The Nancy Drews

By PETER MARCUS - January 11, 2007

The two founding core members of the Nancy Drews just didn’t want to keep going to the bar night after night and spending lots of money.

So, they decided to form a band.

Hey, they wouldn’t be spending money while up on stage, and maybe, just maybe, the bar tender’s might hook them up with free beer, they thought.

So, without hesitation, Casey Vader and James Ford picked up their guitars and started singing.

They asked a couple of other friends to play along with them, invited some friends into Vader’s livingroom, threw a house party, plugged in and got the house shaking.

The Denver-based four-piece would go on to playing most of the bars and clubs around town.

“It’s pretty much, I say, melodic rock and roll,” said Ford, who went on to describe the music as a fusion of many different blends, including alternative, indie, country, instrumental and pop-punk.

“We’ll play whatever comes out,” said both Ford and Vader during a telephone interview with the Denver Daily News yesterday. “It’s all about the song — it’s a whole package really.”

One might even catch a little Latin flavor in the Nancy Drews music.

But how in God’s name did a band like the Nancy Drews get a sissy name like the Nancy Drews?

“Well, you know how I told you earlier about how we started playing music because we didn’t want to keep going to the bars and paying for drinks all the time?” Ford started to explain. “Well, one of our friends, he’s a real guys guy I would say. Anyway, he would call us a bunch of Nancy’s for not going out and hanging out, so we decided to call ourselves the Nancy Drews.”

Fair enough Mr. Ford. But how do the fans react to the music?

“We’ve drawn as many as 100 to our shows,” said Vader and Ford.

With mostly original material, and a few cover songs that usually follow a very Ween or Ween-like theme, the Nancy Drews bring a unique energy to the show. Mixing things up all the time, going from slow and building things up to a roar, the Nancy Drews concerts are high energy and very positive.

“We like to build it up, play into the crowd,” said Vader.

“I know it sounds cliche, but we really are all about playing a good show for the audience and we want to play good songs that people like,” he continued. “We’re there to entertain.”
- Denver Daily News

By FRENCH DAVIS

Thanks to groups like the Hot IQs and The Fray, the Denver sound is growing in a power-pop-meets-indie-rock direction, with roots reaching all the way back to the Apples in Stereo (still the best band to come out of Denver), Today's acts, like up-and-comers The Nancy Drews, eschew the Apples' candy-pop for something edgier and slightly under-produced, i.e. clear vocals, pleasant harmonies, plenty of fuzz on the guitars and simple, elegant melodies. Plus, they have a cool, catchy name. This is a band that could easily make a leap with the right producer. Catch them while they're still the best bargain on the Front Range at five bucks a ticket. - The Yellow Scene

By Tuyet Nguyen

Local feel-good mavens the Nancy Drews are going to rot their teeth on so much sugary pop music. The appropriately titled Fridge Full of Food, self-released on their own label, is like gorging on the stale leftovers of such late-'90s power-pop confections as Superdrag and Nada Surf. But the Nancy Drews -- not for a lack of trying -- fall short in the potential to even be one-hit wonders, as their predecessors lamentably ended up. Fridge is stocked with reheated sentiment and lackluster easy-as-pie guitar melodies. Most of the songs follow a quick three-minute-pop-tune recipe that tastes like it sounds: cheap and flavorless. The Drews do spice it up a bit on "The Spanish Song," which, as the title alludes, is sung partly en español. This is probably the most experimental and interesting track, simply because the Old World Spanish-tinged guitar work is a fresh take on crappy American rock. Still, one song does not a band make: Just ask the Refreshments. - Westword