May Be Fern Is Brewing Sonic Sorcery in Denver

Pulling the Three of Swords in Tarot doesn’t often bring a winning reaction. Usually, it makes you clutch your head and stare into space and maybe dissociate for a few minutes. Seasoned Tarot users, though, know there’s more to this card than despair.

The card does look daunting: Three swords pierce through a heart, the tips of the blades dripping blood, while rain slices from storm clouds in the background. It represents grief and emotional turmoil, a convalescence of hard truths and painful disillusionment. But it also signifies growth: When wounds are mended, renewal follows. If the card is reversed, the worst may be ending, but a difficult period of gradual healing is about to begin, posing an opportunity that engenders strength and clarity.

“The Three of Swords card is all about betrayal and moving on from that,” says Madi Spillman, the guitarist of Denver band May Be Fern. “That’s the theme of our whole album, which follows the arc of that healing. Tarot is a journey, and the album really tells an emotional journey that we took with each other – that we take with each other.”

“The swords visualize how we work and operate,” adds vocalist/bassist Kate Fern. “We’re strong and cutting and ready to move past any obstacle.”

May Be Fern’s new album, Three of Swords, dropped on September 13, and the band will celebrate the release at Globe Hall on Saturday, September 20, with openers Leashy and the Galentines. This sophomore effort has been worth the wait, even leveling up from the group’s first LP, Okay Grandma, Your Turn, which won a 2024 Best of Denver award for Best Debut Album. As the Tarot card symbolizes, May Be Fern has done a lot of growing, and the members are stronger and fiercer than ever.

“One of my favorite moments playing a show is walking in a room where no one believes in anything we’re doing and then completely flipping it,” says Spillman.

Fern nods. “You can just see them looking at us wearing makeup and having heels on, and being like…” – she mimics a sneer. “And I’m like, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll regret that.'”

But by now, anyone tuned into the local scene knows that May Be Fern is a force. When the band debuted “Blood Beach,” off Three of Swords, at the Bluebird Theater in the spring, the whole crowd was possessed. The song is the type of sonic sorcery that makes you feel as though you’re in a different world or time, with a synthy intro and creeping basslines that lead to Fern’s anthemic vocals, belting emotionally-charged lyrics that evoke moonlit images.

May Be Fern has that undeniable “it factor,” but when they head into unfamiliar venues, Fern, Spillman and keyboardist Hannah May can still be made to feel as though they have something to prove. They know that some audience members will fall back on sexist, preconceived notions when they cross the stage in sky-high platform boots and mini skirts, looking like gogo girls stepping out of a vampy club and oozing cool. But that makes it all the more satisfying when they trample any doubts as soon as they begin to perform.

As an example, Spillman recounts when the band played the famous Berkeley, California, punk venue 924 Gilman. “We’re not a punk band, like pretty much every other band on the bill that night,” she says, “and when we walked in, no one would really talk to us. The vibes were strange, all the bands knew each other, we were the odd ones out. Nobody gave us the time of day.

“And then we played. We were in the middle of the bill, but they called for an encore. So we played ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and people were skating along in the middle of this jam-packed punk venue,” she continues. “And then everybody wanted to talk to us and wanted us to sign posters.”

The band began in 2021 as a duo with May and Fern – hence the moniker – who bonded over a shared musical vision that landed somewhere between Fleetwood Mac and HEART. They especially identified with HEART, because of Ann and Nancy Wilson. “The sisters were the power center of the band,” Fern says.

“But ultimately that vision changed a little bit once we became a four-piece,” she adds. “We wanted it to continue to be a work of heart and a passion project, so when you add other hearts in there, obviously the final project is going to change.”

After a year playing as a pair, the pianist and bassist yearned to flesh out their sound and found their first drummer; all they needed was a guitarist. They didn’t have to search too hard: Spillman, a complete wizard on the axe, reached out herself. “I was like, ‘I know for a fact this chick is really talented,'” Fern recalls. “And we had just manifested a drummer, so it was exactly what we wanted to happen. It was exactly what we needed.”

Since then, May Be Fern has become one of the hardest-working bands in Denver. Although most of the members have multiple full-time jobs on top of their main priority, they took on almost any gig they could, steadily nurturing an ever-expanding fanbase with opening slots at the Bluebird Theater and a residency at Bar 404. After releasing its debut, the band continued pounding the pavement, performing at the main stage for Pride and recently touring with Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille.

Spillman’s brother, Ian, joined the crew as its new drummer last fall (the siblings come from a musical family with its own band, the Spillionaires). “I’ve known Hannah for a few years, and I’ve known Kate since middle school; we did theater together. And obviously, I’ve known Madi for just a little while longer than that,” he quips. Although he already plays in six other bands, he says, “I was over the moon when they asked me to help them out, and then asking me to do this record was a really, really big honor.”

Three of Swords is emblematic of May Be Fern’s distinctive and versatile sound: funky, rock-oriented, jammy and absolutely addictive. It’s completely unique, but you can distinguish a range of influences from the ’70s and ’80s eras of funk, soul, post punk, new wave and rock. The album is one you’ll listen to from start to finish, no skips – each of the fifteen songs is a hit, brimming with imagery that immerses the listener, and it’s clear their placements are intentional to really drive the theme.

