Aaron Saye, Seventh Circle Music Collective

 The following interview is with Aaron Saye and was conducted via text about 7C on 08/11/2021:

Eddie: Hey Aaron, should we go for it?

Aaron: Sure!

Eddie: So firstly, what was your entry point into the DIY community? What was your introduction?

Aaron: ah, cool! The first truly DIY shows I went to were in 2005. There was a spot called the Fallen Skate Warehouse at 22nd and Lawrence, where the people who were renting the place had built a bunch of huge skate ramps and bowls inside this half-block-wide warehouse, and they threw shows there. The first time I saw a band there, they played on a stage made of wood pallets stacked on top of beer kegs. It was great. I started going to local punk shows there, saw a lot of touring bands play there throughout 2005 as well, and when it got shut down at the end of 2005 and my friends’ show that was supposed to happen there got moved to someone’s basement, that was my first house show. The person whose house hosted that last-minute show started throwing shows in his basement regularly in early 2006, and I went to as many of them as I could. They dubbed the house the “Chaos Compound”. Around that time, I also started seeing shows at the Less Art Warehouse, which was right next to the Fallen Skate Warehouse. Those were some of the best times, and my real entry into underground punk in Denver. I had started filming shows in 2004 and 2005, and my involvement at this point was just as a fan, show-goer, and video documentarian, to capture the magic of these shows. 

In the summer of 2006, I discovered Blast-O-Mat, and that was where I truly fell in love with DIY and its ethos. By the end of 2006 I knew that Blast-O-Mat was something really special, and I wanted to be around that community as much as I could. I started going to as many shows there as I could, and as it evolved from a punk house that threw shows in their garage into a more established DIY venue, I became involved as a volunteer in late 2009/early 2010, helping to run shows when I could. That’s what I consider to be my entry point into actually being involved, as opposed to just being a fan / show-goer / documentarian.

Eddie: 2009 / 2010? But introduced in 05?

Aaron: Yeah, introduced to DIY as we all generally know it in 2005, but really truly got involved in the ways I’m known for today in 2009/2010. Although I did have a hand in booking and helping with some DIY-esque shows in 2007 and 2008 that happened at places like the Climax Lounge, Moe’s in Englewood, and some other spots, and I first started touring with DIY bands in 2006, and really ramped into it in 2009.

Eddie: Awesome!

It seems like there was something special going on in 2005. Rhino and Glob both started as well in addition to the spaces you mentioned. I’m curious if you think there was anything about Denver at that time that was noteworthy?

Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. I first went to Rhino and Glob sometime in 2008, I believe, but I knew about Rhino as early as 2006. I can’t really put my finger on what was so magical about that period of time, but Denver definitely had something special, for sure. It was a great era for DIY venues to pop up and establish a foothold, and it was before the city had had this huge influx of, well, everything, it seems like, which has resulted in the skyrocketing prices of everything, especially property and rent, so DIY venues were able to actually survive fairly easily back then. There were so many…. Monkey Mania is another super important one that I forgot to mention earlier, and of course, Mouth House in 2011-2013.

and it also had this really carefree air about it, that 2005-2009 era, at least for me. I was discovering so much more music, so many more genres and sub-subcultures, and really just enjoying shows that were drama-free and beautiful. Everyone seemed to get along, I don’t remember any division whatsoever.

Eddie: That’s super rad! Did that shape your view of what it could be?

Aaron: Kind of, yeah! Although at that time I wasn’t really thinking about what anything “could” be, because it already was. I was content just being at shows and filming them, it was a time period filled with so many great shows and great friends. 

I didn’t really start thinking about what “could” be until I had been volunteering at Blast-O-Mat for a year or more, and had seen how it operated from an inside perspective, and loved it, certainly, but also knew that it had the potential to be something bigger if the people in charge wanted it to be. They didn’t, however, which I think was a very wise choice for them to make. They lived there, they just wanted to book what they wanted to book, and I was so happy and content just working shows there and booking a few here and there. I did daydream occasionally about how to run it differently, if no one lived there and it could be just a fully-functioning venue, but never thought that that would be anything more than a daydream, haha.

