A brief chat with Futurebirds

Yellow Scene: For the newbie, describe the sound…

Thomas Johnson: We’ve got lots of different elements. I guess basically we’re a rock band. We work in a lot of harmonies, and we like to take the genre to a new level, a different place. A lot of people call it psychedelic country, which I think is kind of a good descriptor.

YS: You guys have been together since 2008 – how do you think it’s evolved in that time?

TJ: I think our songwriting’s gotten a lot better just as we’ve gotten older and grown up a little bit. But also, our playing. When you’ve been playing in a band for that long, you can’t help but get better. The whole thing, when we first started, was kind of all over the place. It was wild, and we’ve honed the sound. We don’t let it be wild all the time, so when we do push it out it has more of an effect.

YS: Do you like playing Colorado?

TJ: Yeah, we’ve played Colorado a good bit. Our last round through was really good, and we’ve played lots of different towns. There are a lot of people from the south who have moved out to Colorado, and that helped us at first. We’ve also gone out a couple of times in the winter time, when not a lot of bands are coming through town, so I think that’s endeared us to a lot of people, or hopefully it has. Our sound is something that people in Colorado are welcome to.

YS: What are your plans for the set?

TJ: We’re going to be playing some new songs, and we’ve got a split 7” coming out on Record Store Day so we’re doing that. We’ll break out some new covers, and play a rocking set.

YS: When this tour’s over, what’s next?

TJ: We’ll take a couple of weeks off, and then head back out in June to hit some festivals. We’re playing Snowmass in Aspen and some more, so we’ll be hitting the festival scene.