By Jack Armstrong
Stephanie Jones (bass/vocals/left), Sami Fredrick (guitar/vocals/center) and Bailey Harper (drums/vocals/right)
Seattle-based punk and dance act, Zookraught, has a reputation to fulfill that starts with their makeup and ends with an audience that’s halfway between a mosh and a boogie. Likewise, they delivered at their September 23rd show when dropped by Seventh Circle Music Collective. Stephanie Jones, the band’s bassist and vocalist, and I were talking before I got to take some pictures of the trio. Sami Fredrick (guitar/vocals) and Bailey Harper (drums/vocals) were getting ready when Jones put me on to what separates real Zookraught fans from posers.
“It’s called getting Zooked!” she said.
Every night before a show, the band adds some swirly-dotted face marker to cap off their pre-show makeup routine. Camera in hand, I squinted and let Stephanie “Zook” me before the show.
Jones and Fredrick, both ‘Zooked’
The show was right off of Federal Boulevard at 7th Circle Music Collective in Denver. A night at 7th Circle is never complete without irreverent local acts. Sewage Waste And Girls (S.W.A.G) and Dry Ice kicked off the show strong. Screaming, two broken guitars, and tacitly queer joy were center stage. S.W.A.G opened with vaudeville-level set-up-punchline style punk comedy before launching into their noise, riffs and screams.
With every act Dry Ice puts on, they like to dress to a theme. This night’s theme had them all dressed like they worked at a shipyard, with tidal waves of rhythm to match.
After spending a good part of the afternoon with Zookraught, I knew what to expect. This show was the fourth stop in the band’s tour, following Seattle and Boise, Idaho. The tour marked the release of Zookraught’s first full-length LP, Vida Violet.
Show-goers Swing one another around 7th Circle’s mosh pit
“[Vida Violet] means the world to us…” Frederick said, before Jones added, “The songs are a collection of all the different real things that have all happened to us.”
Those kinds of remarks make you wanna live life in their shoes for a day. High energy selections from the album, like “Red Hot Summer” or “Chew Tabacco, Spit,” capture the spirit of racing down the fire escape from a burning building, a bare-knuckle brawl or a scrambling to find a charger when your phone’s at 1%.
“We all just put it together. Someone will come up with an idea for a song, someone else will bring one and we’ll work together to flesh it out,” Harper said.
Short of being a fly on the wall during one of those jam sessions, the best you can do is go to a live Zookraught set. The three-piece all add vocals to their songs, so right off the bat, you can feel their punchy vibe. It’s connective, loud, peppy and even jumpy. Some noteworthy highlights from the set include Jones’ interludes where the audience should make faces and hand gestures in between bass riffs, or the bursts of power coming from Harper’s slamming drum technique.
Zooked-up concert goers reminded me of the kind of concert I was at; they all repped a full face of Zook makeup while they whipped their hair around in the middle of 7th Circle’s garage pit. Their stage presence gets right up in your face, with a couple different portions of the set featuring Frederick playing guitar from the pit.
There are some bands that feed off the energy of the crowd, and there are some bands that grab you by the collar and take you for a ride. Zookraught’s the latter. Some of their set could have featured their more melodic cuts, like “Brain Dead” off their new album, which could have been a great addition to a set the audience loved. Without those slower moments, the band fared fine, but they could have added some diversity that I would have appreciated.
“Six months after Sami joined the project was when we really started to hone in — that’s when we really started to write the kind of stuff we write now,” Jones said.
You could see Frederick’s dedication from the way she stitches the whole bombastic group together. Harper and Jones were explosive on stage together during Zookraught’s first stage, but it was the trio that solidified the band’s sound and overall presence.
Asking the band what keeps a punk scene together, they responded: “Community. Community. Community.”
Jones repeated for me one more time, “Go to shows!”
Posted on Oct 11 – 3:30pm