Eddie: So what was that transition like, from Blast-O to 7th Circle?

Aaron: It was really smooth overall! In July 2012, the people living there by then announced to the rest of us that they were moving out, and that if no one wanted to step in and move in, and take over operations, then Blast-O-Mat would shut down. Apparently no one from the inner-circle of Blast-O people was willing and able to take that on at the time, so they decided it would come to an end by the end of August. I couldn’t be at that volunteer meeting when this was announced, but my great friend Becca, who was another volunteer from outside the original Blast-O circles like me, was at the meeting, and she called me afterwards to tell me what was happening, and she suggested that the two of us could band together and take the place over, and keep it alive. She pitched it to me as, “With your booking skills and your connections in the music scene overall, I bet the two of us could keep it going and get more volunteers in place to help us run it,” etc etc, so I talked to the guy who was living there at the time about it over the following week. Essentially, he and the other core Blast-O crew decided that if Becca and I wanted to take it on, we could feel free come September, as the last Blast-O show was scheduled for August 25th and they’d be moving out by the end of the month. They just had one request, that we change the name and start anew, since Blast-O would be going out on their own terms, and we’d be running things differently in a lot of ways, and it deserved a fresh name along with its fresh start. They were super helpful, putting me in touch with the landlords to transfer the property to me, offering to let us borrow some PA gear to get started with, and were very willing to make the transition as smooth as possible. 

Over the course of August, Becca and I got plans in place to assume the roles of taking on running a venue, we reached out to the music scene for help, and by September, we had a crew of 50 people who wanted to help volunteer and help us transform the place into whatever we decided it would be come. We had the first volunteer meeting for the new endeavor on Sept. 2nd, got the new venue name in place, cleaned up and reorganized a lot of things about the layout since no one would be living there anymore, started social media pages and got the word out that we were now the people booking / running what was formerly known as Blast-O-Mat, put in a new sound system and lights since those had belonged to Blast-O and they took them with them when they left, and started booking shows. We had our grand opening as 7th Circle on Sept. 22nd, 2012, and between then and March 13th, 2020, we booked and hosted 1,788 shows. What a whirlwind.

That’s where that daydream came in. I thought, “well, I always sort of wanted my own DIY venue like Blast-O-Mat, where I could book more shows since no one would live there, and I guess now we have THE spot instead of another spot, so let’s make it into everything I always imagined it could be!” And we did, and it was incredible for several years, just pure bliss, just like Blast-O-Mat had been for me as well.

Eddie: Heck yes! So why did you guys decide to not have anyone live there?

Aaron: Well, none of us wanted to, for one thing, and I guess none of us needed to either. We loved DIY, but we weren’t from a segment of it that wanted to live in a DIY venue. Plus, I knew that the place wasn’t zoned for residential, and it would have been complicated to rezone it. 

Most importantly, however, was that I knew how annoying it had gotten for those who DID live there when they came home from work or school or whatever and had to deal with the noise and chaos of a show going on over their heads until 12am or 1am, even if they weren’t running the show or involved that night. I knew we could do far more shows if no one lived there because then no one person would have to deal with every single show, and we could do as many shows as we could staff. We had so many volunteers at the beginning that we just started booking all the nights we could, which I also knew was the key to making enough money to keep the lights on, since no one would be living there and offsetting those costs with their personal money. The more shows, the more income, so why not do as many shows as we can to ensure the venue’s future and financial security? 

By November 2012 we had our first break-even month, and by March 2013, we had almost no nights off. I think that year we had 3 nights off in the entire month of March, and we realized that was TOO much, so we scaled it back to 6 shows per week, then later scaled it back to 5 because 6 was still too much for us to handle from a staffing perspective. As word spread throughout the country, however, the demand from bands who wanted to play here just kept rising. If we’d had the capacity to staff 7 shows per week, we probably never would have had a night off.

Eddie: Gotcha. So with the volunteers, I’m just curious about the atmosphere you all created. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was there a pretty strong straight edge element to the space?

Or did you have like guidelines for everybody or anything?

