Introducing New Denver Duo The Huckle Bearers

Denver musicians Nicholas Fennel and Eric Thompson are ready to take their show on the road and play for eager ears. The duo behind The Huckle Bearers have been at it for less than a year, but Fennel explains he’s had music written for a gigging two-piece acoustic act for a while. He just needed to find an upright bassist who shared his vision. Then an old friend rolled into town.

“I was off traveling the country in my car, playing music with various folks around the area. Played a bunch in the Midwest and thought I’d check out different scenes. Was chatting with Nick and said I’d be swinging back through Denver, and he said, ‘Dude, give me three months.’ It’s been seven months,” Thompson recalls of his move to the city. Fennel promised him they’d be touring sooner rather than later, and the Huckle Bearers' first run of shows came together after four months.

The two had worked together in a band called Dead Dogs before focusing on other projects and hopping around the States. Coming back together "was a no-brainer. As far as musicianship, if I could pick a guy to grab, he was the guy,” Fennel says, adding that the Huckle Bearers recently completed a Midwest tour and are looking to ramble around more. “We’re just plugging. We really want to get on to some kind of circuit.”

Thompson deadpans that one of the pros of being a twosome is that “we can fit in my little Mazda.” And the Huckle Bearers will be driving over to Lost Lake on Sunday, January 15, for a show with Son Page of Billy the Poet and Kyle Warner & His No-Good Rotten Band.

The Huckle Bearers recently recorded an EP and have been dropping singles from it the past couple months, with the final song of the self-titled offering coming out Wednesday, January 23. The music may be best described as Americana, especially given Fennel’s penchant for writing melancholy melodies, but there are also elements of the blues, cow punk, outlaw country and folk in the band’s sound.

“We don’t really like putting ourselves in a box, but essentially, we’re an Americana band. We try to keep the music tight. I endearingly trust Eric on stage. I know what he’s going to do, [and] I know when he’s going to do it. I know when we’re going to free-form on stage. I don’t want to give the music to any other musician who isn’t dedicated enough to feel the same accompaniment that Eric gives me. It’s more like a stage vibe. It’s a lot of hard work. It’s a lot of dedication,” Fennel says.

The same goes for the EP. “We really wanted to capture what people are going to hear when we play acoustic live. We’re very realistic about the music,” he adds. “I didn’t want to produce something that a five-piece band would sound like and then show up at our gigs and be like, ‘Oh, no, we’re a two-piece acoustic duo.’”

The two are working on putting out an LP in April, as well. Thompson likes the stripped-down nature of the Huckle Bearers, which he says is “very song-driven.”

“I like playing with pedals and all those fun sounds. With this group, we really scaled everything back a little bit and kept it very pure and about the song, which has been a really fun change for me as a bassist who is used to trying to fill in all this extra space. Nick’s lyrics are fantastic. He tells great stories. The stories are the songs,” he explains. “I’ve played in giant bands and small groups. There’s something that is a lot easier to just make it happen with two people. Nick and I know each other musically and personally really well.”

“Somber storytelling” is how Fennel describes his approach to the band.

“The songs are written through experience," he says. "I try to write vaguely so people can connect to the song and include their experiences with it. I’ll never sing about a specific thing or my story, because I like to share it as everybody’s story. It comes from an experience that I’ve had and essentially everybody had.”

That sentiment translates well live, he adds, but as Thompson puts it, “We make a lot of noise for two people.”

The Huckle Bearers, 7 p.m. Sunday, January 15, Lost Lake, 3602 East Colfax Avenue. Tickets are $13-$16.