Metal supergroup Old Man Gloom to perform in Chico

Greta Gordon // February 15, 2015

Old Man Gloom will be playing in Chico at Cafe Coda on March 2. Photo courtesy of Lauren Barley.

When the metal supergroup Old Man Gloom formed in 1999, the members were struck with a bolt of creativity like no other.

The band will be playing a show at Cafe Coda on March 2, along with the bands Coliseum and Cold Blue Mountain. This will be its second show in Chico.

“The formation was a truly inspired event, actually,” said band member Santos Montano. “We had played music together here and there when we were just out of high school, when Aaron would go back to Santa Fe (where we both grew up) during the summer. We were sitting somewhere, and decided we were doing to do a project. Something deliberate.”

Montano feels that since that day, Old Man Gloom has not changed much, he said.

“We’ve pretty much been doing things the same way since,” he said, “We also saw a little monkey wearing a diaper, eating up a little fig, sitting on a man’s shoulder in the park that same day. It pretty much sent us on a trajectory we’ve not strayed from.”

“When we were booking our last tour (in 2012), we had a day off between San Francisco and Portland,” Montano said. “We put it out on our Facebook that we’d be willing to play a show between the two cities.”

Old Man Gloom will be joined at Cafe Coda by the post-hardcore band from Kentucky, Coliseum, as well as the local metal band, finishing its U.S. tour, Cold Blue Mountain.

“We got a lot of weird responses, but we got one from the Rodney Bingenheimer of Chico’s punk scene, Sesar Sanchez, that was a legitimate offer,” Montano said. “We said yes. When it came closer to the show, we saw the poster for it, and literally every band that has ever existed seemed to be on the bill. It ended up being a fantastic show. Super fun, people were stoked. We’re happy to go back.”