Aaron: ah, not really in my experience, actually, except for maybe some specifically straight-edge hardcore shows we may have booked. We didn’t outwardly allow alcohol or drugs just because we wanted to maintain an environment that was safe for all ages, and also because problems with substances like that that are the easiest way for DIY spaces like this to get shut down by the city, but while it looked like a hard and fast rule, it was really more of a soft rule and we never strictly went fully DRY until March 2020, actually, and even then we only planned to be dry for the month of March due to some situations that had gotten out of hand over previous months, but that’s another story, haha. 

We were honestly pretty loose about that, especially back then, if memory serves. The only real guidelines for volunteers were basically “be present, do what’s expected of you so the show runs successfully, and be a good person who makes this somewhere we all want to be, show-goers, bands and volunteers alike.” 

Anyone who wanted to volunteer was welcome to, as long as they were a positive asset to the space and its operations, and a positive addition to our community. 

As for other guidelines and rules, we embodied the typical DIY ethos of “No racism, no sexism, no homphobia, no transphobia, no other sorts of bigotry, no nazis, no tolerance for sexual assault,” etc, just to keep the community safe and thriving for those of us who would be there.

Eddie: Awesome. Do you think not having people living there or too much narcotics or anything is what helped you guys survive that wave of everything getting shut down in 2016?

Or what was that period like for 7th Circle?

Aaron: Oh, absolutely, without a doubt. The main reason Rhino got shut down in 2016 is that people were living there when it wasn’t zoned for residential, and a lot of stuff in the building wasn’t technically up to code for “gatherings”. When we had a fire marshal inspect 7th Circle in January 2017, he looked around, asked where the gatherings happen and what each room was used for, looked at our zoning permit which corresponds correctly to the business license we have and what we do, and said, “Cool, you guys are fine, keep doing what you’re doing, I see no issues with this place.” If we’d had people living there, it would have been lights out, I’m sure. 

It was a very stressful month, that time between Rhino getting shut down and us getting inspected. Every show had this impending doom feeling of “this could be it, this could be the night they come by and shut us down.” But luckily we had our ducks in a row, and the shutdown never came our way. We also learned a lot that month by talking to John at Rhino and other people whose venues had been shuttered by the city, and we preemptively solved some of our stuff that we didn’t know was a code violation after learning that it was, and thankfully had the opportunity to tackle that before we got inspected. Nothing gigantic, just little stuff like “extension cords used as permanent wiring”, the amount of fire extinguishers we had and how many feet existed between fire extinguisher locations, stuff like that that we never knew about until hearing details about what some of these other venues got cited for. We were very lucky.

We’re also incredibly lucky that the building simply is laid out like it is. We’re not a block-wide warehouse with only one exit on each end or something. We’re just very lucky to have had everything fall into place like it has for 7th Circle, so much of it has been sheer luck. Even the zoning permit, which was a saving grace for us at that fire inspection in January 2017. I didn’t know we needed to get that, we operated for a couple years without it at the beginning there, until someone from the city happened to stop by and tell a band who was practicing that afternoon that there was nothing on file with the city for the business that was apparently operating there. They passed his card on to me, I called him, he explained why we were technically operating as an illegal business at the time, so another venue volunteer and I did research on what was necessary to file a zoning permit, went to the city offices with all this paperwork, and without even needing most of it, they looked at what we were doing and the business registration, and gave us the zoning permit we needed. It’s all been a game of luck.

Eddie: Wow

Where do you think friendship factors into the health and endurance of these things? The shows, the volunteers etc.

Aaron: For me, it’s been paramount. The vast majority of my friends in my life today are people I know because of 7th Circle, and there’s no way any of us would have made it through these past 9 years of running the venue if we weren’t all friends. That’s the only real way it was any fun, the fact that we all had so much fun together and could be friends while also running a venue. I know a lot of people who burned out because they ran too many shows, but I think they would have burned out even sooner if the friendship factor with everyone else in the collective / the community at large hadn’t been a part of their dynamic there. 

We’ve all learned a lot about boundaries for our own health and endurance as well, especially over the course of the last year and a half, since we’ve all gotten to focus on ourselves and our own lives separately from 7th Circle, and a lot of us have realized how much more important friendships are than the music and the “scene” itself.

