Boulder-based tribute band Dear Creedence joined KGNU for a live in-studio session with host Dave McIntyre to discuss their new project dedicated to the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR). The band, featuring members from several Colorado groups including Gasoline Lollipops, formed after casually playing CCR songs and deciding to build a full tribute act around the material.
During the interview, the group discussed CCR’s influence, their focus on concise, high-energy songs, and how their experience playing Bob Dylan and Neil Young material in Rolling Harvest informed the new project. They also performed live versions of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Proud Mary,” and previewed upcoming shows in Lyons, Golden, and the Boulder area. (Air Date 6/5/26).
Listen to the studio session here:
Transcript:
Dave McIntyre: Well, we have some people in the studio with us this morning. A relatively new band.
Dear Creedence: Is this mic on?
Dave McIntyre: It should be now.
Dear Creedence: Hey, my name’s Adam, and we’re here at KGNU with Dear Creedence, a brand-new Boulder band that pays tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival. The band features musicians from Gasoline Lollipops, The Whoppers, Little Trips, Dino Hunter, and the Hunter Stone Band.
Hunter Stone is the lead singer of Dear Creedence, and he’s sitting over here setting up a big electric guitar.
That’s right. I got my electric here. We have Jason Patton in the middle with an acoustic guitar.
Howdy.
We started learning a bunch of Creedence songs a few months ago and thought, “Man, this is fun. We should dig into this some more.” And here we are.
We’ve got our first gig coming up this weekend at Oskar Blues in Lyons on Saturday at 8:00. It’s a free show at the original Oskar Blues.
I have a lot of memories there.
Dave McIntyre: Is it really? That’s the original one?
Dear Creedence: Yeah.
Dave McIntyre: OG.
Dear Creedence: OG indeed. The Roadhouse down there.
Dave McIntyre: Just had an anniversary—29 years.
Dear Creedence: Wow. Really?
Dave McIntyre: 1997 is when they opened the place upstairs.
Dear Creedence: Wow. That makes me feel old, because I played at the 20th anniversary with Gasoline Lollipops and Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. Maybe Dear Creedence will play the 30th. You never know.
Dave McIntyre: Indeed, you never know. So what, did it just come to you? Tribute bands are the thing right now. What made you decide to do this? Were you just playing some Creedence songs and thought, “This could be fun?”
Dear Creedence: Yeah. I’ve always had a couple of Creedence tunes in my arsenal of cover songs when I play with my band.
I’ve got a weekly residency at License No. 1 beneath the Hotel Boulderado on Thursday nights. We jam on “Suzy Q” and tunes like that.
Adam, Jason, and I have been in Rolling Harvest, a tribute band to Bob Dylan and Neil Young, for several years now. We were trying to find some different creative avenues without totally reinventing things, because we really love playing with Rolling Harvest.
CCR lends itself to a smaller group. You can do it with a four-piece. You just need the vocals and the guitar riffs.
They’re actually really fun tunes to learn, and they’re woven into the culture of America.
Dave McIntyre: The three-minute pop hit.
Dear Creedence: Totally. He was the king.
The response has been amazing. With Rolling Harvest, people either love Neil Young and Bob Dylan or they hate them.
Dave McIntyre: Definitely polarizing.
Dear Creedence: Definitely. It’s great for jamming and for people who discovered Bob Dylan through the Grateful Dead and things like that. But there aren’t that many hits.
With Creedence songs, the moment you start playing them, people say, “I know every word to this.”
It also lends itself to Hunter’s voice. It’s really gritty.
Dave McIntyre: And they’re simple pop songs.
Dear Creedence: They’re not so simple. That’s what we’ve been learning.
Dave McIntyre: The bass is simple.
Dear Creedence: Yeah.
Dave McIntyre: It does so much with that. The chords are basic.
Dear Creedence: There aren’t that many chords, but the moment you start playing the song, you realize there are a lot of specific parts, stops, and transitions.
Neil Young and Bob Dylan songs are mostly jams.
I dare you to name one Bob Dylan song that has a bridge.
Dave McIntyre: “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You.”
Dear Creedence: Is that the one?
Dave McIntyre: “Just Like a Woman.”
Dear Creedence: Maybe two.
Dave McIntyre: “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”
Dear Creedence: There we go.
They’re there, but Creedence songs have all these little guitar riffs that change from verse to verse. A lot of it comes back to blues.
John Fogerty’s approach to playing blues is different. You can be in the key of E and he’ll bend the first note up to F-sharp. It’s stylistically his own thing.
There are jams within those songs too. Some of them are one-chord songs that can go on for ten minutes when they’re doing a live version of “Suzy Q” or “Green River.”
That gives us freedom to stretch out and play, but you still have the songs.
There are almost three types of Creedence tunes. There’s the swamp rock, then the bouncy three-minute songs like “Down on the Corner” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”
Dave McIntyre: I came upon a group in Longmont, Que Sera. They took “Bad Moon Rising,” slowed it down, and made it a blues.
Dear Creedence: I love that kind of stuff.
Dave McIntyre: It really came across well.
Dear Creedence: Hunter actually discovered last week, and then I verified it, that Nirvana started out as a Creedence tribute band.
It almost makes sense if you think about his voice.
Dave McIntyre: Yeah.
Dear Creedence: That same rasp.
Dave McIntyre: Well, let’s hear something. I’m afraid your guitar is going to be pretty loud, so give me a little bit of it where you’ll be playing it. I don’t want to overshadow the vocals.
