Life & Work with Pool Sharks

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pool Sharks. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Pool Sharks started as a collaboration between Leo Treviño (guitar/vocals) and Ethan Minard (drums) in early 2022. They both had an interest in writing expressive, experimental, and hard-hitting psych-rock music which led them to begin jamming together and starting to write new songs. After a few months of playing together, they added Ethan’s old high school friend Tyler Truscelli on bass guitar and Leo’s work friend Ted Stevens on lead guitar.

In February of 2023, they had their first show with the completed line-up at Trident Booksellers and Cafe which was a resounding success. In May, they released their first single entitled “Tardigrade” followed by the song “The Sun is My Daddy” in July, “Dire Fire” in August, and “Filet Mignon” (which is a collaboration with the Denver-based musician Yugs) in October. All of these releases except for Filet Mignon were created using DIY methods: they were recorded at their house in Longmont and produced by Ethan Minard.

At the end of July, Pool Sharks headlined their biggest show yet at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. In August they embarked on an east coast tour where they played shows in Lincoln Nebraska, Chicago, Philadelphia, Burlington Vermont, Brooklyn New York, Wichita Kansas, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati Ohio. Pool Sharks is currently working on recording and producing an EP in their DIY studio in Longmont and will be competing in the Bandwagon battle of the bands on November 24th at the Mercury Cafe in Denver.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Just like with any up-and-coming band, it has not been a perfectly smooth road. One issue that Pool Sharks encountered early on was having to change up their lineup a couple of times. Before they had Tyler and Ted in their band they had a different bass player and a rhythm guitarist – both of which ended up leaving the band. This change was difficult because they were and still are friends with each other. Ultimately, they had to change the lineup for the benefit of the band. Another struggle they encountered was planning for their east coast tour in August.

None of the members had embarked on such a tour, and therefore they didn’t know what to expect or even how to plan such an endeavor. They ended up playing some bad shows along the way to empty rooms but also played a few great shows with really receptive audiences. Overall it was a great learning experience for the entire band – they all feel that they know what and what not to do when planning their next tour.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We consider ourselves to be a psych-rock band. We take a lot of inspiration from bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Thee Oh Sees, Pink Floyd, and others. We are known for playing a lot of fast energetic music with unique and psychedelic song structures. We are known for experimentation with somewhat abstract musical ideas – an example of which can be found in the latter section of our song “Tardigrade”.

Our guitarists Ted and Leo take full advantage of their guitar pedals to create washes of sound to create unique abstract sections in our songs which are contrasted by fast and aggressive riffs and melodies. We are proud of the fact that we can go on stage and express our true, raw emotions and people seem to be receptive to that. We are proud of how far we have come in such a short amount of time and we truly think that our music speaks for itself.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
We think that risk-taking is an important part of being in a band. An example of our risk-taking was going on tour. Touring is a huge risk because it is extremely expensive to go on tour – especially when you are going all the way to the East Coast from Colorado. There was a risk that the venues and the band that we booked could flake on us that our car could break down that an instrument could break on the road, etc. All of these would spell disaster for our tour.

In the end, it worked out pretty well for us and we were able to pay for a lot of our expenses through the shows that we played – none of this was guaranteed though, and there was a huge risk for it to be a failure. In addition, we think that performing music is risk-taking in itself. You have to allow yourself to be vulnerable on stage without knowing what the reception will be. As much as you rehearse and prepare for shows there is always the risk of something going wrong which is what makes live music so exciting.

Pricing:

• Homemade Pool Sharks shirts go for $20 at our shows!

Contact Info:

• Website: poolsharksband.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poolsharksband/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@poolsharks
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1h0DdVJrajDPOkesubqk5C?si=Mynkwq-qQm-_bNTN68EVjw

Image Credits
Preston Yamasaki @prestonlee.photos