Nestled in Monument, Nathen and Shelby Maxwell, local musicians performing as Volores, have already found a splash of early success as the band looks to hit the road for the next few weeks.

Their road trip kicks off March 29 at Boot Barn Hall and follows multiple accolades for Volores’ debut album “Ages” from both local and national reviews, including the Westword’s Best of 2023 naming Ages as Best Rock Album.

Volores’ Ages “explores universal themes of life, love and death through dark indie rock, stylish post-punk motifs and disarmingly frank lyricism,” as the band’s website describes it. The Monument-based couple, including Flogging Molly bassist Nathen Maxwell and his singer-songwriter wife Shelby, lighthearted dub their singular sound “mountain goth.”

However, simply put, it’s rock and roll, alternative rock, Shelby Maxwell said.

“I think it’s the closest thing that we can come up with as far as a genre that people know,” Shelby said. “ We’ve lovingly dubbed it Mountain Goth, but that’s just our own little nudge-nudge, giggle-giggle about it because it’s kind of dark and moody. We make it in the mountains. It’s rock and roll with a little twinge of Americana in songs.”

Nathen Maxwell said he’s always had a hard time with genres in the sense that as an artist musician, he has always existed between the lines of a specific niche of musical genres at the time. He likes to refer to Volores’ music style as soul music but doesn’t expect it would ever be categorized that way in the playlistings, he said.

To include Volores among other projects like Flogging Molly, which has gained worldwide fanship and tour dates over its history, for which Nathen has been slinging the four-string guitar since 1996, it was the quality of songwriting that made him want to make Volores a new venture, he said.

“As we lived together, I was around for the writing process which she would share with me. I would hear these melodies in the house, and it just genuinely resonated with me, the sheer beauty of it,” Nathen said. “I think that was the main thing which inspired me to want to pursue this project and this music.”

The bassist also said being husband and wife and living together, sharing the same demo space he would work in for other projects, made developing Volores feel natural and an easy fit into the couples’ lifestyle.

At the same time, Nathen does not see Volores as a side project.

“Eventually, it grew to be my primary passion. I don’t really see art as like main projects and side projects,” he said. “You put your heart and soul into something and you do your best to deliver that to the world, I am grateful that I have and am a part of Velores with Shelby.”

As the Volores fan base grows with Ages as the band’s first outing and a variety of music videos gaining views on YouTube, Shelby Maxwell hopes listeners will feel “seen” after hearing what Ages has to offer. Everything she writes is a pure experience of her own life, she said.

“It’s not like I’m some unique butterfly in the sense that I’m the only person these things happened to,” Shelby said. “So I hope, when people who listen to our music, hear the lyrics and hear the melodies, can relate and feel like they themselves can heal a little bit through it, and the way I healed through it. That’s my hope.”

Music in Nathen’s life serves as more than just entertainment but also a soundtrack to so many profound experiences, he said. Healing is a central theme of the messages in the lyrics of the Ages tracklist.

Creating the Ages album has been a culmination of 10 years of songwriting. However, most of them started to pour out during the COVID-19 lockdown as the couple is sitting at home. Instead of twiddling thumbs, they picked up guitars and started to write more.

Shelby would bring “bare songs” to Nathen with lyrics and melodies and ask for his help, she said.

“We would take them and so lovingly nurture them to be the songs they are today, through arranging them and creating parts around them. Just making them that sound that is Volores,” Shelby said.

After demoing songs in their basement in a rudimentary set up, the duo wanted to be as prepared as possible before going into actual production.

In February 2022, Volores took its 12 tracks to Sonic Ranch in Tornado, Texas, just near El Paso, to begin recording. The recording process was mostly done live and the entire album was recorded in a five-day window including set up and striking the studio. After creating a marketing plan, the tracks were released about a year later.

“Our goal was to make a record that sounded like us. We know that in the studio you can go a million different directions with production and very easy to add elements,” Nathen Maxwell said. “For me personally, going into it acting as the producer, I had a very conscious and assertive plan to make it sound exactly like us. There are very few overdubs and I’m very proud of that.”

Shelby Maxwell’s history with songwriting started in her teen years when she took to writing poetry. As a theatre major in college, she learned to develop her singing voice, but later decided theatre wouldn’t be her creative platform.

After becoming a mother, she would sing to her infant son many days of the week. With access to a guitar, Shelby eventually started to realize she should start taking the poetry she had written her entire life and put it to song, abandoning the cover songs she had been singing up until then.

“I only think my songwriting has gotten stronger in knowing Nathen,” Shelby said. “Meeting Nathen and really kind of understanding the intricacies of what makes a song and what makes a great song, and him helping me understand that, and showing me legendary artists and picking them apart with me. It’s been a honed skill over time.”

Shelby is originally from outside Cleveland, Ohio, while Nathen is from Los Angeles. The two met in the second year of the Flogging Molly’s Salty Dog Cruise, basically a musical festival at sea. They met, started chatting, discovered they had a lot in common and soon fell in love.

Nathen had moved to Colorado 17 years ago where his previous wife’s family were teachers in Monument. Familiar with the area, it became one of his favorite places to visit.

After convincing Shelby to move to Colorado to join him almost eight years ago, the couple eventually bought a house and have remained in Monument since.

“We absolutely love where we live,” Nathen said. “We almost don’t even want to tell people where we live. Not that it would influence anyone, but we do feel like [Monument] is a great little secret.”