Gothic Theatre
Afliction
The accounts of Afliction’s rise to “glory” is a torrid and twisted tale, full of late nights, heavy music, porcelain derived puking, and countless hours of lugging shit around in the snow to and from the mountains at 2 o’ clock in the morining. The band was formed in the humble year of 1997 by Jacob Althoff singing and playing guitar, Jason Jones on the bass guitar, Jarod on rhythm guitar, and Pat on the drums. After writing about two or three songs and getting serious, Jason moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to live with his girlfriend at the time. After about a year, Jason moved back to Colorado out of obvious necessity. By the time he returned, Pat had decided not to play anymore and was replaced by Bill. With Jason back, the band was once again complete.
However, it was just a few months later that the band decided to get rid of Bill and recruited long time friend Chris to fill the drumming shoes. But wait… onto drummer number four; due to Chris’ inability at the time to remember the songs, he was also dismissed while the crew was at a party. Conveniently enough, at the time of the announcement, another good friend of the band, Matt, was upstairs partying away himself. It was at this time that he was hired.
For the next year the band appeared to finally be set in their ways. With a stable line up of Jacob, Jason, Jarod, and Matt, the band went on to write four or five more tunes. Then eventually play the first of many shows at none other than the strip club ‘Bare Essence’. The show instigated a plathora of shows to comeand quick rising number of friends and fans attending each one.
Not to long afterwards, Jacob had found an ad in a newspaper to get a demo album of eight songs recorded in some dude’s basement. The quality of the CD was less than inspiring, but it was capable of distribution none-the-less. At about this time, Jacob’s current girlfriend was in a near fatal car accident around New Years Eve of 2000. And of course, it was after this that Matt decided not to play drums in the band anymore, and the band was left tempoless yet again.
In mid to late 2000, Jacob and a wheelchair-bound Casey went to a ProSound music store in Littleton hoping to find a new drummer. Robert Barnett (also refered to as #5), was the drum department manager at the time, and with a little coersion became the “new drummer” for Afliction. The band wearily went on to play shows as if they had never stopped. Starting to feel comfortable with their new drummer, they wrote two more songs and continued getting stronger as a power quartet. But hey, come on, you know it didn’t end there.
Sometime in 2001, Robert decided to shift gears to another band; Kronow (who are still going strong) and put a red light yet again. The band went through even another drummer after that; Ryan, who was hired basically out of nowhere, and played for about two months.
But hey! That didn’t last. Big surprise huh? At about the time Ryan decided to quit, Robert showed up out of the blue at Jarod’s door and wanted the job back. They were Afliction again!… for a week. Not even seven days and one re-practice later, Robert had an opportunity to play with the then KBPI created band NUM. For the next three months, Afliction re-recruited old drummer Pat and played a few shows like it was two years ago. Pat decided then to quit playing again, at which time NUM had broken up and Robert was left bandless. During this time, Jarod, one of the founding three members also quit the band and opted for life with his girlfriend and his son. Another Robert, fresh from a roll with a local band ‘Hopeless’, had filled the guitar gap. With Robert the drummer, returning for a third time to the band: Jacob, Jason, Robert on guitar, and Robert on drums, were back in action and sounding better than ever…. until Herman’s Hideaway.
The band’s third show at the bar in their five year history, went less than expected when Robert on guitar decided to show up drunk, get even more drunk, and then completely ruin the band’s set. They were pretty damn furious and fired Robert on guitar. They were back to three. They played a few three man shows, but knew they needed that second guitar. Which is where Mike Dewey flies in: cape, tights and all, to save the day. In a matter of three practices, the former Seraphim Shock guitarist broke the barrier as the best guitar player to fill the gap yet.
And for awhile, it was good. Then, Mike Dewey decided to discharge himself from the band for many personal reasons, leaving Afliction as a trio once again.
Which brings us to today. Jabob Althoff, Jason Jones, and Robert Barnett. Afliction as the best it has ever been. With the band finally secure and confident with their music, they are “stronger than all” and tighter than ever. Playing the biggest and most high profile shows yet on a regular basis, they are finally moving up in the world as they should be. And rest assured that the band is completely set and ready to rock the world! All is very fucking well with us! Except that damn drummer… The End.
