The Strokes wrecked rock ’n’ roll, if you ask Esteban Flores. 

The 31-year-old Chicano artist behind the music project Slow Joy makes this passing claim while chatting about his upcoming EP Mi Amigo Slow Joy, which was influenced by the 1990s alt-rock scene obliterated by the four New Yorker hipsters at the turn of the century who begged the question: Is This It?

“I started listening for the first time in my life to a lot of music that inspired the music that I grew up with, which is really crazy,” Flores says. “I went back to ’90s grunge and that alternative music scene that popped up, which defined rock music until The Strokes ruined indie.”

It comes out so fast that it barely registers before Flores catches himself. It’s clearly not the first time he’s shared the sentiment. 

“That was such a rude thing to say. My wife keeps telling me I need to stop saying it eventually,” he says. “But that alternative-indie thing that was happening with The Pixies and Smashing Pumpkins in the ’90s, I made my way back there as an adult and listened to it with fresh ears. That really inspired me.”

"Haters will say southwest emo is fake," Flores wrote in the announcement of the Slow Joy single "Pulling Teeth" on Feb. 28. Credit: Jay Martin

Flores, who grew up in New Mexico but now calls Dallas home, started Slow Joy in 2020 at the suggestion of his therapist, who thought music would help the multi-instrumentalist work through the grief of losing his mother to an overdose. The result is what Flores calls “Southwest emo,” a mix of grunge, shoegaze and emotionally resonant indie-rock sprinkled with deeply personal and melancholic lyrics. 

His first two EPs — Soft Slam (2022) and Wildflower (2023) — are perfect examples of this heady concoction of adjacent genres. But his recent singles “I Don’t Hate You” and “Pulling Teeth” show a heavier side of Slow Joy.

“With Wildflower, it was more of a, ‘Hey, this is me processing through some grief’ and a sonic palette where I wanted to just write a really good emo record,” Flores explains. “Now I just wanted to write a great rock album, so I started listening to the greats of rock and figured out how to emulate that well. I’m still continuing to evolve in my own way.”

But there’s still plenty of grief to go around on Slow Joy’s latest offerings, and plenty of processing to be done: “Did you love the high more than you loved me?” Flores sings on the first taste of his new EP. “Took you away from everything / damn, I hate that I can never call you back.”

Slow Joy is preparing to play his first shows outside Texas this year ahead of his new collection’s slated June 7 release, which includes his inaugural Colorado dates. The three-city sojourn begins March 28 in Colorado Springs, followed by stops in Denver and Greeley. 

“So hyped to come kick it in one of my favorite states,” Flores wrote in a Feb. 15 Facebook post. “Every time I visit, I have a hard time leaving. Maybe this time y’all will convince me to stay forever.”

Flores strives for “beautiful chaos” in his band’s live shows. Courtesy: Slow Joy ‘A one-time thing’

Catharsis and “beautiful chaos” are what Flores aims to achieve during his live sets — and not just for himself, but also the audience. It’s a shared experience he doesn’t take for granted. It often leaves him “bloodied somewhere before the end of the show,” he says.

“Every time you’re in a space with people, those people will never be in a space together again. It’s so beautiful to think this is a one-time thing,” Flores says. “Maybe we’ll come back through town, but this group of people in this space with this energy is only going to be here for this one moment.” 

Thanks in part to these intimate and high-energy performances, it hasn’t taken long for Slow Joy to capture the attention of a larger audience. The band was recently inaugurated as a Taco Bell “Feed the Beat” artist, joining the ranks of emerging and established acts like Turnstile, Militarie Gun and Sweet Pill. And now that Slow Joy is becoming more than just an outlet for his personal tragedy, Flores is expanding the scope of it to engage with the world around him.

“I try to continue to process,” he says. “I’m trying to become more and more mature in how I deal with certain things, because a lot of the time, especially nowadays, art can be a little bit preachy.” 

To that end, Flores points to singer-songwriter Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse and blue-collar poet Charles Bukowski, both chroniclers of life’s innate outrageousness, as inspiration. Ultimately, it’s all part of the artist’s ongoing project of persevering through tragedy. 

“I prefer the artist to show the absurdity of things … like, ‘Do you see how crazy this is?’” Flores says. “That’s more where I’m leaning. I’m putting myself more into the shoes of ideas and understanding it. It really helps you ground it, instead of feeling like you’re pointing your finger at something. You just gotta laugh at it.” 

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ON THE BILL: Slow Joy. 7 p.m. Thursday, March 28, Vultures, 2100 E. Platte Ave., Colorado Springs | Slow Joy with Underseer and Origami Summer. 7 p.m. Friday, March 29, The Black Buzzard at Oskar Blues, 1624 Market St., Denver | Slow Joy with Underseer, Silver & Gold and People in General. 8 p.m. Saturday, March 30, Moxi Theater, 802 9th St., Greeley