Van Proyen in Johnstown, bassist Joe Henderer in Chicago and drummer Bill Orender in Philadelphia. The group also no longer does nearly 200 shows a year, as it did in its early days.

Elway has been hinting about new music on its Instagram page, and the new LP will be its first album since 2022's Best of All Possible Worlds, which New Noise magazine called “a musical journey…of melodic punk songs that add elements of rock and roll, pop-punk, [and] skate punk.” Still with the label Red Scare Industries, Browne says the band is “happily marooned.” For the imprint's twentieth-anniversary compilation album, 20 Years of Dreaming and Scheming, Elway recorded an old song from Red Scare band Sundowner. “We covered the 2006 song ‘Traffic Haze,’” Browne says, an acoustic punk song that “is really beautiful and gorgeous, and we turned it into a Propagandhi-style thrash banger. It’s the first song with blast beats on any Red Scare release.”

The new album, recorded at the Band Cave Studios in Park Hill is, Browne explains, “basically following up and questioning the nature of Best of All Possible Worlds.” With aggressively blunt new songs such as “Nobody’s Going to Heaven,” the music brings a reversal of the pondering philosophical fence-sitting between pessimism and optimism that characterized the last LP. The song, which Browne suggests might become the album title, “is a stream-of-consciousness wallowing about how demoralizing it is to sit and scroll on the phone watching unspeakable tragedies."

"If this is where we are as a democratic society,” Browne continues with a sardonic chuckle, “maybe none of us deserve salvation.”

Taking brash political stances has always been integral to punk, and more punk bands, such as Colorado’s Cheap Perfume and Dead Pioneers, are coming back to unapologetically political messages in a way that faded in the pop-punk era. With audiences looking for edgy, passionate music, it's time for material like this, and Elway fans should be pumped to hear the new album. “I felt the need to sing and write about the zeitgeist, and I write songs when I feel compelled," says Browne. "This is what is coming out: anger, resentment and a deep abiding wish the world would get better. If you have your mind anywhere near the national pulse, you know it’s not the time to look inward and navel-gaze.”

The new album is certainly Elway’s most political work, and it’s driven by poignant personal reflection. “Laugh Track” reflects on March 19, 2003, when a teenage Browne was at a friend’s house and heard George W. Bush announce the country was going to war.

“We were going to go upstairs and sneak some booze, and then we saw my friend’s parents, crying and slow dancing in the living room," Browne recalls. "It strikes me now, how in America we pass down the societal trauma of waging war to our kids. So the song is about that generational trauma and how it’s our obligation and duty to find our way out of that pattern and cycle. And I don’t have any specific ideas on how to do it, but plenty of ideas about how bad we are currently doing.”

Musically, the new songs maintain Elway's style, which Westword has called “aggressive punk rock and soaring melodies."

“We’re constrained by our limitations as musicians,” Browne concedes with a laugh, “but our sound is still punk rock. We are tinkering with effects pedals and drum patterns, and continue as a band to push musical boundaries within our capabilities. There are some interesting things, some indie rock, some Latin influence, but for the most part pretty straightforward punk rock, with maybe a few tricks up our sleeve.” With all those influences "worming their way in in small and unpredictable ways," as Browne puts it — including the ’90s Seattle sound, such acts as Sunny Day Real Estate, Death Cab for Cutie and even Elliott Smith — Elway fans should be excited and intrigued by this new work.

The August 16 show with Broken Record came together, Browne notes, because “we have mutual friends.” Both bands played the Fest in Gainesville, Florida, in 2021. “I thought they were great,” Browne raves, and Band Cave engineer Collin Ingram, who produced Elway’s album, helped connect the two groups. “They [Broken Record] are my favorite band in Denver, and I’m excited to share the stage with them. And I just got to know State Drugs from going to shows. I really like their vibe and its alt-rock Replacements-like sound. These are two of my favorite Denver bands.”

Lauren Beecher, guitarist and singer for Broken Record, is also psyched for the show. “It’s a great bill with a cool mix of bands. There are some throughlines in our sounds," she notes. "Elway is a post-core rock band, we’re pretty solidly on the emo side, and State Drugs makes a nice bridge with its emo-tinged punk sound. It’s easy for us to connect musically with similar influences, and they're also just really great guys. Squire is a great venue for Denver punk and emo bands, so it's the perfect venue for this show.”

Elway, Broken Record and State Drugs, Friday, August 16, Squire Lounge, 1800 East Colfax Avenue. Tickets are $10.