Middle Class Rock Star

My guest today is singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, AJ Croce. Though AJ is an accomplished songwriter, his new release, By Request, is an album of all covers. As a piano player who grew up playing in piano bars and with bands almost every night of the week, he had the entire American songbook at his disposal. The track listing ranges from Billy Preston to Neil Young. AJ was very open an...

My guest today is Leftover Salmon bassist, Greg Garrison. He was also a founding member of Punch Brothers, and has played alongside some of the best musicians in the bluegrass, jazz, and Americana worlds. His performance credits include: Lyle Lovett, Bill Frisell, Chris Thile, Bryan Sutton, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush. I first met Greg as a student at CU Denver back in 2012. I was in my junior yea...

My guest today is founding member of Leftover Salmon, Drew Emmitt. The band formed in 1989, and has spent the last three decades successfully blending bluegrass, rock, country, and Cajun/Zydeco music. On the heels of Leftover Salmon's new album, "Brand New Good Old Days" (May 7), Drew and I chat about the recording process, the interesting choice in cover songs on the record, how the industry has...

My guest today is recording engineer, producer, and pedal steel guitarist, John Macy. John has the distinction of being the "most mentioned" person of all time on this podcast. I don't have an exact count, but he seems to be a part of everyone's story. Whether they recorded with John, played with him, or inturned at one of his studios, he's had an unmistakable impact on the Colorado scene and beyo...

My guest today is singer-songwriter, performer, producer, and composer, Mark Oblinger. I love chatting with people who have done several things to make ends meet in the music biz. I suppose that's most of us these days, but Mark really has done it all. He's composed music for Oprah, produced records for other artists, worked on children's records, written songs for other artists, and sang backing...

My guest today is gospel/blues/pop singer and Colorado music mainstay, Hazel Miller. I don't know a hometown music scene without Hazel Miller. I've lived in Colorado pretty much my whole life, and she's always been at the center of the scene. She's performed worldwide with her band, played with Big Head Todd & The Monsters, backed up Al Green, James Taylor, and James Brown, and sang for four sitti...

My guest today is Levitt Pavilion Denver founder, Chris Zacher. I really wanted to chat with someone who is making a difference in my local music community here in Denver. Chris has been an advocate for art, community, and live music in Denver since 2006 when he served as the Treasurer for City Park Jazz in downtown Denver. Between 2006 and 2014, Zacher worked as Treasurer, Vice President, and Pre...

My guest today is Mickey Rapahel. Although perhaps best known as Willie Nelson's touring harmonica player since 1973, he's not synonymous with any one thing he's done in his career. As a session musician or side person, Mickey has collaborated with the likes of: Jason Isbell, Townes Van Zandt, Chris Stapleton, Jerry Jeff Walker, Tom Morello, Paul Simon, Snoop Dogg, Neil Young, Norah Jones, Bob Dyl...

My guest today is Caroline Stump, a singer-songwriter and licensing administrator at Warner Music Group out of Nashville, TN. After growing up in Iowa, Caroline found home in Denver when she discovered the singer-songwriter program at CU Denver. Upon graduation in spring of 2020, she accepted a position in Nashville, TN at Warner Music Group as a Licensing Administrator for Atlantic Records. On Ma...

Phil Cook is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and producer based in Durham, North Carolina. He has composed music for Bon Iver, Kanye West, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and Hiss Golden Messenger, among others, as well as contributed to studio recordings for Bruce Hornsby, Amy Ray (The Indigo Girls), The Mountain Goats, Kathleen Edwards, Matthew E White and more. I first saw...

My guest this week is Grammy nominated audio engineer, Nick Sullivan. He's also the co-owner of The Keep Recording and Consonance Publishing, both based in Denver, CO. Since opening their doors in 2014, Nick (along with his business partner, Jeff Kanan) have produced, engineered, mixed and mastered hundreds of records. One thing that I find unique about Nick, is that he is both fully involved with...

My guest today is Grammy nominated, Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee, Chris Daniels. Chris has absolutely done it all. As a 29 year old aspiring to do so much, I look at someone like Chris with his world of wisdom, and I can only hope to be like him when I grow up. He's toured with his band, Chris Daniels & The Kings for 37 years. He's backed up artists like Bonnie Raitt, Garth Brooks, and Son...

Today's guest is (primarily) my pal, Alec Wenzel. The conversation actually starts off with both Alec and his Specific Ocean bandmate, Camilla Vaitaitis. This episode took three Zoom videos to complete and honestly, it was poor planning on my part. Alec is a dear friend, so I didn't ask him to be on the podcast weeks in advance. I just said, "Dude, wanna do an episode tomorrow?" And that was that....

