Interview Lucas Johannes of Hot Congress on the group’s origin and evolution

In roughly two years, Hot Congress has grown from a handful of bands on the fringe of Denver’s music scene to one of the Mile High City’s more prominent artist collectives. Boasting a roster of 13 bands (and one poet) that ranges from Fingers Of The Sun’s psychedelic ’60s worship to The Kissing Party’s bedroom pop to The Jim Jims’ muscles-and-Joy Division sounds, Hot Congress champions the diversity of indie rock’s late-’90s glory days. This month, the Hot Congress residency puts its bands into Meadowlark every Thursday in November, save Thanksgiving, making it even harder to overlook its members. Co-founder Lucas Johannes (of Action Packed Thrill Ride and Hindershot) spoke with The A.V. Club about the group’s growth and evolution.

A.V. Club: Is it true Hot Congress originally came together because a lot of its early bands felt overlooked by the press and club bookers in Denver?

Lucas Johannes: I think that was part of it. A lot of it was we just wanted to put out records and put together a compilation. We were already playing shows with each other and going to each other’s shows. We just wanted to put a name on what we were already working on. We thought that putting a name on it would just make it more identifiable. It’s kind of changed over the years. First, we wanted to be an artist collective and put on shows, and maybe help everybody self-release their records. Then earlier this year, we decided we might as well just call it a record label, following in the footsteps of smaller-town record labels, like Elephant Six or Saddle Creek.

AVC: Hot Congress has become one of Denver’s more identifiable scenes since then. Is that surprising, considering the collective’s outsider roots?

LJ: I’m really surprised that it’s caught on so well. I guess a lot of that is we’ve really been pushing each other to make more music and more quality music. It’s a friendly game, a competition.

AVC: Do you ever feel as if there’s a backlash against the collective these days?

LJ: It’s to be expected. Anytime that you put yourself out there, there’s an initial reaction from people who aren’t involved. There’s the people who want to be involved and want to help out and there’s the people whose first reaction is to say, “Oh, this is weird. You’re just a clique.” Once you announce that you’re a collective, everyone that’s outside of it is instantly not a part of it. I didn’t really think about that when we first started it. Maybe I was a little too wide-eyed.

The backlash hasn’t been anything super-bad. It’s always hearsay like, “Oh, this person really hates Hot Congress.” The ultimate thing is, if you’re in a band and you’re putting music out and you can’t take an insult from somebody, you should think twice about putting something out there. If we put something out there and people hate it because it comes from our group, that’s their problem.

AVC: Can you describe the growth of Hot Congress?

LJ: We’ve been adding bands at a pretty slow rate. That’s one of the things that really changed from when we first started. We were, “We’ll add a million bands and we’ll be really inclusive and stuff!” Over time, it just morphed into more working with bands that were the most interested in working with us. Instead of trying to snag up everybody, we’re slowly integrating them.

AVC: That slow growth’s helped you to create an identifiable brand. There are some legendary underground labels that were great at creating a brand for a niche audience.

LJ: Even when I’m reading reviews on whatever website, a lot of times I look at the label along with the band name. If I don’t recognize the band name, but I see Jagjaguwar, I’ll be like, “Oh, man I’ve got to check this review out.” I let (the labels) do the quality control for me. I just know it’s going to be something that I probably like.

AVC: You’ve started doing your own quality control, though. The Hot Congress website is turning into a ’zine of sorts, with interviews with touring bands.

LJ: I really wanted to provide an outlet to touring bands that don’t necessarily get a lot of press from Westword or The Denver Post or The A.V. Club. I thought it would be nice to reach out to some bands that I would view as being on our level, coming from different cities, and just ask if they want to share a little about themselves before they come to town.

AVC: That also has to help when your bands leave Denver to tour.

LJ: We have a pretty decent audience in Denver, but we’re just hoping to push out from Denver. Getting more national attention on our bands is one of the goals. It’s been one of the goals from the beginning, to take these bands we really love in Denver and force them onto everybody else’s ears outside of Denver.