Ignatius Reilly Bio:
“Veterans of the Denver, CO music scene, Ignatius Reilly plays honest and straightforward rock n’ roll that’s part alt-country and southern rock mixed with blues rhythms and the sounds of New Orleans.
Featuring Mark Brut on bass, Eric Bullock on guitar, Ethan Ice on keys, and “the Birddog” Jeff Lane on drums and percussion, each member brings a diverse background, experience, voice and original songs to the music. Mixing a large original catalog with a diverse array of covers, the band blends acoustic numbers with raucous electric boogie.
After a hiatus of several years, Ignatius Reilly is proud to be part of the Colorado music scene once again.”
Named after the main character from the American literary classic, ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole, the beginnings of Ignatius Reilly were formed on 12/21/12, the night Jeff Lane was moving back to Colorado, where he had left six years earlier to join the Atlanta based national touring act, Outformation. Founding lead singer, Brock Elam, invited Lane to sit in on percussion on his acoustic duo set as an opening act at Cervantes Other Side, if he made it to town in time.
Lane made it to town minutes before showtime, set up a snare drum and some egg shakers, and the musical chemistry took hold. Future lead guitar player, Eric Bullock, was working behind the bar that night and noticed the spark. After the set was over he approached Lane and offered up his skills and talent as lead guitar, if we were ever to be looking for one.
Elam, Lane, and interim lead guitar player, Micah Gunn, began playing small, intimate acoustic shows with a plastic bucket and egg shaker set up for the drums. Eventually they promoted Ethan Ice to start filling in on keyboards for some shows, whom Lane had played in multiple bands with during the early 2000’s such as The Henry Parsons Project, and The Menagerie. Ice added extra musical chemistry to the mix and the sound became more dynamic. With the permanent addition of Eric Bullock and his blistering electric sound on lead guitar, acoustic guitars were replaced with electric ones, buckets and egg shakers were replaced with a drum kit, the sound got bigger, and so did the rooms that the band played; drawing out rowdy crowds, and eventually a nomination from Westword Magazine as Denver’s best jam band.
In 2015, the band teamed up with Mark Brut, owner of Rocky Mountain Artists, for show
bookings. Brut had played in a band with Ice a few years earlier called ‘The Sneaky Bastards’. At this point, the band had been through a rotation of various bass players and had recently resorted to Ethan Ice’s left hand on keys to do the job. Seeing this, Brut not only decided to start booking the band but also volunteered to fill in on bass from time to time, which soon became part of the permanent line up as he transported his borrowed bass guitar from gig to gig in paper grocery bags from Whole Foods.
With this new permanent line up the band began to gel and start to explore new sonic musical realms and dimensions that none of them had ever ventured to before and then bam!; the band members decided to step away and pursue other things in life like world travels, marriages, and eventually fatherhood. The band decided to play their last show where it all started at Cervantes Other Side in July of 2017. It was one of the most peaceful band break-ups in rock n roll history, all members respecting each other’s needs to pursue other things in life…… but the band group text thread never died.
The isolation of the pandemic of 2020 slowed people down enough to help many reflect and realize the things that brought the most joy into their lives, for the members of this band it was the creation of music together that was the most missed. Lead singer, Brock Elam, had since moved to Hendersonville, N.C. but the four remaining members in Denver began texting each other things like, “hey I got an idea for a song”, “do you think maybe we can get together and play some small, socially distanced shows?” and “I think I can take over singing lead vocals on that song”.
By 2023, the band was back in full force as a four piece, more polished than ever with a new appreciation for the art they were creating and 2024 will bring forth their 3 rd studio recording effort.