Intergalactic Peace Jelly will make their glorious full-scale return on October 29, 2020 at Herman’s Hideaway in Denver, CO. Their special Halloween-themed set will kick off at 8pm.
It’s been over a year since the last time IPJ took the stage together. The date was 6/15/2019. The Trio Tour had just wrapped up in Manhattan, Kansas. As they had always discussed would be the case Erique Johnson’s tenure as drummer had officially come to an end. He would make the move to bass, going forward. As the band tore down their equipment and loaded up Jelly Force One for what would turn out to be her final voyage home, a couple new fans stepped between the band and the bus. They wanted to buy the last couple t-shirts in the merch bin.
“When will you be back?” one of them asked.
No one had an answer. Without any prospects for a new drummer lined up, the truth was that the band didn’t had absolutely no idea when—or even if—they would ever get to take the stage together again. The idea of making it all the way back to east Kansas wasn’t even something they could particularly conceive of at the time.
The uncertainty followed them home, and suddenly, two months had passed with no progress towards finding a new drummer. The fact of the matter was that they weren’t even really looking. JD had dived deep into his new solo project, while Schuster and Erique both veered off to spend some time working in other local bands. By late 2019, Schuster and JD had discussed it in length, and the band announced its official and indefinite hiatus.
When COVID-19 hit, the hiatus was still in full effect, but the quarantine period gave the band members each a little time to work on some new material and consider the future of IPJ. It was Erique who first approached the other two with a plan to re-launch the band—a plan that ironically only included himself in the periphery. He had found not only a drummer, but a new bassist as well.
Devon Lindsay (drums) and Bennie Herdman (bass) were immediate fits. By the end of their second practice together, it was clear: Intergalactic Peace Jelly was back in action. As if the Gods of Rock had been watching the whole time, their first show offer appeared out of thin air shortly thereafter.
Intergalactic Peace Jelly will make their glorious full-scale return on October 29, 2020 at Herman’s Hideaway in Denver, CO. Their special Halloween-themed set will kick off at 8pm. The event will be fully tabled with limited capacity seating to account for social distancing protocols. Masks will be required for guests whenever they step away from their tables. There will also be BBQ available.