“A documentary film crew has been trailing the boys, capturing their live shows and daredevil Jackass-style stunts like mountain biking over cliffs and playing electric guitar in a freezing cold river.”
The Dirty Turkeys got together while students at the University of Colorado. With (recent) diplomas in hand, they’re primed for global rock n’ roll stardom reports PETER DAVIS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CASS ROZE AND AGNELLI NGUYEN
There is an unsung tradition of famous rock bands forming while still in school. The Strokes met as high schoolers at New York’s tony Lycée Francais, the Talking Heads got together while studying art at RISD and Phish started as a college jam band at UVM. The Ramones, who met at Forest Hills High School in Queens, famously sang Rock N’ Roll High School. What better place than school to be heard by throngs of young students, their ears hungry to absorb the latest sound? The newest band to emerge from the halls of higher education: The Dirty Turkeys—four recent graduates of the University of Colorado in Boulder, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Once the de facto house band at countless rowdy CU Boulder parties, The Dirty Turkeys (brothers Russ and Brad Hansen, Sam Baker, and Ty Tullar) now fill concert venues coast to coast. At graduation, the band got a jolt of internet virality when Baker, sporting a top hat emblazoned with the band’s name, threw up—thanks to playing a late-night gig the night before—in a large trash bin in front of hundreds of guests during his graduation ceremony. Video of this “Vomit-palooza” clocked over 632,000 likes on Barstool Sports’ TikTok account. “My poor mother,” Baker relents. “She wasn’t stoked about that, but I made it up to her. A bunch of moms came up to me after to try to take pictures with me. I was like, ‘Please stop.’” Talk about a Spinal Tap worthy rock star graduation scene. Speaking of stomach sickness, the band found their name after a thermometer exploded in a turkey during Thanksgiving and the Hansen’s mother Biz exclaimed: “That’s one dirty turkey.”
“In high school, I was a jock and president of the chess club. People from back then don’t even recognize me now.” – Brad Hansen
The Dirty Turkeys’ sound–trippy psychedelic rock sliced with country twang and punk angst—is best experienced live. Lead singer Brad Hansen, an extreme sports enthusiast (a passion all four members share) struts the stage with the sinewy, sexy bravado of Mick Jagger and the theatricality of Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. At outdoor shows, Hansen shimmies up trees, crooning while perilously hanging from a branch. “I’ve always wanted to be a lead singer. I had that in me,” Hansen says. “In high school, I was a jock and president of the chess club. People from back then don’t even recognize me now.”
Self-taught musicians (Russ and Sam learned guitar via YouTube tutorials), the Hansen brothers penned most of the songs on the band’s debut album Cowboy Caravan. The band already has a stadium-worthy anthem: Quinceañera (about being drunk at a 15-year-old’s birthday party) which they often close live shows with, the audience morphing into a frenetic mosh pit. “That was our first song. It’s about raw and primate expression. When we close with Quinceañera, we usually destroy the stage,” Russ Hansen says with a mischievous laugh. “I hope someday to get invited to a real quinceañera. But I don’t know any 16-year-olds.”
“The Dirty Turkeys’ sound–trippy psychedelic rock sliced with country twang and punk angst—is best experienced live.”
The Dirty Turkeys spent the summer touring all over the west, playing L.A.’s famous Viper Room and the Fox Theater in Boulder. They’re now in the studio cutting their second studio album Soul Sugar (which Brad Hansen describes as “controlled chaos–in between face melting fuzz and glamorous acid rock”) and are setting off on a coast-to-coast tour. A documentary film crew has been trailing the boys along the way capturing their live shows and daredevil Jackass-style stunts like mountain biking over cliffs and playing electric guitar in a freezing cold river. “My favorite part of being in the band is the community we have formed,” says Baker. “We have this ability to attract interesting and cool people. We’re like a family and we are having the time of our lives.”