Eddie: Awesome

So how have things been with the pandemic and whatever this current weirdness is?

Aaron: Honestly, they’ve been great. SO great. For me, the covid shutdown has been the best thing that happened since we opened 7th Circle, which was the best thing that had happened to me by that point. 

I didn’t realize how much of a toll 7th Circle had been taking on me until I got to walk away from it. Since we’d done so many shows over the 7-and-a-half years we’d been open by the time March 2020 rolled around, we had enough money in the bank to survive a year and a half of doing literally nothing, so we had the luxury of all getting to completely check out of anything 7th Circle related as soon as it became obvious that it wasn’t “14 days to flatten the curve!”, and once it really set in that we had no idea when we would ever book or host a show again, AND it was clear that we’d be financially okay to keep the venue without having to fundraise or put anyone’s personal money into it, this huge weight lifted off my shoulders that I didn’t even know was there until it was gone. I realized I hadn’t felt this free and clear and stress-free since what feels like high school, and I was 34 when the pandemic hit last year. 

Looking back on it all as the lockdown progressed, I realized how miserable I’d been for about the last 6 months of 7th Circle (Sept. 2019 to March 2020), mostly due to a number of situations surrounding the venue that were demanding WAY more of my emotional energy in a negative way than I ever thought or expected would happen, and I also realized how stressful various aspects of the venue had been for me since late 2015, due to a nazi problem presenting itself in the Denver punk scene, and us obviously not allowing anyone associated with it to come to 7th Circle, which had resulted in a lot of division and fencewalking from people who I’d considered friends for years. (That could be a whole interview in itself, haha.) 

There was a lot of good that happened from 2016 to 2020, of course, but it was all kind of overshadowed by this ever-present stress and drama, which was coupled with the fact that I was taking on more than one person should in regards to running the venue and being who I was in the music scene. This wasn’t for a lack of other people either, this was due to me not truly understanding how to effectively delegate tasks within an organization, nor understanding the importance of delegation. I was voluntarily taking on too much, and I didn’t realize the toll it took until the entire live music world shut down and I got to truly relax and take a break from it. 

That’s one of the boundaries I’ve learned throughout this pandemic as well: how to avoid taking on too much and how to remain healthy and also remain involved at 7th Circle in a lesser capacity. During the pandemic, some of the core volunteers and I would get together regularly to have movie nights and other fun hangouts, and it was nice to have a central location to get together, especially in that time of such extreme isolation in the other facets of our lives. It was so nice to enjoy 7th Circle as a space  and NOT have to run shows, and that allowed me to realize how much the space means to me personally. I did a lot of self-analysis and reflection to figure out why I had been so stressed for the last few months and years the venue was functional, and I’ve established clear boundaries for myself to prevent that from happening again when we reopen. Having the opportunity for this reset and restart has been crucial for probably everyone who was / is a 7th Circle volunteer, and we’re very excited to be reopening soon in a healthy way. 

As for the venue itself, as we ate through that savings we had, we got a few grants from the city of Denver and from the federal government since we’re a small business and an independent venue that got shuttered by the pandemic, and that has allowed us to ride this thing out, so we’re still in good shape and will be back as soon as it’s seeming like we have new protocols in place to operate in a manner that’s going to preserve the place for years to come, and preserve our collective mental health in a way that ensures we can keep running it (and continue to enjoy running it) for years to come.

Eddie: I definitely agree that the lead up to the pandemic was as damaging to everybody as the actual shut down, but that’s just my two cents

Aaron: haha, yeah, it seems like that’s been a running theme. I think a lot of people were just hanging on by a thread in a lot of ways before March 2020 came along and changed everything, and while obviously the pandemic has been a horrible thing, the silver lining is that there has been so much time for drastic change, self-reflection and boundary-setting for so many people, at least in my circles. I, for one, am acutely aware of what I’ll put up with in my life and what I won’t, going forward, and I feel like if the speeding freight train that 7th Circle had become didn’t grind to a halt when it did, something else would have snapped before too long and would have potentially been much worse for me in the long run. Being my ever-optimistic self, I’m so thankful the shutdown happened when it did, and has gone on for so long. It has truly afforded me (and us, at 7th Circle) the opportunity to truly evaluate what’s important and what changes need to be made for us to enjoy this long-term.

