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Denver's dance revolution
By Cassie Hood
hoodc@mscd.edu

Photo by Marcia Buckner, courtesy of Le Ballet Five of the most unlikely ballerinas ever. Le Ballet, from left, Tristan Johnson, Jacob Bond, Zack Bond, Chris Moser and Miles Johnson.

Music is a drug.

At least for Le Ballet it is. Without music they would be hyperactive, bouncy young men who couldn’t concentrate on much for long.

“One time I took Ritalin, and I thought it would make me all calm and I would be able to do my homework,” bassist Tristan Johnson said jokingly. “But it didn’t. Instead I just played video games for a really long time. So you see, that stuff doesn’t work.”

Singer and synth player Jacob Bond laughed along and then with all seriousness said, “Writing music is like our medication. We’re so ADD off music. So when we get together, that is the only time we can concentrate.”

Seeing them sitting around the table fidgeting and laughing, it’s hard to believe that even music could calm them down.

With such electricity flowing through them, it’s not surprising they play such rousing, high-energy music.

As friends since high school, the guys have grown and matured with each other. They formed because they wanted to compete in their school’s Battle of the Bands. According to Tristan Johnson, they sounded like acoustic baby-making music. After the competition, which they said was horrible, the spark was lit.

While he beat his hands on the table in front of him, keyboard player Miles Johnson said that he likes to think of the band as a “bat-chu-cat-chu” band because that was the first drum beat they used, and to this day, they still use it, but their talent has progressed past that sophomoric rhythm.

Eventually they became entranced by the synthetic techno new wave movement, inspired by bands like The Faint and Depeche Mode. They named themselves Analogue. At the time, they thought it was a clever name, but they soon realized that they didn’t use analog synthesizers, and so the name didn’t fit.

“It kind of rolls off the tongue and into your heart,” synth player Chris Moser said about the name they finally decided on, Le Ballet. “It has a dance reference, but it doesn’t tie us down to any specific genre.”

Surprisingly enough, the boys don’t just listen to electro-pop bands. Their other influences include Guster, Moving Units, The Police and the Bee Gees. “I like anything that makes me move my feet,” Tristan Johnson said.

Their diverse and atypical taste in music filters into their performance. They’re an oddity in Colorado for many reasons. People first snicker at them when they mention that they don’t have a guitar. “Anything we would need a guitar player for, we can do on the synths or the keyboards,” Miles Johnson explained.

They have a real drummer, Zak Bond, and a bass player to free up the synthesizers to make other noises freely. With three synthesizers and a keyboard, they have unlimited possibilities.
Another reason that they haven’t completely taken off in the Colorado music scene is the genre they chose. “The scene is rough,” Tristan Johnson said. “There is a prevalent hardcore scene.”

But according to Jacob Bond, it is fun to rival that scene. A few bands, such as The Ax that Chopped the Cherry Tree, have paved the way to bringing the new wave scene back to Denver.

“I think it is really going to take off here,” Tristan Johnson said. “The Denver fans are really receptive. I think they’re just waiting for something new to come along, and we are just that.”

Tristan Johnson is perceptive. The live electro-pop movement has blown up in cities such as Los Angeles and New York, and it is gaining momentum in Colorado. People are looking for something to dance to, and they need look no further than Le Ballet.