When CU Boulder professor Steve Lamos first stepped back on stage with his long-defunct college band in the summer of 2014, he was freshly tenured with two babies at home. Not exactly the stuff of rock ’n’ roll fantasy.
His band had never done things quite by the book. Despite the feral crowd hungry for a reunion of midwest emo legends American Football, who disbanded before the release of their genre-defining 1999 debut, the path bringing the cult-favorite act back to the world didn’t resemble the traditional models of success. Instead, it was more like the polyrhythms of Lamos’ signature drumming style: elastic, unorthodox and unpredictable.
“I think if the band had actually existed and was trying to make it during the previous years, none of this would have happened,” Lamos, 52, tells Caribou Current between grading papers for his music writing course. “There was this moment when something about the music, and then also to the imagery, the way the album cover gets memed — people were consistently writing themselves into the story of this band.”
One person who would eventually write themselves into the American Football story wasn’t even born when their first album came out. Max Adams, now a freshman at CU, says he was 14 or 15 when he stumbled across the iconic artwork for the quartet’s self-titled debut at Luna Music in Indianapolis a few years ago. As a young percussionist growing up hours from the band’s hometown of Urbana, Illinois, he was quickly entranced by Lamos’ singular rhythmic complexity.
“It immediately stuck out to me. He really drums for the song, but still makes it his own. If you just heard the drums, you could tell that’s him on the kit,” Adams says. “The way they play around on their guitars is really dreamy, too. Also, as any sort of self-absorbed high schooler, I loved the lyrics. It was like, ‘This is what speaks to me.’”
This part of Adams’ story isn’t unique. Plenty of young people have found themselves swept up by American Football’s “math rock” time signatures and wistful songs about teenage feelings. But most of them don’t go on to pitch a creative collaboration with a member of the band, which is what Adams did upon arrival at CU Boulder last fall.
The plan? Re-imagine the music of American Football with the help of the CU Percussion Ensemble and the drummer who first brought the music into the world. When Adams pitched the ideas to Lamos, it felt something like a full-circle moment for the artist whose last memory of a music class was storming out of a DePaul University practice as a self-described “immature” young trumpet student in the early ’90s.
Now, after months of rehearsal, Lamos finds himself reeling from the talent and poise of the half-dozen young musicians who will breathe new life into his band’s celebrated catalogue during a one-night performance titled Everything Between You and Me at CU Boulder’s Imig Chamber Hall on April 25.
Courtesy: Max Adams
“I’m a terrible reader of music, so I’m super nervous, because these kids are legit. I’m trying to ear my way through what they’re doing,” the Lyons resident says. “It’s incredibly flattering. It’s also really odd, because they take these songs I know by feel and flip them upside down. I’m like, ‘Oh my god. Why did I agree to play badly in front of all these people?’”
For Adams — who, in addition to arranging the new versions of American Football classics, also contributes guitar, vibraphone and synthesizer — collaborating with one of his major percussion heroes represents a full-circle moment of a different sort.
“It was hard to meet him for the first time and act all serious and not say, ‘I have your record in my dorm,’” Adams, 19, says with a laugh. “It’s very surreal, but he’s very kind and approachable and meets you where you are. He really made this whole thing feel pretty natural, but at the end of the day you’ve got to pinch yourself a little bit.”
For Lamos, there’s a lot more to this moment than preparing for an unorthodox collaboration and wrapping up the end of the semester. It also comes on the brink of the band’s fourth self-titled album, released earlier this month via Polyvinyl Records, and a national tour kicking off in Denver on May 15.
While young people like Adams don’t know a world without an active iteration of American Football, the band’s current trajectory wasn’t always a foregone conclusion. The dozen years since their 2014 reunion have brought milestones the band could never have imagined, like purchasing the now-iconic house on the cover of their debut LP to protect it from developers. But they have also been rife with setbacks and uncertainty, including Lamos’ brief departure in 2021 due to shifting life circumstances and what he describes as "differing views about the direction of the band."
Such ups and downs are weaved into the fabric of the American Football story, which has never been a linear narrative. But now, as the band hits the road in support of their most audacious and expansive album yet, there is only one direction: forward.
“The whole time we’ve been pretty clear with one another: We’re not going to do this [reunion] if we can’t do new things,” Lamos says. “Something about this new record just really feels like where I am as a player, or a person, at the moment. There’s a lot of disorientation that feels like the unease of middle age.”
“I hope it resonates with other folks, because this has been a meaningful one for us,” he continues. “There were all sorts of question marks surrounding the band, so there was no guarantee there was going to be a fourth album. The fact that it got done, and got done in a way we’re really happy with — it feels like we’ve overcome something.”
ON THE BILL: Everything Between You and Me: CU Boulder Percussion Ensemble X American Football (Steve Lamos). 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, CU Boulder - Imig Music Building: Room S134 (Chamber Hall). Free. Sold out.
ON THE BILL: American Football + Mei Semones. 7 p.m. Friday, May 15, Summit Music Hall, Denver. Sold out. Resale: $113
LISTEN UP: American Football (LP4) by American Football is out May 1 via Polyvinyl Records.
