Colorado Is a Home Away From Home for This Southern Jam Band

The members of Futurebirds might be from the South, born and raised around Athens, Georgia, but they've found themselves continuously chasing that Rocky Mountain high for the past fifteen years. So much so that on their new album, Easy Company, released via Dualtone Records in August, Futurebirds included a tune titled “Colorados” in honor of the state that’s served as a second musical home.

“It is the only state we have a song about,” says Carter King, one of the band's guitarists and vocalists.

While sitting in a Portland coffee shop the day of a recent show, King is quick to compliment Denver audiences and the outpour of positive energy that always welcomes Futurebirds whenever the band rolls through, including taking the Red Rocks stage for the first time in 2022 as part of Caamp’s Lavender Days tour (guitarist/vocalist Daniel Womack called the feeling “pure elation” at the time).

“We’ve been relentlessly bashing the state over the head with our music over the last decade and a half just because we like to hang out there so much. Like, ‘Please, please love us so we can keep coming back here,’” King says. “Aside from that, the energy is just so high in Colorado. I don’t know if it’s the altitude or people’s natural endorphins from just being outside a lot, but a show is a two-way street. Our best shows are the ones with the best audiences and that’s usually a pretty solid bet anywhere in Colorado. It always has been.”

As King sings on the band's ode: “Colorado's gonna have you crawling back for it every time.”

So he’s excited that Futurebirds is coming back to the Mile High City on Friday, January 31, for a show at the Ogden Theatre. Local Americana outfit Marfa and Abby Hamilton are also on the bill. Leading up to the Denver date, the seven-piece is also playing Grand Junction’s Mesa Theater (Tuesday, January 28) and Belly Up Aspen (Wednesday, January 29). Futurebirds love them some Colorado, and it’s safe to say that feeling is equally reciprocated at this point.

“Man, the Ogden is a great room,” King says. “We’re trying to create some joy and good energy with a packed room of people and leaving everyone, including ourselves, feeling lighter and better about the world.”

And with Easy Company, it’s hard not to perk up, no matter your mood. The dozen tracks are quintessential Futurebirds. In all, the record is a Southern sonic stew that sprinkles in everything from alternative and psych rock to bluegrass-country and jam. Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield provides guest vocals on the title track, while Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood shares a spoken-word monologue during “Soft Drugs.”

Such songs as “Movin’ On,” an easy-listening road trip tune, and “Solitaires,” a funkier Dead-leaning ensemble, are also indicative of the crew’s three-pronged songwriting approach of King, Womack and guitarist-vocalist Thomas Johnson.

“It's a great amalgamation of everything that we grew up on,” King explains, adding he typically brings more jam jives to the table having been raised with older siblings who were into the Dead, Phish and Athens’ hometown darlings Widespread Panic.

“That’s a benefit of having multiple songwriters and a big band: We get the influences of everyone," he says. "Not just what we’re currently into, but the stuff we grew up on that’s just in your bloodstream, whether you like it or not.”

Plus, it’s nice to not have to be the band leader all the time, he admits.

“Generally how it goes is the songwriter just becomes captain of the ship when we’re working on a particular song,” King continues. “It’s nice to be able to jump in the driver’s seat and get behind the wheel of the boat for a while, and then pop out and let someone else take over, like, ‘All right, I’m going to crack a light beer now.’”

With such a laid-back vibe and varied sound, Futurebirds — which also includes keys player Spencer Thomas, bassist Brannen Miles, drummer Tom Myers and pedal-steel player Kiffy Myers — has cemented its place within the indie alt-jam scene, particularly among the college sect. After all, King, Womack, Johnson and Miles initially met while attending the University of Georgia before officially forming Futurebirds in 2008. Fun fact: The name came to King after he learned chickens were thought to possess the ability to see into the future, according to Roman philosophers, during a poultry evaluation class.

Shortly after landing on a name, the band's 2010 debut, Hampton’s Lullaby, also served as a prophecy of things to come. Though the sound Futurebirds conjured up isn’t easy to pinpoint, King has a unique way to describe it.

“One thing that described our first record is that it sounds like a rusty chainsaw that was dropped in a tropical aquarium,” he says.

“It depends on who you’re talking to,” King continues. “If you’re talking to some cool person at the coffee shop who wants to come to the show, it’s like, ‘Okay, it’s kind of psychedelic, Americana, country with some ’90s influences.’ If you’re talking to the cops on the side of the road, ‘We’re a Southern-rock band, sir.’”

Futurebirds, with Marfa and Abby Hamilton, 8 p.m. Friday, January 31, Ogden Theatre, 935 East Colfax Avenue. Tickets are $53.