Eddie: Kind of unrelated, do you think you could pick your top three shows?

Aaron: Oh wow, haha. Top 3 7th Circle shows? Or top 3 shows in general?

Eddie: In general I guess

Aaron: godddddd, hahaha

Let’s see

Alright. There’s an acoustic group called Sully Erna and the Avalon Band, and I drove to Lawrence, KS to see them on 6/1/2011 because they weren’t coming to Denver. I’m so in love with their haunting and transcendent music and the first album they released, and I literally had an out-of-body experience during their show. It was all-seated, and though I was stone-cold sober in every way, I felt myself float out of my body during the show and I remember portions of that show from the visual vantage point of about 10 feet above where my actual seat was. I have always counted that as my top show ever, simply because that’s the only time I’ve been so literally swept away by the sheer power of live music like that. 

Next up, I’d have to say seeing Roger Waters from Pink Floyd perform The Wall in its entirety with his band at the Pepsi Center on 11/23/2010 and 5/7/2012. The Wall is one of the albums that got me into rock music in the first place when I was younger, and seeing it performed live was an experience to die for. Also, at the first show on 11/23/2010, I magically and unexpectedly ended up with a front-row ticket less than an hour before the show through a series of perfectly-timed happenstance occurrence (which is a whole amazing story on its own), so that whole day is right up there with the Sully Erna show, ALMOST tied for first. 

and 3rd, I saw Hans Zimmer perform a bunch of selections from film scores he’s done, with a full band, orchestra and choir, at the 1stBank Center on 8/6/2017. I listened to nothing but orchestral film scores and soundtracks from the time I discovered music as a LITTLE little kid, until 7th grade when I discovered rock music and actually got into it (it was 8th and 9th grade for punk music discovery), and seeing one of my favorite composers perform some of my favorite scores live was an absolute dream come true, and a lot of moments that night also feel tied with the Roger Waters and Sully Erna shows. Absolutely mind-blowing musical experiences.

Eddie: Do you have a top three for DIY shows?

Aaron: That is such a tough one, there have been so many good ones. I think I'll have to go with these: 

On 8/15/2014, I threw myself a birthday show at 7th Circle, as it was the night before my birthday and I would be seeing the Suicide Machines headline the Gothic Theatre the next night, on my actual birthday, with Morning Glory, PEARS and a whole bunch of other punk and ska bands. A long story and somewhat crazy series of events resulted in Suicide Machines, Morning Glory, and PEARS all showing up last-minute to the 7th Circle show as it was nearing its end, as they were all in town the night before their big show, and all three bands ended up playing short sets at 7th Circle to about 50 people, the night before playing the Gothic for about 1000 people, and the Suicide Machines dedicated a song to me for my birthday. It was one of those surreal moments that you never expect is actually going to happen until it does, and you're there to bear witness to it. The whole Suicide Machines set ended up on Youtube, and it's such a fun show to look back on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIgrccQZ_6Y

Second, through another somewhat crazy series of events that is another long story, Agent Orange played a matinee show at 7th Circle on 2/2/2013, which was booked 36 hours in advance, and fully confirmed and announced officially only about 4 hours in advance. That was the show that put 7th Circle on the map as THE punk venue in Denver when we were still in our infancy as a venue, and that show steered us onto the course we have kept for the last 9 years, hosting legendary bands who we've all seen at bigger venues. 

and third, in that same vein, on 7/6/2015, we got to host The Virus at 7th Circle. They've been one of my favorite street punk bands since 2004, and I saw them headline the Bluebird Theater that year. Then they broke up for a while, and I thought that I'd never get to see them again, but after reforming in 2014, they finally made it back to Denver, and the fact that they contacted me to play 7th Circle, and that we were able to make it happen, was another one of those surreal moments for me, and one of my favorite shows that has ever happened. 

