Denver has a vibrant local music scene. Many musicians working in the city describe it as a supportive and welcoming community, without the competition they’ve seen in other cities.
The city is also home to CU Denver’s Music and Entertainment Studies program, which won Billboard Magazine’s "Top Music Business School" award in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Storm Gloor, an associate professor in CU’s program, has taught many of the city’s local artists and industry professionals. One thing that sets Colorado apart from other markets is the music fans.
“Statistically our fans, Colorado fans — I've seen the reports and the research — attend concerts more than other cities,” he said.
Although Colorado has a greater likelihood that fans will come out to support live shows, the state presents challenges for musicians trying to build long-lasting careers.
Colorado is a long drive from the nearest big cities, and even more removed from the coasts. This makes touring difficult, with long and expensive hauls between home and places where gigs can be strung together in close proximity.
There’s also the issue of networking in a smaller market. Though launching a career in a less competitive city can be easier, establishing a base in a bigger city with more powerful players presents more opportunities for growth.
This leads a lot of artists to wonder whether they should pursue their careers elsewhere or stick it out in the state’s vibrant-yet-secluded scene.
Here’s what four artists with local ties had to say.
Chris Bowers Castillo of Kiltro
Chris Bowers Castillo was born in Aurora and grew up splitting his time between Colorado and Santiago, Chile. Shortly after graduating from CU Boulder, he moved to Valparaíso, a coastal Chilean town, where he started developing Kiltro’s sound.
He said he performed in Valparaíso a few times but didn't “do it in an active, dedicated way” until he moved back to the States. But when he landed back in Denver and began to focus on the project, he saw fans take an interest in his work.
“People can smell authenticity the way they can sense fear,” he said. “If you have something that's sincere and your own — and it can't be found easily elsewhere — they'll come to you for it.”
To overcome the competitive nature of the field, he said artists have to find their voice and create a product that is impressive in some way — whether that’s technical ability, the personality of the live performance, or something else.
That strategy proved successful for Bowers Castillo: Kiltro is known for its distinct, ambient-yet-soulful Latin sound.
But the music can’t speak for itself, artists have to get their work in front of the right people.
“In Denver, you probably have to put yourself into many, many rooms before it really helps you out,” he said. “It's an industry of luck, but you have to put yourself in the way of getting lucky.”
Since Denver isn’t a top city for the music industry, the “right room” is harder to find.
On the other hand: “It's a smaller scene and that can be its own catapult.”
That was the case for Kiltro, which Bowers Castillo said gained its initial momentum via local radio plays. From there, he said, “Our following just started growing. It felt pretty organic, and that was really cool.”
Since the band’s 2019 debut album, “Creatures of Habit,” Kiltro has been signed to national label 7S, toured the country, been featured on KEXP and NPR, and will soon be touring with Y La Bamba.
Carla Huiracocha, aka Neoma
Carla Huiracocha, who performs under the name Neoma, began her music career in her hometown of Cuenca, Ecuador, an Andean city slightly smaller than Denver. In 2017, she hit the top of the Ecuadorian charts with her dreamy-yet-energetic synth pop single “Real.”
But she knew a career in Ecuador could only reach a certain level.
“There's a lot of great artists and music in South America,” she said. But “there's no resources, no one even cares about art because there's so many other things happening down there.”
So she decided to move, and her choices came down to Colorado or New York. She had family in both states, but thought the pace of life would be a better fit in Colorado. So she came out to visit her now partner and producer Danny Pauta, who already lived in Denver, and stayed.
Since relocating, Huiracocha has found musical success, but still needs to work a day job.
“I would love to pay my bills with music,” she said. “Sometimes I'm able to do that. If we play a lot of shows, I'm able to cover the rent, but that's pretty much it.”
“Right now, it feels like I have two jobs,” she continued. “I have my day job, and then at night I'm writing, I'm producing, I'm working with other musicians. I take lessons. I try to learn all the time and get better.”
She hopes that as Neoma grows, she can spend more time focused on her music.
Her advice for other musicians trying to make it in the Denver scene is to build authentic connections. “Go out, meet people and be like, 'Hi, this is my project, come to my show.' Don't be shy about it.”
That’s how she’s built relationships with fans and other artists, including Bowers Castillo. This past spring, she joined Kiltro on the band’s West Coast tour.
“They were one of my favorite bands when I first came to Denver,” she said. “So it was crazy for me that they asked me to go on tour with them, and that was very beautiful."
Forrest Raup, freelance drummer
Forrest Raup, a freelance drummer who has played with an array of local and national acts, grew up in Boulder. He studied performance and arranging at the Berklee College of Music in Boston for a year, then returned to Colorado to study audio engineering at the University of Colorado Denver.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down in 2020, Raup was in the early stages of his program at CU Denver. No longer able to use the equipment at school, he invested in a few pieces of basic gear and began recording at home.
“I just started putting clips up on social media. I would sync the audio I recorded with little videos I took of myself playing, just to get the word out there to be like, ‘Yo, I have a home recording set-up,’” he said. “And it was such a perfect time for that because no one could play music together, so the only way you could collaborate was remotely.”
Shortly after he started posting his videos, he said people began reaching out to him with work.
Raup said that his approach to building his music career here has been to “say yes to everything at first. Even if the pay isn't great, or even if it doesn't pay anything but it might lead to a cool experience or meeting a group of cool people, then say yes to it.”
That’s how he’s built his career. He’s said yes to collaborating with all sorts of acts, including Pink Fuzz, Eldren and The AJ Fullerton Band, among many others. He has since toured with Twen and Celtic Thunder.
When it comes to growing his career, he said he has considered moving to a bigger market.
“It's a very real possibility that by moving to a place like LA or New York, you will be a small fish in a big pond and it might stay that way,” he said. “But at the same time, it's like a leap of faith. And to eventually grow into a bigger fish in a bigger pond would be ultimately very rewarding. But I think the work that it takes and the risks involved are very, very daunting — and just not doable for a lot of people too, because it's so expensive to live in those places.”
Olivia Rudeen, singer-songwriter
Olivia Rudeen is a singer-songwriter from Denver who moved to Nashville in 2013 after graduating from CU Denver’s music program. She met a music publisher at the Durango Songwriters Expo and turned that meeting into a publishing deal before graduation.
“I had this pretty clear opportunity to move out there,” she said.
She doesn't think artists need to move elsewhere to make it big, but she does think it’s crucial to network in the country’s more saturated music scenes.
“I think it's really important to have some sort of presence, whether you can make those connections long distance with people, or go to something like the Durango Songwriters Expo,” she said. “When I was in college, I was living at home, so I was saving money and I was using that money to make trips as often as I could. (I would) go for a week to LA or Nashville and just try to play open mics and meet people.”
No matter where you live, she said it’s important to make music that feels authentic.
"What's cool will change. You can try to chase something because it seems like it would be successful in the mainstream,” she said. “And then what's successful shifts and you have to stick to your guns."
She continued, "there are these moments that make it so worth it. These kind of transcendent moments when everything works – and there's nothing else like that feeling."
