The Velveteers are feeling jaded.
“There's a lot of frustration built up within us,” says the Boulder-based trio’s frontwoman Demi Demitro. “I kind of just felt like it was going to come out — regardless of if we wanted it to.”
“A big part of the music industry is there's a lot of misogyny,” she says. “You know there's gonna be some of that, but then when you're experiencing it, it's kind of wild to know how intense it is.”
Now, on a sophomore album that brings their cosmic brand of rock to glimmering new realms, The Velveteers are balancing the light and the dark of their experiences in the music industry as they find their place within it.
“You can love doing something so much, and you have this beautiful thing right in front of you, but a lot of times it comes with something that's gonna stab you,” she says. “While it's beautiful and amazing, there can be a lot of negativity that comes with something like that.”
That’s the sentiment of the album’s title track, A Million Knives, out Feb. 14 via Easy Eye Sound.
“[The album] is kind of a love letter to the inner child in all of us,” Demitro says ahead of the Valentine’s Day release show and tour kickoff at Denver’s Hi-Dive.
“We all come into this world with our hearts being very pure. And then as time goes on, just naturally you … lose that innocence.”
I might even be a rockstar
It’s a fitting theme for musicians who have known each other since they were teens in Boulder.
Demitro and drummer Baby Pottersmith, then 16 and 15, initially met about a decade ago at a concert at The Fox.
“All I remember is that it was like a white boy reggae band,” Pottersmith says. “I don't know why we were there — really bad.”
“The only reason I was there is because I knew you were gonna be there,” Demitro answers. “I was like, ‘This is my chance to go talk to them.’”
They bonded over acts like The Kills, The White Stripes and The Black Keys, and began making music together. Demitro and Pottersmith, who later added drummer Johnny Fig to the group, have now toured with the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Guns N’ Roses, Greta Van Fleet and The Black Keys — whose frontman Dan Auerbach produced A Million Knives as well as the band’s debut album, Nightmare Daydream.
“Back then, it was like, ‘Oh yeah, we love this. Maybe someday someone else will love it,'” Pottersmith says. “So seeing someone like Dan, who's been successful in the industry, like the stuff we were putting out, and then put his hand behind and believe in it, was cool and felt really nice.”
Despite those early straight rock influences, Demitro, now 27, says they’ve been drawing on poppier inspiration this time around — another ode to the inner child.
“When I was probably 14, I was, like, obsessed with pop music,” she says. “I wasn't even into rock at that point. So when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus.”
That was her first concert, and her 12th birthday was Hannah Montana themed. As a young teen, she put on her first concert singing Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Brittany Spears covers.
The band credits Lady Gaga as an influence on the album, particularly on the single “On and On.”
“From the very beginning, I feel like those pop influences have been there,” Demitro says. “I just wasn't embracing them as much.”
Soft spots
Those pop sensibilities don’t mean the new album is absent of Demitro’s hard-driving guitar or the massive percussion of Pottersmith and Fig — quite the opposite. The Velveteers’ signature blend of glitzy glam and witchy mysticism is ever-present, too.
But there’s also something softer there.
“This one feels a lot more vulnerable. Our first album was really kind of straightforward, heavy rock ’n’ roll,” Demitro says. “With this one, we wrote about things that were a little more vulnerable for us and encouraged those moments a little bit more.”
As they navigate those soft spots through the ups and downs of the music industry, The Velveteers say they want to stay true to their vision.
“There's so many people that are going to try to make you feel like a product and make all these things seem like they're really important, when at the end of the day, they're the least important things,” Demitro says.
“I just want to be authentically myself and authentically an artist, and I hope that inspires other people.”
ON THE BILL: The Velveteers with Cherry Spit and Diva Cup. Friday, Feb. 14, Hi-Dive, 7 South Broadway, Denver. $20. Sold out.