Today's guest is songwriter, performer, and virtuoso guitarist, Taylor Scott. We go back 8ish years to the Snowy Range Music Festival in Laramie, WY (RIP!). We met through our mutual friend, Nic Clark (episodes 5 and 31), and ended up forming a "songwriter in round" group called, Sydow, Scott & Clark. We never broke up, we just stopped playing shows. Taylor spent his earliest years in St. Louis, M...

Today's guest is touring guitarist and songwriter, Shawn Eckels. He's perhaps known best in the Colorado scene as the longtime touring guitarist in Andy Frasco & The U.N. (Note: Andy Frasco was on episode 43 of this podcast, and their day-to-day manager, Brody Danger was on episode 9 and 57). Aside from his work with the U.N., Eckels has been making a name for himself as a touring artist since the...

EPISODE 60! After this past year, any episode that ends in zero is reason to celebrate for me. My guest today is Nashville based music supervisor, Hannah Madison Taylor. She's doing what she loves, but her journey has been far from a straight line. A self-described, "accidental actress," Hannah moved to LA for work in the music biz, but found herself cast in all kinds of acting roles. Besides play...

My guest today is Colorado based artist, Andy Eppler. I think I have an affinity for booking Andys on my show. Could I be slightly biased? This particular Andy (who sometimes goes by "Ando") truly embodies the word, artist. He writes songs, he sings, he produces, he paints (very well I might add), does liquid light, and even directs films. In our conversation, we chat about his new album, Broke-Do...

My guest today is Longmont, CO based singer-songwriter, Antonio Lopez. His new record was released on January 1, and it's already being talked about as a potential nominee for best Colorado album of 2021. Roots and Wings is a personal album to say the least. The title track talks of his mother giving him roots, and his father giving him wings. If you're somebody who listens to lyrics, you'll find...

My guest today is Denver-based drag performer and 7S artist manager, Brody Danger. This is Brody's second time Middle Class Rock Star Podcast. The first was way back on episode 9 (Rachel Miller - 7S Management). A veteran artist manager, Brody works with the likes of Hiss Golden Messenger, Erin Rae, Andy Frasco and Lucero. Though they are well suited for the music business, Danger has always wante...

My guest today is Megan Rose Ellsworth. She's from the small mountain community of Sisters, Oregon, a place bursting at the seams with music and art. She's been singing all her life, and was taught guitar by her dad at the age of eight. After high school, she moved to Denver, CO to pursue a B.A in Music Business and Songwriting from the University of Colorado at Denver. During her college years, s...

My guest today is first time Middle Class Rock Star guest, Caitlin Cannon. We first met on a gig together at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, CO on a Halloween night a few years back. To this day, it's the longest (and spookiest) soundcheck I've ever been a part of. Her newest release, a full length titled, The TrashCannon Album, finds clever wordplay tackling what Caitlin calls the “inner g...

With qualities ranging from blues to jazz, country and americana, Cary Morin is perhaps one of the best finger pickers on the circuit today. He has been touring internationally for decades, including performances at Paris Jazz Festival, Winter Park Jazz Festival, Folk Alliance International and the Copenhagen Blues Festival. He's won many prestigious awards including an Independent Music Award for...

BIG NEWS FOR MIDDLE CLASS ROCK STAR! We're now reaching 25 FM frequencies throughout Colorado via Chris K's radio show, The Colorado Playlist. No guest this week! Or actually, a whole lot of guests. It's a little misleading though. It's not actually all "the best" of 2020, rather, just the episodes that I edited together for Chris K's Colorado Playlist. I took those 6ish minute segments and put th...

BIG NEWS FOR MIDDLE CLASS ROCK STAR! We're now reaching 25 FM frequencies throughout Colorado via Chris K's radio show, The Colorado Playlist. My guest this week is Jeremy Lawton, Big Head Todd & The Monsters keyboardist and lap steel player. He grew up in the small town of Center, CO, where his father was a potato farmer. Jeremy showed an aptitude for music early on and began taking lessons. Even...

BIG NEWS FOR MIDDLE CLASS ROCK STAR! We're now reaching 25 FM frequencies throughout Colorado via Chris K's radio show, The Colorado Playlist. My guest this week is Elephant Revival founding member, Dango Rose. For seventeen years, Dango traveled nationally and internationally in touring bands. In 2006, he co-founded Elephant Revival and spent eleven years performing and recording with this influe...