DeVotchKa

indie rock · folk rock · punk rock

DeVotchKa is a Denver, Colorado quartet formed in 1997, comprising Nick Urata on vocals, guitar, theremin, bouzouki and trumpet, Tom Hagerman on violin, accordion and piano, Jeanie Schroder on sousaphone, double bass and flute, and Shawn King on drums, percussion and trumpet. The name comes from the Russian word for girl, and the band's sound draws on gypsy punk, dark cabaret, indie folk and gothic country, with Urata's voice anchoring material that swings between raucous midway tunes and spaghetti-Western ballads. Seven studio albums have appeared across a run of independent and larger labels including Cicero Recordings, Ace Fu, ANTI- and Concord: SuperMelodrama (2000), Triple X Tango (2002), Una Volta (2003), How It Ends (2004), A Mad & Faithful Telling (2008), 100 Lovers (2011) and This Night Falls Forever (2018). The group's widest exposure came through film. Working alongside composer Mychael Danna, DeVotchKa composed and performed most of the music for the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack; the score's central theme, The Winner Is, was later licensed into advertising campaigns. The band also contributed to the soundtrack for I Love You, Phillip Morris (2010), and Urata has built a parallel career as a screen composer, taking a Hollywood Music in Media Award in 2017 for a television main title theme co-written with Daniel Handler. On stage the quartet works with unusual instrumentation for a rock club, with sousaphone and violin carrying lines a bass and lead guitar would normally hold. DeVotchKa played Bonnaroo in 2006 and opened for Muse at the Stade de France in 2010 before roughly 80,000 people. In 2026 the band announced a touring run marking the twentieth anniversary of the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack.

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