Bio by Chris:

Butterfly Cocktail started out as a solo project back in 2000 while I was still in college in Ft. Collins. I didn't have time to be in a band so I just wrote music and recorded it one track at a time, drum machine, guitar, and keyboard, then I would mix it on my computer (there's an MP3 of one of my first songs called Friday on the Music page). It was fun for a while but I really missed being in a band, writing music as a band, and performing in front of an audience.

The music fell by the wayside for a while after I graduated in '01, moved back to Boulder, and started my career in engineering. I met Kami at that new job and we quickly became friends. It's funny, but I don't think I even realized that she could sing until six months later when she started singing along to a song on the radio. We started hanging out a lot with my friend Jim who I was in a band with in high school. 

One fine autumn day back in the fall of '02 the three of us were sitting on the back patio of the Dark Horse in Boulder with another old friend from high school named Derek. We were casually discussing music when he suddenly broke in and said "hey, you guys all play instruments or sing, why don't you just start a band?" It was one of those "duh, why didn't we think of that" moments. Derek definitely deserves a little credit for starting the band.

So for the next year we annoyed my roommate by playing in the unfinished basement of his townhouse. All that time we didn't have a drummer so for every new song I had to sit down and program my drum machine with all the patterns and changes, and mix it together on my makeshift PA system consisting of a four-track recorder, an old stereo, and some old speakers. At the time it was a good thing because we would have been way too loud for the neighbors if we had a drum kit down there.

It started weighing on me that I was tired of living in apartments and townhouses and paying rent all the time, and we really needed a good place to practice. Finally in May of '03 I found a great house after hunting for eight months. The basement was the perfect spot for us to play as loud as we wanted.

There was a little room in the basement that looked like it had been a game arcade or something at one end, but it couldn't pass for a bedroom since it didn't have a real door or a heater vent. The wall that separated it from the rest of the basement made the basement look really small, and since we were jamming in there it was causing the worst feedback problems with our microphones. I had a great time one weekend tearing that wall down, demolition is very therapeutic.

After a year of playing together we were sick and  tired of playing with a drum machine, and after 17 songs its memory was almost full anyway. We decided that we would never find a drummer by word of mouth alone so we started searching the internet one night. After pages upon pages of useless Google results I stumbled upon a promising website called MusicMates that actually had a lot of local musician ads on it. The first guy we called answered his phone and told me he was at an audition and that he would call me back in an hour if he was still available. Fortunately he called back an hour later and explained how awful the audition went. That's how we met Jason.

Jason came down to meet us one evening and we all hit it off great. We sent him off with a crappy demo of our drum machine fumbling and told him to come back a week later. The next step was to see if he could actually play drums with us, because he told us that he put his drum sticks down two years before so that he could learn guitar, and that he had only actually started playing drums again about two weeks before he met us. We stopped worrying when he brought his drum kit down to the basement and as we played we suddenly found an energy we had never felt before.

After playing several parties together and writing some new songs as a group of four, we began to really see where we could go with all of this. I never believed it would go very far in the beginning, but the snowball just keeps getting bigger and we all keep surprising ourselves with the things we do together. It's very inspiring and rewarding, and even more fun than I expected.

We finally finished our first CD just before February of 2004. It was a fast paced 27 hours in the studio, but we have a great recording of eight of our original songs to show for it. Now it's time to play some gigs and promote our music. 

With a couple brand new songs under our belt, we played our first bar gig on May 8th, 2004 at the Dickens Opera House in Longmont. Many of our good friends showed up to cheer us on, and many new faces showed their appreciation after the show. This is what it's all about. Playing original music in front of a live audience. It's the most satisfying feeling in the world, not to mention that we'd been waiting for that moment for a year and a half. It's hard not to feel like rushing things, but it takes time to write good music, and it takes time to get noticed. I just have to keep telling myself that. The best is yet to come and it's hard to be patient.

After almost 10 months Jason left the band in August '04 for the beaches of Hawaii. I guess we can't blame him, I mean who doesn't want to live in a tropical paradise? Our last show together was really cool because we all seemed to be calm and relaxed and we just played our hearts out because we knew we'd never play with Jason again. I will never forget it.

I think we were all afraid that the music would fall into a lull while we searched for a new drummer, or at least we would go back to the drum machine (noooo pleeeease!) Luckily friends always know other friends and that's how a week later we came to know Eric. We love his enthusiasm and inventiveness and we're looking forward to seeing what new directions we will find.

After a few weeks of jamming with Eric was clear to us that things were going to work out. We've already written a new song together and Eric is pretty much up to speed on the rest of our material. We have another gig in Longmont coming up in October '04 which will be our first with Eric. After that I hope we can get some gigs in Denver and Boulder. Who knows, maybe next year we'll open for The Samples!

After 3 gigs at the Dickens Opera House we were all ready to play somewhere more relevant and somewhere with better sound. We booked a gig at Pink E's on January 13th 2005. This was our best show yet and we got a really cool DVD to show for it.

After two Saturday shows at Pink E's, and Tuesday shows at Bruno's Saloon, Iliff Park Saloon, and Eck's Saloon, we were really looking forward to playing a Saturday show at Broussard's Creole Cafe, a new venue that had just opened up on Capitol Hill in Denver. It would have been our biggest turnout yet, but then our second drummer Eric spontaneously combusted and we were back to a humble threesome, and had to cancel the April 30th, 2005 gig at Broussard's. It's a good time to take a short break, jam unplugged for a while, and start looking for a new drummer.

The short break turned into an extended break lasting several months. We auditioned three drummers who were all very talented and played with a variety of different styles. It was fascinating to let them all interpret our music the way they saw fit. We wanted them to make the music their own instead of playing everything the same way it had been in the past and it really opened new doors in our creativity. The first guy we jammed with ended up finding a different project that fit his eclectic jazz style better than our soft rock style, so we had to choose between the last two drummers we auditioned. It was a really tough decision because we hit it off really well with both of them but in the end our gut instincts were all pointing us to Raul "Skip" Brown. In August of '05 we offered him the opportunity to be our next drummer and he gladly accepted (after signing his life away to us).

The break also gave us time to reflect on the past and we realized that it was hard for us to play gigs like Eck's Saloon and Iliff Park Saloon, where the audience is used to hearing hard rock, metal, and punk bands. We didn't get a very good reaction from those audiences, but none of us had ever been to any of those venues so we really had no idea what to expect. The lesson taught was that we need to play venues that tailor more to our style of music.

Skip gave our music new life with his independent style and interpretation of our songs. Boredom and frustration with our old material gave life to a new song which Skip affectionately dubbed "Cotton Candy" for it's fluffy pop sound. We entered an international festival / battle of the bands called Emergenza which was taking place in Denver for the first time in its 13 year history. After the first round at Bender's tavern we were voted by the audience to move on to the semifinal round. In the meantime we had a show in Longmont for the first time in over a year and a half, which I had the privilege of setting up with our new friends The Stigmas and LED.

I proposed to Kami just before Thanksgiving of '05. Between our wedding planning, Kami starting her college degree online, and my engineer licence exam coming up in April '06, we had no time for the band. Once again we had a lull until our next Emergenza gig Memorial Day weekend in '06. It wasn't a real surprise to learn that Skip had jumped on an opportunity to make it big with another band that was local to his town and actually going somewhere quick. Needless to say, we had to cancel the Emergenza gig. We're all happy for him, although it breaks our hearts a little. We've been through this twice before already and it's far from the end of Butterfly Cocktail. We look forward to starting fresh with new music after the wedding, and after life in general takes a lull for a change.

 - Chris