Easter eggs, production and growth: The story behind Mellowpunk

“I think it got a lot bigger for all of us quickly than any of us expected it to,” Mellowpunk manager Jo Watts states. The local Boulder, Colorado band began in 2019 with member Devin Noth whose music production illustrates the tale behind Alpha and Omega: the secret story of success, friendship and growth so cleverly hidden within and without the fabric of the band’s music. 

With their album and their single, “The Sun’s Exploding” which has over 30,000 streams on Spotify, the band has blossomed.

Mellowpunk, a “modern indie with this kind of pop” band found their roots in and around the University of Colorado Boulder campus through classes and by being noisey neighbors. Comprised of music producer and live bassist/keyboardist, Devin Noth, singer and bassist Madeline McClure, drummer Ethan Minard and guitarists Sage Garrett and Jacob Paulson the band grew from a mere two, Noth and McClure, to the five that now share songwriting credits. 

Though, the composition of songwriting, instruments and orchestration required to compose a track’s production calls for the work of one.

At the beginning of his production career, Noth cites that his roots flourished through working at his high school’s newly built “rich person” music studio for $10 an hour under the tutelage of his teacher Marty Magehee. Paid to tinker around with production and mixing, a process that ensures the overall sonic quality of a given track, the band member found himself making music that was not anything he wanted it to be.

“It was so quiet; the instruments weren’t panned anywhere,” Noth exclaims and runs a hand through his hair as he recalls the first few tracks he produced. Though, the band member mentions that he is now able to go back and listen without “cringing.”

As Noth progressed into college at the University of Colorado Boulder, a friend at the time of his arrival mentioned a local artist who had just won a SoundCloud competition. The band member took note of it, but met her at a party later on.

“It was such a crazy coincidence,” Noth mentioned about the introduction as he furrowed his eyebrows. The local artist, Dafna, singer of track “8Nights”, now with over 3 million streams on Spotify, made a deal with Noth: Dafna would sing for Noth’s production and Noth would produce for her. 

The first time the two worked together was at Noth’s first Boulder, CO apartment with the “worst everything you could possibly have.” Within 2-3 sessions, the pair had recorded “if you’re a dove” for Dafna, and two songs off of the first Mellowpunk EP titled “Nightmare of the 1st Gen.”

Coincidentally, at another party, Noth ran into singer McClure and invited her to the band. By producing for Dafna, the band member was able to learn how to direct McClure and her vocal range through the mix of the modern indie and pop sounds of Mellowpunk.

As the band began to assemble with all five parts present, growth was one side of a double edged sword Mellowpunk faced. In a separate interview, also on Zoom, with all four members of the band, drummer Minard speaks about their first shows at the Laughing Goat, a local coffee shop where the band would congregate often.

“It was a total DIY experience to set up and stuff. I was in bands in high school, but this was different,” Minard mentions as he sits on the right edge of a couch shared with McClure. In one show, the band was unable to grab all parts of their drum set for Minard and he was forced to play the show with three pieces: a snare drum, a kick, and a hi-hat. 

The second show took place as the COVID-19 pandemic began to enter the world; McClure having moved back to Parker, Colorado after being sent home from her dorm at the university and was unable to attend due to an extreme amount of snow in Boulder, Colorado.

Unable to play shows due to the pandemic, the band’s plans to release a second EP were stalled into releasing a full length album: “I Don’t Think Two People Could Have Been Happier Than We Have Been.”

Between the ill-fated last show at the Laughing Goat that never took place and the album, one year of music production for the record took place; the band saw each setback as empowerment and kept pushing forward.

Manager Jo Watts entered the Mellowpunk equation in October of 2020 as she lived with singer McClure. 

“It’s the most inexplicable thing to watch them go from playing Sages mom’s garage to headlining the Fox Theater twice; every crowd falls in love with them,” Watts states. “I think that closeness and how much love there is between everyone really has allowed us to grow so quickly and do so many cool things because we’re never standing in each other’s way.”

To produce the music for Mellowpunk’s electrifying performances, Noth utilizes the Digital Audio Workspace (DAW), Logic Pro X. The band member mentions that he has had experience with Cubase, FL Studio and Ableton, but recommends Logic for its price and accessibility. 

Mentioned in an interview with the full members of Mellowpunk, a synthesizer arpeggio acts as a tie between three songs: “Nightmare Of The 3rd Gen”, “Nothing” and ultimately into “Something.”

“That arp essentially came out of nowhere. It ended up working for this grand story we have: our main character dying. It represents this character traversing from their death in this weird dream plane to our version of hell,” Noth says. The triad of tracks reflect an enigmatic ego death, fueled with anger, disgust and finally, resolve. 

When deciding on how to end the arpeggio, a musical phrase in which several notes in succession are played in either ascending or descending order, in “Nothing” as it leads into the track titled “Something”, the band decided to spell out the last words of their character: “a–hole”, written in Musical Instrumentation Digital Interface (MIDI), which is what format inputted musical notes appear as in a given DAW. 

From easter eggs that Noth “had to share” to the DIY to stage experiences of the band, the core of Mellowpunk, friendship and perseverance, have formed the roots of a quickly flourishing career. 

“We’re always scared to push off the next best idea that Ethan, Devin or Maddie have, but we just run with it,” Watts states.