Throw Up the Horns: Ipecac Is One of the Best Rock Bands in Denver Right Now

Ipecac syrup earned its vomit-inducing reputation when it became the go-to treatment for reversing the effects of poison ingestion throughout the eighteenth century, after it was discovered in the jungles of Brazil during the 1600s. The obscure emetic — a byproduct concocted from the dried rhizome and roots of ipecacuanha plants and sometimes mixed with opium — eventually fell out of favor in professional medical circles by the twentieth century, when more and more studies proved that the puking power of ipecac was less than effective when it came to expelling toxins from the stomach.

The OG ipecac is hard to find nowadays, but since 2017, the Denver rock band Ipecac has been conjuring up a different type of chemical reaction from audiences with balls-to-the-wall live sets and a mix of ballads and bangers, including a raucous show at HQ during this year’s Underground Music Showcase on July 29. Lead vocalist Isabella Osborne, who wore black face paint dripping below her eyes, captivated the audience with her powerful vocals, thrashing across the stage while founding member/guitarist Ariadnee Ziady banged her head to her own heavy licks. The entire band's stage presence was one of natural-born rock stars — the kind who always leave us begging for more.

“You want to bang your head, you want to rock, and that’s what we want to deliver,” explains drummer Kanyon Dickerson, who joined Ipecac in 2020. “Ultimately, we’re trying to write songs and riffs that people are going to dig.”

Ziady admits she wasn’t aware of ipecac’s origins or weird uses when a former bandmate first suggested it as a name. “The band started so long ago that when an old member suggested the name, none of us knew what it meant. We just thought it sounded cool,” she says, adding that once Ipecac started playing shows under the moniker, fans really took to it and had fun chatting about ipecac’s history of hurl.

“We get a lot of people who don’t know what it means. Then it’s a cool story to tell people what it actually is,” she says.

The members of Ipecac now “embrace the sick aspect of it,” Dickerson adds. The band’s current logo and merch designs display the word “Ipecac” oozing out of a medicine dropper. “It’s funny — some people know exactly what it is, and other people don’t,” he says.

While none of the four musicians have ever taken or experienced the serum's convulsive consequences, Ziady jokes that they're "saving that for when we get to Red Rocks. That’ll be our big finale.”

Given the value of the band's sound and performance, Ipecac could indeed make it to that iconic venue one day. But in the meantime, Ipecac is treating listeners to a new, self-titled EP via local label Sailor Records on Saturday, September 23, with a record-release show at Lost Lake Lounge the same night. Rocket Surgeons and Capture This are also on the bill. The group teased the album with its opener, “Everyone Deserves Love,” as a single, and even with that small sample, it’s safe to say the new tracks will induce even more headbanging and mosh pits.

The band has a natural chemistry that's palpable from the stage, which is probably because "we're best friends first," Dickerson emphasizes. While Ipecac formed six years ago, the current lineup of Ziady, Osborne, Dickerson and bassist Tayte Eubanks was solidified in February 2020. Dickerson and Eubanks previously played together, while Eubanks and Ziady are longtime friends and even started a former cover band, Teenage Wasteland, as middle-schoolers. Osborne eventually teamed up with her future bandmates after Ziady heard her powerful pipes and invited her to a jam session.

“We all had some interesting connection,” Ziady explains. "Knowing each other musically in different ways was really cool. ... Then we all came together to form this iteration of Ipecac. It’s been really, really fun, and we’ve had a great time.”

Osborne agrees. Ipecac is her first and only band, but the immediate connection when the four players first sat down to write "felt perfect," she says.

“I remember as soon as I walked into the room with all of the members here, there was an energy there; it just felt right," she continues. "It was the weirdest thing — I'd never experienced anything like it before. I don’t think anybody else here had, either. It was definitely something new, and it’s been a bit of a learning curve at times, but it’s been really amazing. It wasn’t something that I expected, but it was a real blessing.”

Now college students, the fearsome foursome landed on the radar of Sailor Records founder Oscar Ross after Ipecac opened for Hellgrammites, one of the label’s bands, during a February 24 show at HQ, and signed shortly after. Working with a legit record label had been one of the group’s goals, and the four-song EP will be Ipecac’s first supported release.

Ziady, who is studying biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and business at CU Boulder, recalls that Ross called the new music "solid rock with a soul feel and a glam flair. The lyrics convey a message of hope, but in a don't-fuck-with-me kind of way."

“We really, really liked that description, because it doesn’t box us into one genre, but describes everything that we like to do,” she says. “As we keep writing our songs, everything is going to keep changing, and we’re not going to play one genre — but we don’t want to play one genre, either.”

Ipecac’s music falls anywhere between Muse and Iron Maiden, a testament to the band’s diverse chops. With classic-rock roots, a more contemporary comparison would be Greta Van Fleet — most evident on a song such as “Everyone Deserves Love,” which displays Osborne’s vocal range and Ziady’s soaring guitar solos.

But Dickerson, a journalism student at CU Boulder, admits that the bandmates "never really sat down and analyzed" their sound. “We kind of just showed up and started playing together. As a band, we never tried to be anything that we’re not,” he explains.

Eubanks, who’s taking lutherie classes at Red Rocks Community College, echoes that sentiment: “We’re very much Ipecac; that's who we are. We don’t compare ourselves, really, to a whole lot. If an idea comes to the table and we’re all really jamming on it, we all really like it, especially if we can get lyrics around it and extend it, there’s a possibility that it might become a song.”

Either way, Osborne, a Red Rocks Community College student interested in studying either business or environmental science, is “so excited” for everyone to hear Ipecac’s latest material.

“Each song tells its own story, but the main idea of the EP is it goes from a simple declaration of ‘Everybody deserves love’ — but there’s kind of an uncertainty on how to express that — to an anthem of confidence in oneself and how to utilize that confidence, love and self-acceptance,” she explains.

“Different issues are explored” across the EP’s other three songs — “Switches,” “Live Your Life” and “I’m Not Broken” —  Osborne adds, but “that is the main storyline that’s being followed, at least lyrically speaking.”

Unlike its namesake, Ipecac the band is “constantly evolving,” according to Eubanks. “If we look at ourselves from when we first started to where we are now, our songs have changed so dramatically, but in every single good way,” he says. “I think we’re trying to constantly move with the flow of what we want to write.”

That amorphous quality is what allows the group to shift seamlessly between sonic landscapes and genres, redefining what Ipecac is and will ultimately be.

“As we grow as people and musicians, it’s going to evolve more and change,” Ziady concludes. “I think what we’re doing now is great. I think what we did three years ago is great. I think what we’re going to do three years from now is going to be great, too.”

Ipecac, 7 p.m. Saturday, September 23, Lost Lake Lounge, 3602 East Colfax Avenue. Tickets are $15.