ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
On March 12, 2020, the band Futurebirds of Athens, Georgia, were preparing to take the stage at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride to start a nationwide tour. Rolling Stone magazine had just done a major profile on the band. They were touring behind their album “Teamwork,” which fuses alt-country and psychedelic rock. It seemed as if the band had corralled lightning in a bottle.
That bottle turned out to be a balloon and all the air was let out when the show got canceled and the United States went into a long COVID-19 quarantine. A little over four years later, Futurebirds are set to take another Colorado stage: On Wednesday evening, they will perform on the banks of the Roaring Fork River at the Basalt Summer Concert Series.
The bottle and the lightning have reunited again.
Rolling Stone recently wrote another story on the band and Futurebirds have a new record called “Easy Company” coming out on Aug. 9 that is being distributed by Dualtone Records, the label behind The Lumineers, Shakey Graves, Mt. Joy and Amos Lee. “Easy Company” is the band’s eighth studio album, following on the heels of “Hampton’s Lullaby,” (2010), “Via Flamina” (2012), “Baba Yaga” (2013), “Hotel Parties” (2015), “Portico” (2017), “Teamwork” (2019) and “Bloomin’” (2022).
Futurebirds have a rich musical palette at their disposal — think Bob Ross on a microdose — that includes two electric guitars (Carter King and Thomas Johnson), one acoustic guitar (Daniel Womack), pedal steel guitar (Kiffy Myers), keyboards (Spencer Thomas), bass (Brannen Miles) and drums (Tom Myers). The four-part harmonies of King, Johnson, Thomas and Womack constitute their own instrument and the final weapon in Futurebirds’ arsenal is their catchy melodic hooks and memorable lyrics. The songwriting duties are shared equally between Womack, King and Johnson.
Futurebirds are one of the rare bands that are darlings of both Rolling Stone and the indie rock magazine Pitchfork, which described Futurebirds as “a loose-limbed tangle of reverbed guitars, hollered harmonies and driving yet contemplative southern rock rhythms.”
For “Bloomin,” Futurebirds teamed up with My Morning Jacket guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Carl Broemel who played on the record and engineered it as well. In 2023, Futurebirds released their first live album, “Thanks Y’all.” Broemel performed with the band on every track and mastered the recording.
The Womack-King-Johnson triple threat harkens back to another Athens band, the Drive-By Truckers (in their early aught days) when Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell made some of the best albums southern rock has ever seen. Broemel told Rolling Stone that Futurebirds were drawing from the playbook of one of music’s all-time greatest bands.
“It goes back to the Beatles, of having a healthy competition and fostering the best music instead of having just one person in front,” Broemel told Rolling Stone. “There’s an argument to be made for having three people showing up with their best songs. These guys are wonderful at stepping back when it’s time to step back and letting someone else lead.”
Womack echoed Broemel’s sentiment saying, “Carter and Thomas are such incredible songwriters. They push me and make me better. But we’re also getting better at writing together and I think that’s a big reason that the songs keep getting better and better.”
The final ingredient to the success of Futurebirds is their “stoke,” which is remarkably high. The song “Easier Said” from “Bloomin’” captures the band’s good-time ethos: “Everything sounds better when you’re feeling good. And I’m feeling good.”
Futurebirds’ high-energy shows have caused a reverse aging process to occur in the fanbase. About the time “Teamwork” came out, Womack noticed there were college-age kids at the shows singing along to their new song (at the time) “Trippin.’”
One reason Futurebirds is popular with Gen Z is that in 15 years, they have never stopped playing college parties. For a band whose members are closing in on 40, they are remarkably deft at keeping their Instagram page fresh and creative; those posts are liberally shared. Young fans throw cell phones on stage at Futurebirds’ shows and Womack has taken selfies of himself with the crowd in the background before returning it to its happy owner in the audience. The band mingles with the crowd after the show, taking pictures and signing merchandise.
Connecting with their fans is a hallmark of Futurebirds’ DNA. During the pandemic, they played “socially distanced” house parties with no amplification and major fan outreach.
“We try to not be too cool,” Womack said. “We’re just there with the fans. We’re one of them as well and it’s a symbiotic relationship. We can do our part to make the show fun but for the show to go to the next level, the fans have to do their part as well. People come to the shows to have a good time. I think the younger crowd appreciates that. And they've got younger siblings. And sometimes they bring their parents along. And we’ve been doing this for so long that a lot of our original fans are coming with their kids, too.”
Futurebirds recorded 21 songs in 10 days in June 2023 with producer Brad Cook at Sonic Ranch Recording Studios in El Paso. They had visions of putting out an old-school double album but then they linked up with Dualtone who convinced them to release 12 of the songs and save the other nine for another record down the line. They’ve been releasing singles since February leading up to the release of “Easy Company.” One of the songs, King’s “Colorados” is an ode to the Centennial state. “Goodnight, Colorado, I’ll be alright, but why do you make it so easy to fly a little too high? It might lay you low, might hang you dry, but that sun keeps shining all through the night.”
Futurebirds played Belly Up Aspen earlier this year. They have two dates at Red Rocks Amphitheatre later this summer, Aug. 20-21, opening for Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. This is their second Red Rocks gig, having shared a bill with Caamp last year.
“It's going to be great,” Womack said of Morrison’s hallowed outdoor venue. “I’ve never seen Nathaniel live but I hear he puts on a high-energy rock show much like we do. We've got the first time Red Rock show jitters out of us now, so we're ready to just go and tear it up. it's going to be awesome.”
Many bands that have been touring together for 15 years in a van could be suffering from serious group fatigue, but that’s not the way with Futurebirds. Almost a decade ago, they made a conscious decision to make tour life more enjoyable. They now build in time for camping, fishing and skiing and snowboarding in the winter. And musically, the band is simpatico.
“We’re so grateful that we get to do this,” Womack said. “We’re literally doing what we set out to do when we started the band, playing music we love for people who dig it. That’s all we ever really wanted to do. Time is a trip. Fifteen years seems like a long time but we feel like in many ways we’re just getting going. We feel like our brightest days are ahead of us.
“We’re looking forward to the gig in Basalt. It’s the last day of the first leg of our tour. We’re gonna rip.”