“This album is a story of healing, and healing is not linear,” Fern says. “You will be absolutely livid, pissed, blood boiling one second, and then you step outside, and the sun’s setting, and you’re with your friends, and it’s beautiful, and you progress and you get to feel peace. And that’s kind of what the album does. Also, that’s just what our live sets always do: We’ll take you on a journey.”

It all kicks off with “Fine Is Her Name,” an uplifting, jazzy tune that reflects on how someone else can change how you see yourself, in the best ways. It’s inspired by a friend of the members, whom Fern describes as a “spirit guide” to the band. “Part of Tarot is having someone who reads it, channels it,” she says. “So it’s a song about the ultra witch, powerful entity. That had to be part of the story.”

That’s followed by “Short Fuse,” a wickedly sassy salvo that could be dubbed an Aries anthem (May, Fern and Spillman’s astrological charts all have their moon placements in Aries).

“It’s about disassociating and refusing to open up to people you don’t trust,” Fern says.

May Be Fern is able to succinctly capture such emotions in both lyrics and sonics. “You Want Me to Feel Bad” is an accurate description of the maddening back-and-forth of gaslighting. “People know the feeling of being cut,” the bassist says, “and all we could do is let the blood flow into the song, because everybody has tasted this.” The song is more rock- driven, with Spillman delivering a searing guitar solo that emulates the fraught emotions, confusion and internal dialogues.

“Kate and I sat down one night and we were like, ‘Let’s make some complicated. Let’s make something weird. Let’s do some Bowie stuff,'” May says. “We put together this crazy chord progression that was fast, and then we brought it into Madi, and eventually it morphed into this rock song. Madi took what we made and just made it launch.”

Soothing songs such as “Golden Hour” add a keen balance to the album, with May’s cascading keys crafting a sonic landscape supplemented by vocal harmonies from Fern and Ian. The band’s funk influences, meanwhile, are displayed in the intro to “Talk to Me,” which showcases groovy riffs from May’s keys before all instruments meet to build a beat that almost forces you to tap your feet – it’s so good, you honestly don’t have a choice. And Fern’s vocals climb over that beat like the sun cresting mountain tops. You could compare the amount of soul she belts out to Janis Joplin, with a passion so potent you feel it in the goosebumps crawling up your arms, whether you’re hearing it through the headphones or live, especially on such tracks as “Stars Cry” and “Blood Beach.”

The band veers into more of an indie, new wave territory with “Old Ways Die,” which features another one of Spillman’s virtuosic solos. With a vocal exchange between May and Fern, the song is a call for change, as a destructive past further fades and a better future gleams from the present. Fern says writing it was a way for the two friends to overcome a challenge presented to both of them, one that was deeply personal. “The only way we were able to effectively address that scenario with each other was while we were writing a song,” Fern says.

“To speak very honestly,” May adds, “it was hard and it was messy.”

“But it was also like, if this helped us heal, it will help other people heal,” Fern continues. “And it’s our duty to make that happen and to create that reality where our healing will allow other people to heal.”

The album comes to a soothing close with “Surprise Me.” It’s like a wave goodbye, the listening experience ushered to its end with a soft exhale. It was a clever choice to cap off the work, tying together the lyrical themes while leaving listeners wanting more – so much so, you may end up turning back to the first track and staring it all over again.

Fortunately, you’ll get to hear it live at Globe Hall during the release show. And this band is killer live.

We can’t wait to hear a live rendition of “Midnight,” which gets proggy, doomy even, with Spillman delivering a sonic attack before Fern lets out a soaring cry that pierces like a blade. This one is a headbanger, for sure. And then there’s “The Tower,” which evokes the Tarot card of the same name.u.

Similar to the Three of Swords, the Tower represents change. “That’s the universe being like, ‘It’s about to suck so, so bad,'” May says, “but you’re going to be grateful. But you’re not going to know why.”

“It’s about letting go. Let go or it’s going to get ripped out of your hands. It’s just your decision is how hard the rope burns as it leaves your hands,” Fern adds. “That’s the only choice you have – how bad it hurts when it leaves. Because the Tower card is about letting existing structures crumble to make space for the new.”

“That song is the perfect example of us as artists trying to invoke a clear picture of what’s happening,” May says. “We want the listener to see and hear and feel and understand what it’s like for that Tower to crumble down. It’s vulnerable.”

Music is how May Be Fern makes that space. It’s also how the band lets go, rebuilds, renews and heals. It’s how May, Fern and Spillman make magic. They realize there’s an ineffable quality embedded in their songs, and that kind of sorcery can only rise from the type of deep connection they share.

“We’re not talking about trauma bonds; we’re talking about something much deeper,” Fern says. “That’s what healing together does. The magic of community is that it’s not so scary when you have a shoulder to lean on. … We’re putting the magic into the songs. When we create as a unit, we create a feeling that is definitely bigger than us. The way that we create alchemy as the three of us is by putting it into music.

“Everything about this band and everything about the journey,” she concludes, “has been meant to be.”

May Be Fern album-release show, 8 p.m. Saturday, September 20, Globe Hall, 4483 Logan Street. Tickets are $16 in advance, $20 at the door.