Words: Slade Rand
Photo Courtesy: Pool Sharks
Boulder rockers Pool Sharks embark on a new chapter this weekend with a combo album release and “we’ll be back” show on the Trident Booksellers & Cafe back patio.
The band returns to the scene of its first performance ever to send lead guitarist and vocalist Leo Treviño on his way cross-country Friday night. Pool Sharks is sticking together while he travels, working on its next album and playing shows when the four musicians are in town later this summer.
“We’ve been writing a lot, so we’ve got things to work on,” founding drummer Ethan Minard told After Midnight. “Over the past few months as the album came closer… we started coming up with some new songs.”
Pool Sharks is Treviño on guitar and vocals, Minard on drums, Tyler Truscelli on bass and Ted Stevens on guitar. The band released its debut album ‘Pool Sharks’ in April, a few days after Minard dislocated his shoulder. Now recovered, Minard and the band will celebrate the new album at Trident Cafe this Friday with support from friends Spitting Image and Jupiter Control Tower.
The new Pool Sharks album is a thrashing seven-track tear through energetic rhythms and dancey surf-rock from outer-space. Click here to listen. Pool Sharks’ songwriting talent is clear from the start, and the band will bring some serious energy to the back patio Friday night.
“I guess, over the course of the past year ‘shark rock’ has evolved into loud, aggressive spacey music,” Treviño said.
Ethan and Leo started the project a couple of years ago, jamming in Minard’s basement. They linked up with local players Truscelli and Stevens six months in and got to work on the new album. Stevens brought tunes including ‘Which Light’ and ‘Fingernail of the Moon,’ to the group, which fit nicely on the album with ‘Tardigrade’ and ‘Dire Fire’ that the duo had written together.
“We’re still riding high from our very first show ever,” Truscelli said. “Just because it was so disorganized and way better a result there than any of us could have imagined.”
Pool Sharks has performed some of the new songs through nearly 30 shows together since January 2023, with an especially memorable Halloween gig at a house party in town last year.
“We didn’t even know anyone there, I don’t know how we got the show,” Stevens recalled. “We were the last band to play, so a lot of the rowdy drunk young crowd had dissipated. The people who stayed were genuinely so attentive, listening and dancing and having fun. That just keeps us going, keeps me going.”
The band will collaborate from afar this year, honing in their sound and pushing the boundaries of what shark rock is. Whenever possible, they’ll bring some Pool Sharks magic back to Boulder with a couple of gigs in a weekend.
Treviño said the group clamped down on its sound through long jam sessions and live shows that let them explore.
“Time passed and we found that naturally when we’d jam we’d improvise harder stuff, faster stuff, rockier stuff,” he said.
The fiery debut album is a product all all four members’ styles blending, gnashing and simmering together.
Album track ‘Sam the Frog’ begins with a rolling knock from Minard on the drums, dropping into a hazy full-band crawl. The music kicks into a higher psychedelic gear mid-song as the tune takes off. Treviño’s sustained vocals fit well in the effects-heavy space between the two guitars.
‘Hat Song’ adds another twist to what it means to play “shark rock.” The band grooves on top of syncopated drums and a whimsical guitar riff. It’s a fun take on the Pool Sharks sound established early in the album, and feels like an essential part of the band’s style.
“It’s cool to have a song or a song or two to break up the fuzz and the rock-iness of it all. I like having ‘Hat Song’ in our pocket,” Stevens said.
‘Hat Song’ stands out amid the debut album’s harder and louder rock songs, but its lyrics and structure are true to the core of Pool Sharks.
“You would get on my nerves, if I had any left. And if I was a hat, I would sit on your head,” the band sings.
These four local musicians connected deeply during the past year-and-a-half of throwing down around town. Pool Sharks isn’t going to stop swimming, and these guys aren’t going to stop inspiring each other.
Truscelli and Minard went to high school together, and their musical bond gives Pool Sharks a key part of its identity. Truscelli said he was an immediate ‘yes’ to the project, and having a lifelong musical partner on board just sweetened the deal.
“It wasn’t long afterward that it felt just like I had been friends with them my whole life too,” Truscelli said. “Now that I’m doing it, I never want to fall out of it.”
Minard said though Pool Sharks will keep playing into the future, he’ll always remember the early basement days.
“The thing I’ll remember the most is making music with my best friends,” Minard said. “From the start of Leo and I jamming together, it’s all just clicked.”
Pool Sharks plays Friday night in Boulder on the Trident back patio. Enter through the alleyway.
After Midnight 
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