OurStage

Most bands fantasize about the rock n' roll lifestyle of the three B's: Booze, Boobs and Booze again. Loaded .45's fantasy plays like Martha Stewart's bastard teenager's version of the life, hanging somewhere between kickin' out punk music and whipping up the perfect batch of cookies in the back of the tour bus ... If they had one. Their version of musical nirvana is strangely appropriate for this DIY band from Grand Junction, Colorado, which bills itself as No Coast Punk N' Roll. For a three piece band that's spent the better part of its one-year existence writing music and playing around the Rockies, success isn't about hitting the recording studio to produce an album. It's drawing crowds with original songs most fans scream for by name and playing with groups like Love Me Destroyer, Link (Japan), Los Kung Fu Monkeys (Mexico), Voodoo Glow Skulls, and Authority Zero. The group, comprised of Josh Roberts (bass and lead singer), Christopher Boyd (guitar, vocals) and Ryan Willard (drums), puts fun first. If they're not debating the Tao of air hockey, the difference between gutter punk and pop punk or why Christopher's i-Pod has so much Elliott Smith on it, they're singing along unabashedly to Bob Seger on road trips to support other bands in the region. Reconciling musical backgrounds from punk that makes you want to "party til you drop to cry in the bathroom by myself music, the group just works. Loaded .45's commitment to music and each other comes across to its audiences, who, if they're good little children, can get some of those cookies.