There have been countless other DIY shows that have been almost as important as those three, at 7th Circle and elsewhere, but those are the three that come to mind if I have to choose a top 3. 

Eddie: Amazing

And lastly, if you’d be up for it, do you have a top three weird experiences in DIY? / closing thoughts?

Aaron: Weird is a hard one, because I've been involved with DIY for so long, and I’ve seen so much performance art and spent so much time hanging out with some of the best weirdos on the planet, that nothing much phases me anymore, and nothing I’ve experienced in the DIY world that I can think of truly seems "weird" to me necessarily now, since I'm so accustomed to “weird” just being normal in this world of DIY. 

However: One time I was at Mouth House for a show, and there was a swivel chair, like a computer desk chair, that someone had set on fire on the front porch. It was just sitting there burning, and I went outside to look at it and make sure it wasn't catching the house on fire, and as I was looking at it, a cop drove by. He rolled down his window, and yelled to me, “hey, you got a garden hose?” I said, “probably!” and he said, “You should put that out.” and he drove off. That was such a surreal moment, like even our little DIY world was untouchable. The cops would see a chair on fire and just keep driving. I felt like we were invincible that night.  

The next one would have to be another experience with fire, actually. The band DAIKAIJU sets their instruments on fire while they play, and their shows are some of the greatest I’ve ever seen. One of the times while they were playing at 7th Circle, after having set their instruments on fire and continued to play, one of them set his guitar down and went outside to their van, which was parked in the load-in area. He opened the garage door, and proceeded to drive their van (slowly, but steadily) into the show, nudging the crowd out of the way, while the rest of the band played on. After he had the van about halfway into the venue, he parked it and turned it off, and climbed onto the roof of the van, inside the venue. Someone passed him his guitar and he kept playing, and before too long, more band members (and audience members!) had joined him on the roof of the van, and that’s how the finished out their set.

Not necessarily “weird” from a DIY standpoint, but absolutely amazing, and certainly weird from a “normal” perspective, haha. 

And the top weird one was actually pretty weird. I was at a show at FunHaus (a long-gone Denver DIY spot), on 2/13/2009. The touring act on the bill was a solo performer, and her act consisted of dancing along to some weird, haunting music that she played over a speaker or through an amp, and she was wearing a very short dress with nothing under it. She danced around the room slowly, interacting and coming close to physical contact with the audience members, one by one, but never actually making contact. Eventually, the performance culminated in her sitting down next to a plate she had placed on the ground that had an actual heart on it (a cow’s heart or a pig’s heart, I’m sure; I don’t believe she would have been touring with a human heart, as weird as this performance was), and she picked up the heart and played with it for a moment, then started rubbing it on herself, underneath the dress she was wearing with nothing under it….. you get the picture. Definitely the weirdest moment of DIY I’ve ever experienced, and the most uncomfortable performance I’ve ever seen as well, but it was beautiful in its own way too.

As for closing thoughts, I think I’ve said most of what I would want to! I’ll close with this: DIY is so important to those who need it, and find a home in it. It can be the difference between life and death for some people, and it can be the most beautiful, enriching and positive thing that ever happens to a person. However, it can also be very damaging and detrimental to people if they participate in DIY in a way that’s unhealthy for them, and looking back on the last 15+ years of my involvement in it, knowing now how it took such a toll on me in the ways that it did, and seeing how many people I knew who aren’t with us anymore, while also seeing how many people thrived and flourished while using DIY as a positive method for their growth and survival, I would caution people to find DIY and be a part of it in whatever ways feel smart and healthy and rewarding to you, but also be aware of your needs and your boundaries, and seek out fulfillment in other parts of life that are NOT the DIY music scene as well. A healthy balance is key, doing any one thing 150% is not healthy, and while DIY can be a lifeforce for so many people, it can also be a negative experience if it’s done wrong, or if one puts all of their eggs into the DIY basket. There’s more to life than DIY, and if you can balance your involvement in the DIY community in your city with other life experiences and areas of interest, I believe you’ll be much better off than if your entire world revolves around the DIY community. Balance, variety, and happiness and health are key. 

May we all survive, thrive, and live the longest and best lives that we possibly can.