Spotlight On: Steve, Frontman for Faceman

Steve, the front man for FaceMan.

For more than eight years, Faceman’s Country-flavored blend of indie rock, folk and maybe a little jazz has chugged quietly along, punctuated by the occasional big disruption — an impressive, if almost ridiculously difficult-to-produce music festival. This year’s installment is called the 100-year Storm. It features 100 local acts descending upon the Oriental Theater in North Denver Nov. 18–19, and promises to be an indelible experience, if not an absurd cluster of epic proportions. Here, Steve — just Steve — talks about FaceMan, the Denver music community, and playing music in the head of a giant prehistoric shark.

French Davis: What is FaceMan? Gimme the run down of how you came into existence and what you stand for, etc.
Steve: FaceMan is a rock trio [Steve: guitar/vox, David Thomas Bailey: 7-string guitar-bass/Dean Hirschfield: drums—ed.] formed in Denver, CO in the winter of 2008. The name FaceMan comes from Steve’s childhood when his father told him he had a “rubber” face and could make more faces than his brother. FaceMan stands for courage. Never give up.

FD: What is the 100-year storm? Who is it for and why should people come?
S: FaceMan’s 100-Year Storm is a DIY festival… the Oriental Theater will be transformed into a once-in-a-lifetime disaster zone featuring an extremely eclectic lineup of mostly bands from Denver but also bands from Las Vegas, Portland, and Lawrence (KS). The festival will feature a giant tornado built by the carpenters of Incite (also carpenters at the Denver Center Theater). People should come to this event because it will feature an amazing diversity of music and people and will be extremely entertaining and laid back.

FD: Why go to all this effort? Seems like a herculean task.
S: Since inception, FaceMan tries to put on memorable events that focus on bringing the community, musicians, and artists together with a common goal of doing what we love and having fun doing it. Think of our events as a wedding that you don’t have any family members at. For about three years we did an event at the Bluebird Theater called “FaceMan’s Waltz” in which members from multiple bands in town would form groups and cover each other’s songs. It was extremely well-received and helped inspire other special shows. We eventually partnered with Incite to build ‘out of the ordinary’ sets for our shows and events, performing in a giant shark for “FaceMan’s Megalodon,” performing in a giant shoebox diorama at Mutiny inspired by a Charles Bukowski poem, and performing with a giant pink bar of soap at Red Rocks for the showing of the movie Fight Club at Film on the Rocks. Last year we did a festival called ‘FaceMan’s Journey to the Sun’ that featured 44 bands and 24 hours of straight music at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox. The purpose of all the events has always been to bring together other musicians and artists in an open-minded collaborative environment. We work closely with organizations in Denver, including the Denver Tool Library. To answer your question, we put FaceMan’s 100-Year Storm together because we want to push ourselves to new extremes to see what is possible with respect to pulling together events focused on the community of musicians and artists that we have so much respect for. With this event we have worked closely with Ty Breuer of Youth on Record, Incite, Scott McCormick, Enrique Jimenez, The Oriental Theater, and the Denver Tool Library. We couldn’t do these events without everyone wanting to be a part of them and together we can throw an incredible event and all continue doing what we love.   

FD: Clearly that’s a pretty big commitment to the Denver music scene. What makes this scene special?
S: We have a deep respect for the artists and musicians of this community. We are simply trying to do our part in supporting the arts and music and participating in all the great shows and events people put on in this city. There are a lot of challenges with the scene here but, overall, the scene has a rich diversity and probably over 1,000 active bands. You could live your entire life in Denver and never see all the bands. That’s special.

FD: What would you change about it if you could?
S: The location! It’s extremely hard to get off the “island” from a financial/touring perspective. Touring is the lifeblood of an established band because there’s only so many shows and people that you can touch in one city. Generally, touring is a major goal for any band and, unfortunately, it’s hard to get to other major cities from here and, as a result, many bands are unable to tour and may run out of steam too early.

Check out facemanmusic.com for more.

FD: What’s next on the burner for FaceMan?
S: We are supporting Grammy winning Rebirth Brass Band at the Bluebird on December 23! Also, we are releasing our fourth full-length album called “Wild And Hunting” in February and going to play inside a giant terrarium!