The Virtues of Vices: This is the year for one Fort Collins-born band -

Fort Collins Weekly



"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

Little did British statesman Winston Churchill know when he said these words that he would one day inspire fist-pumping and mosh-pitting along the Front Range of Colorado.

Dave Curtis, the lead singer of Vices I Admire, says his band isn`t "particularly historic," nor does it "subscribe to any politics in particular."

Nor are they much of a glam-band, despite the suggestive name.

"I`m not nearly a rock star," he says. "We love to rock out, not for any other reason than that we love to get the crowd wild."

Since 2001, the foursome has been doing just that. Home brewed in Fort Collins, the first bubblings of a band rose when Curtis answered a wanted ad. Mickey Dollar (lead guitar) and Rob Marston (bass guitar) were in search of a vocalist for their college rock band. The three first jammed out to what would become one of their fierce first hits - "Gutter Squirrel."

Curtis was enchanted by the product.

"After that first meeting I thought I`d be a fool if I didn`t play for them," he says.

The group went through a series of drummers and names - including a run as Plan B - before settling with drummer Mark Towne in 2002 and the name Vices I Admire in 2005.

Curtis says the band`s sound is currently much more pleasing than it was in Vices` early days, referencing their early "asinine" recordings in contrast with what he says is now a "very palatable" sound.

"They`re starting to mesh a lot better with each others` styles," agrees Nicholas Eyl, a longtime friend and roommate. The last four or five songs, he says, have been more "melodic" and "intricate."

Songwriting for the band is a collaborative effort. Dollar jumpstarts the process by proposing a guitar rift to the other members, who then join with their own instrumentation. Curtis, who majored in creative writing at Colorado State University and is a former Fort Collins Weekly editorial intern, says he spends a lot of time on the lyrics.

"All (people) have similar thoughts and relationships - it doesn`t mean you have to rhyme the same lines," he says. "It doesn`t mean you have to rhyme at all.

"We don`t want to subscribe to a certain style."

To really taste the band`s "palatable" flavor, Eyl advises fans to enjoy Vices I Admire`s clamorous, late-night shows - a riot of energy and stage-presence seducing a crowd of pushing and shoving moshers and captivated fans.

"As amazing as they are online or on one of their demos, they`re a 100 times better live," he says.

In May the band was bottled and shipped to Denver, where the members are now in the midst of tapping into the Denver music scene. Since then they have been hard at work establishing a fan base in a new city.

This month, their effort is about to pay off.

On July 8, the band will mount the stage at the Vans Warped Tour`s stop in Denver. Vices I Admire won one of five performance slots on the extreme sports and music festival through a contest sponsored by battleofthebands.com. Of the more than 100 bands that competed for spots in the Denver show, the band racked in enough online votes from fans to come in second. They will be among 12 to 15 bands to play Denver`s Warped Tour spot, joining the likes of Bad Religion, Yellowcard, Coheed and Cambria, The Used and Pennywise.

Though Vices I Admire has moved on to the Mile High City, Curtis says the band owes everything to Fort Collins. The opportunity to make it in a big city, however, was too good to pass up.

"This is the push. This is our year," he says. "And if not, maybe it`s next year."

Warped Tour `07

Sunday, July 8

Invesco Field at Mile High

1800 Bryant St

Denver

Vices I Admire will play between noon and 2:30p.m.

www.ticketmaster.com