Rainbow Kitten Surprise Is at Home in Colorful Colorado

Rainbow Kitten Surprise is one of the most-beloved indie acts to come out of the 2010s.

Especially after releasing its third album, How To: Friend, Love, Freefall, in 2018, the North Carolina group sold out seemingly every venue it played, including Red Rocks. That record went gold, thanks to the platinum-certified single “It’s Called: Freefall,” too.

And at the time, everyone assumed RKS would seamlessly continue on the fast-track to stardom. But instead, it wasn’t until last year that the band released any follow-up in the form of Love Hate Music Box.

“It took us six years to nail down that record and we probably tried making that record three or four different times and making three or four different records that weren’t it for the time,” longtime guitarist Ethan Goodpaster explains.

In that time, there was a hiatus, lineup change and founding lead singer Ela Melo’s gender identity journey when she came out as transgender in 2022. Despite all that, though, Goodpaster, Melo, guitarist Darrick “Bozzy” Keller and drummer Jess Haney nailed it. Love Hate Music Box is the first RKS long-play to chart, featuring hit “Overtime” with Grammy-winning country artist Kacey Musgraves. And there’s no delay in the follow-up, bones, which is set to be released later this month on Friday, September 26.

“It flowed out of us and was one of the easier records we recorded,” Goodpaster says of the upcoming fifth LP. “I think we are all just itching to make some new stuff together. We are feeling great right now, we’re in a good stride right now with touring, too.”

Rainbow Kitten Surprise is heading back to Red Rocks for the fourth time on Monday, September 8, and just like the previous three, the show is already sold out (you can still find tickets on third-party sites, or join the waitlist).

“We always do a special cover every Red Rocks show, so we will have a fun surprise cover that the crowd will definitely know,” Goodpaster shares, adding how special the regular Morrison shows are.

“The first time that we walked out on stage at Red Rocks felt like such an important moment in all of our lives,” he adds. “It’s something that’s hard to describe when you walk out there and you’re looking at the crowd. It’s like a wall of people. It’s the most insane feeling. Ever since that first one that just felt like magic, this is a very important venue for us. I think the show ends up on another level that isn’t possible at any other venue.”

But there’s still a chance to check the band out while it’s in the area, on Friday, September 5, and Saturday, September 6, at Dillon Amphitheater. Medium Build is providing support this time around.

A RKS show is always a good time, and undoubtedly inclusive.

“In today’s climate, a lot of people are singled out,” Goodpaster says. “We want to be able to foster a place where anybody – no matter who we are or who you love or how you look – can come and celebrate the unity of this wonderful group of people who listen to us. We always try to celebrate that.”

For bones, the band tracked the ten songs live in effort to capture that rainbow-riding feeling one gets from going to a concert.

“This is the first record where we allowed ourselves to do that in the studio as well, and it made some really special moments,” Goodpaster says, adding that there were literally almost 200 song ideas to pluck from while writing these past two records.

“Ela hit this vein and started writing multiple songs a day,” he continues. “We had so many things to sift and work through, but we all got together for a month at our shared band house-studio [in Nashville] and started working on one song a day.”

Previously released singles “100 Summers” and “Dang” folksy indie-rockers, indicative of the album’s overall sound that Goodpaster describes as “a call-back to our roots.”

“There are some folkier, big-chorus harmonies stacked together like a lot of our older work,” he explains. “I think it has a lot of sounds that we’ve learned throughout the ten or eleven years we’ve been together. It’s a great mixture of our old classic sound and who we are today.”

There are no plans to let up, either.

“We’re still constantly writing. Seems like we’re still tapped into that vein a little bit,” Goodpaster concludes. “I can’t make any promises that we’ll come out with more stuff, but the material is definitely there.”

Rainbow Kitten Surprise, with Medium Build, 5:30 p.m. Friday, September 5, and Saturday, September 6, Dillon Amphitheater, 135 West Lodgepole St. Tickets are $92.