Distance Walk and Fables of the Fall Bring Alt-Folk to Swallow Hill

Punk, heavy metal and indie rock don't leap to mind when discussing bluegrass and old-time music, yet the junction of these seemingly separate worlds is in Denver, where groups such as Distance Walk and Fables of the Fall are joyously obliterating genre boundaries.

"Distance Walk came together as part of what we thought was going to be a one-off at Swallow Hill back in 2019," explains the band's banjo player, Barry Osborne, who works in the marketing department at Swallow Hill Music. "It was a folky project where we were doing a singer-songwriter gig. In between songs at rehearsal, we'd kind of jam out a bit. It was a mix of instruments including fiddle, guitar and banjo, but our bandmate Niki [Tredinnick] asked if she could bring her clarinet. That added an interesting dimension to the more traditionally grounded folk instrumentation. I play claw-hammer banjo, and Olivia [Shaw], our fiddle player, is great at creating ethereal moods. Our guitarist, Seth [Fine], is grounded in indie rock and jazz."

The banjo picker, who moved to the Mile High City from Milwaukee seventeen years ago and is now in his late forties, says the quirky spin his group puts on the folk tradition took on a life of its own — and then the pandemic hit.

"We played that first show and it went great, then we also played a fun show in March of 2020, which was right before the world shut down," he recalls. "It was at the Mutiny Information Cafe on a Saturday night and we got this really cool response that I wasn't expecting, so we decided to keep the group going even through COVID. During the pandemic, I started writing songs that we were able to record one by one in a studio. We came up with the name Distance Walk, because everyone was keeping their distance."

The moodily themed ensemble is now eagerly poised to thrive in the post-pandemic world. With audiences returning to venues and bandmembers being able to congregate more easily for rehearsals, Osborne says the enthusiasm level is high.

"Last year it was hard to gig as a full act, so Olivia and I did a lot of duo shows that were fun, but this fall we've all been able come out and do full-band performances," he says. "It's been a blast. Our sound is familiar, but also different enough so that people take notice. I play a traditional style of banjo, and I've really learned that form. In my twenties, I played in rock bands and wrote my own songs. A few years ago, I wanted to get back into songwriting, and I also wanted play the banjo, but for some reason, I didn't think that I could merge those two things. I'm not sure why I thought that, because it's who I am. Olivia is also really well-versed in bluegrass and folk. We've blended those worlds to create something more shoegazey. We jokingly refer to it as 'bootgaze.' It's a fun time in acoustic music because people are really stretching out, experimenting and bringing in influences that once upon a time might have seemed too strange. Playing as a full band really showcases what we're able to do."

Osborne says he's particularly excited to join forces with Fables of the Fall for an upcoming co-bill at Swallow Hill's Tuft Theatre on Saturday, November 26. Fables, which has been around since 2017 and inspired Distance Walk early on, is a punk-influenced dark-folk project, addressing bleak topics such as climate collapse and the end of the world.

"Their banjo player, Schwa [Michel], was working sound at Seventh Circle Music Collective when we were playing, and he suggested that we should do a show together," explains Osborne. "I thought it was a great idea. It's fun when you find these island-of-misfit-toys bands, who aren't just straight up one thing or another. Fables showed me that you can play a banjo at a DIY punk club and be just as at home as you would be at a brewery or in a listening room."

Michel, Osborne's banjo-plucking counterpart in Fables, describes his group as an "apocalyptic folk quintet" that enjoys blending unlikely influences.

"It's dark and stormy music," Michel, who grew up in the Northwest and works as an academic researcher, says. "Our previous band was a folk-punk band, but a few years later we got together to do a grown-up, more sophisticated version of it. We wanted to add a cello to make it even darker. We have a couple classical musicians in the group. I've been listening to bluegrass and old-time for years. We're folk-punk-adjacent, but we do bluegrass, too. We can play a folk-punk fest and then go do a bluegrass event. Like a lot of genres, we've kind of been blending into each other. I mean, there's more crossover between genres such as heavy metal and bluegrass than you'd think. We're telling the story of the fall of civilization in real time, but we also tell happy stories about the end of the world."

Fables of the Fall and Distance Walk, 8 p.m. Saturday, November 26, Swallow Hill Music, 71 East Yale Avenue. Tickets are $15-$17.