On Thursday, November 9, 2023 I got the opportunity to spend some time hanging out with the 7 members of Aughter in the air stream that acts like a green room for bands playing at Globe Hall in Denver. This was the last performance of a 2 week run of shows while all the members of the band were in town.
Aughter is a unique blend of influences and inspirations that come together to form a Frankenstein monster of rock music that refuses to be categorized. The show at Globe Hall included Spongebong Hemppants, Batterhead and Aughter with Dead Hookup as the headliner.
The band’s name is pronounced like “daughter” or “slaughter” without the “d” or “sl”. Alternatively, you can think of the name as “otter” but fancy AF.
Aughter consists of 7 members, 6 of them musicians:
- Daniel – Lead singer with a background in rap and hip hop with a voice like “honey on butter” according to Ben.
- Brittany – Bass guitar and Boss of Aughter (at least according to all the other band members) with a background in sad acoustic stuff.
- Zach – Guitar just temporarily but permanently.
- Tony – Drummer with a heavy metal background.
- Ben – Rhythm guitar with a background in folk with rock influences from the 80s and 90s. He can even play guitar with corn.
- Lehya (pronounced “Lee-ya”) – Backup vocals and “band mom”.
- Marley – Photography/video for social media and merch table wrangler.
“I’d be nothing without these guys. I’d just be a guy hitting things.”
-Tony
The idea of Aughter was started in a garage in 2022 after a cookout. In May of 2023, the band was almost done before they found Ben and Zach who have breathed new life into the band with their songwriting.
Aughter is a product of our post-pandemic world, not only because they started in 2022, but since members of the band live in Colorado, Virginia, and Georgia, the band uses online tools to collaborate on music that involves doing things like recording with GarageBand and sharing sound files back and forth with a large Google Drive. This makes for an interesting song-crafting experience because each musician will know their part and hear the other musician’s parts over and over while crafting the songs way before they ever play the song together, as a band, in the same room.
“We’re a small band with big band problems.”
-Brittany
Social media for the band is mostly handled by Daniel on TikTok and Brittany on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Threads is how I got in touch with the band. Their social media strategy is “trial by error” and try to find out who is best at what and putting those band members in charge of those areas.
When asked about other Colorado bands, the members of Aughter mentioned Lucky By Choice, Nub, Hoverfly, The Crew and Interrobang as other Colorado bands to listen to. They enjoy supporting other bands in the scene and were quick to compliment the members of Spongebong Hemppants when they came in after their set. Aughter was also excited to check out the end of Batterhead’s set as soon as our interview was over.
“Some people are gonna play their set, bring their friends then leave right after… but a lot of the bands we’ve played with have been supportive of what we do because we support what they do.”
-Daniel
Aughter is planning on getting together early 2024 to record new songs and get distribution set up to be able to better have music on Spotify.
The best way to monetarily support any band is to buy their merchandise! The best way to show support is to wear the merchandise, buy tickets to shows and dance along!
You “aughter’ give them a listen! You can check out more about Aughter on the Square State Music Aughter profile page!
