Swashbuckling Doctors are cowinners for Outstanding Stage Presence – Colorado Sound Music Awards

Congrats to the Swashbuckling Doctors, who share a win this year for Outstanding Stage Presence, based on your votes

By Adam Perry

Swashbuckling Doctors is much a band as a mythos, and a really weird one. Fort Collins has enjoyed the fictional backstory of the Widow’s Bane, and it’s accompanying outrageous live performances, for many years, but the pirate-ska of Swashbuckling Doctors is something different, something more zany, fun and, well, not as scary.

Lead Doctor, singer Scott Slusher, says he’s been heavily motivated by groups like Fishbone and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to have so much fun on stage it could turn out dangerous.

“When it’s on, it is,” he says. “Those bands are a big influence on me, personally, both in their songwriting and their performances. And we are 100% energy from start to finish, particularly in the front-line: We have me, Mackenzie [Sutphin] and Sterling [Swanson] on vocals, trumpet and trombone. And it is non-stop activity from the first beat to the last. I feel like I don’t give a good show until I am just drenched in sweat at the end of it, and I’ve lost my glasses. They’re always blown off by the third song and I’m, like, ‘Now I know I’m doing it right.’”

From the first song on the first Swashbuckling Doctors album, 2014’s Side Effects May Include…, the group’s music has always been obviously about skank-inducing musical energy, but also storytelling. Like the Widow’s Bane, but also like 1980s Phish, the lyrics beg listeners to figure out exactly what the hell is being sung about, and by whom, and how they can find out the whole story.

Not much of that blends into Swashbuckling Doctors performances, according to Slusher, as far as playing characters on stage, but storytelling is indeed synonymous with the Fort Collins group’s music.

“It’s so cool you picked up on that in the songs,” he says, “because a lot of our songs, they may come from, like, we hang out together all the time and they just come from stories or inside jokes or shenanigans that have gone on in the band. We just sort of start writing songs about it. There’s a whole catalog of songs we’ve never released, about just crazy stuff that’s happened to the band and, yeah, we also now kind of have recurring characters that show up in the songs and are absolutely going to start showing up on future albums.”

“So, there is a whole kind of mythology being built around the band, and it’s just because we hang out and talk and they they turn into songs.”

The best Swashbuckling Doctors release might be the sprawling, searing 2018 Live From Drew’s House, which pulls listeners not just into the weird, wild energy of a Doctors show but also the aforementioned mythology, that does sometimes find Slusher doing some acting, of a sort.

“I usually kind of act out the songs,” he explains. “I really get into it because I want to take a step back. On the albums, you can hear what I’m saying, but live…a lot of times it’s hard to tell exactly the words I’m saying unless you know the songs. You’re just seeing this guy up there jumping around and screaming a lot. So I really try to act out the words a lot, just to give more context to the songs. As far as inhabiting a character, I think maybe there’s a little bit in there, but it’s not like a musical or something where I’m really becoming someone else. It’s more just trying to really communicate the lyrics to the audience as much as possible.”

To share the Outstanding Stage Presence award in a field packed with amazing Front Range bands means a lot to Slusher.

“It’s super cool,” he says. “and I want to give a shout-out to all the nominees, because I’ve seen every one of those bands and they all put on fantastic live shows. To even be considered amongst them is such an honor. And to win it is just a really good feeling; it’s so fun. I can’t believe there was a tie and I’m so psyched that it’s Los Mocochetes. They are an amazing live band. I mean, the whole work they put into their live production and the way they look and all the stagecraft that they do is absolutely inspirational to us.”

Meet all of the 2024 Colorado Sound Music Award winners

On the Rise – the Trujillo Company

Colorado Spirit – Swallow Hill Music

Outstanding Stage Presence (tie) – Los Mocochetes

Outstanding Stage Presence (tie) – the Swashbuckling Doctors

Outstanding ‘Secret Ingredient’ – Fort Collins Musicians Association (FoCoMA)

Musician or Band You’d Drive 105.5. Miles to See – 2MX2

Meet all the winners and all our incredible 2024 Colorado Sound Music Award nominees

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