Dear Creedence: I’ll lay out on guitar a little more for this one.
Dave McIntyre: Okay.
Dear Creedence: Jason will take the lead and we can adjust from there.
Dave McIntyre: What are you going to start with?
Dear Creedence: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”
[Performance: “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”]
Dave McIntyre: You have room to turn your guitar back up.
Dear Creedence: That’s what every guitarist loves to hear. Turn that up. Don’t tempt me with a good time.
It’s early for those high notes.
Dave McIntyre: Other than the gig at Oskar Blues tomorrow night, does Dear Creedence have anything else coming up?
Dear Creedence: We’re working on a gig at Ophelia’s, and we also have a gig in October at Goosetown Station in Golden.
It’s a great place that a lot of people haven’t heard about outside of Golden. The family that runs it is awesome. They have a food truck and a beer garden in the back.
It’s like an old house in a neighborhood that’s been turned into a bar. The bar is inside the house, and then you go around back and it opens into a little backyard where the band plays.
It feels like you’re going to a family party. It’s a cookout vibe.
Dave McIntyre: My son’s band plays there often, and they love it.
Dear Creedence: The people are great. Audiences are really into the music.
You’ll have kids and families there, and as the night goes on people loosen up and start dancing.
Summer is a strange time to start a band because most of the summer gigs are already booked. We’re trying to workshop things and learn a lot of material.
A lot of these songs are very short.
Dave McIntyre: Exactly right. You need a lot of them.
Dear Creedence: The first time we really did this in front of an audience was in Jackson Hole at The Tram.
We were doing some Rolling Harvest material—Bob Dylan and Neil Young—but it was basically a ’70s-themed party. We thought, “Let’s throw in some Creedence songs.”
The response was really strong.
We’ve also done a few gigs at License No. 1, where I have my weekly residency on Thursdays. We’ve been doing some prep work on these tunes there.
We practice a lot at our bass player’s woodshop. He’s a carpenter, general contractor, and cabinetmaker. He has a shop off Pearl Street called Mojo.
Dave McIntyre: What else have you got for us?
Dear Creedence: What do you want to hear? “Bad Moon Rising”?
Dave McIntyre: Let’s do it.
[Performance: “Bad Moon Rising”]
Dave McIntyre: Classic song. Can you imagine slowing that down and turning it into a blues? Think of the lyrics.
Dear Creedence: Yeah.
Does that qualify as juglin’?
Dave McIntyre: Sure.
Dear Creedence: I think you were juglin’ on that one.
Apparently that’s a made-up word by John Fogerty to describe his music and lifestyle.
Juglin’ along. Juglin’ on down to New Orleans.
Dave McIntyre: Like you say, he wrote a lot of swamp music for a California guy. Pretty interesting.
Dear Creedence: Most people think Creedence is from the South or somewhere like Aberdeen, Washington.
The fact that they’re from the East Bay suburbs is always surprising.
Dave McIntyre: How about another one while we’ve got you here?
Dear Creedence: This one was inspired by a classical piece, though I can’t remember whether it was Beethoven or Mozart.
The CCR song is “Proud Mary.”
I’m pretty sure John Fogerty wrote it when he learned he wouldn’t have to go into the Army. He sat down and wrote the song, and he felt it was his first real hit because he’d finally captured the Americana vibe he was aiming for.
A lot of people probably know the Tina Turner version better than the CCR version, but it’s still his songwriting.
Songwriting is interesting because it’s one of those skills that doesn’t necessarily improve with time. It’s an expression of personal experience, grief, happiness, joy, and everything in between.
Sometimes something flows straight from the soul and ends up representing an artist’s entire career.
Ready?
[Performance: “Proud Mary”]
Dave McIntyre: Show tomorrow night in Lyons at Oskar Blues, and more things coming up in the near future.
Dear Creedence: Stay tuned. Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook at Dear Creedence.
A lot of people ask if we’re going to throw some Beatles songs into the mix because of the name. The answer is yes. Someday.
I want to do “Glass Onion.”
We need to be specific about which Beatles songs fit, because the early Beatles records were a big influence on John Fogerty.
They both covered some of the same rock-and-roll songs from the 1950s.
The door is open, but we’re not diving in.
Dave McIntyre: When I first saw the logo and the name, I thought of “Dear Prudence.”
Dear Creedence: We kicked around names for a while, and that one kept coming back. It just sounded right.
We also thought about dressing in pirate clothes and calling ourselves “CCArrrr,” or getting overly clever with a Fogerty pun, but that felt like too much.
This is our love letter to CCR. Dear Creedence is our message to them.
Dave McIntyre: I think you landed on the right way to go.
Dear Creedence: Yeah.
Dave McIntyre: Thanks for coming up on the radio this morning. I know it’s not easy at this hour for musicians. Good luck with this. I think you’ve got something that’s going to work well.
Dear Creedence: Thanks, man.
Dave McIntyre: Tributes are what people want to hear these days. They want something familiar and comfortable that they can relate to. Original bands are great, but you’ve got to give people something they know, and this certainly does that.
Dear Creedence: And we’re having fun with it. We’re not trying to be exactly like the band.
Dave McIntyre: That’s what a tribute should be. It’s a tribute to the band, and this is your way of doing it.
Dear Creedence: Exactly.
Dave McIntyre: Thanks again, guys. I appreciate it.
Dear Creedence: Thank you.
Dave McIntyre: Thank you for having us. See you Saturday.
Dear Creedence: All right. Take care.
