Singer-songwriter Duncan Coker joined Wendy Mills for KGNU’s Morning Sound Alternative to talk about his latest album, Roadside Attractions, his upcoming house concert with Flattop Rider, and his journey through Colorado’s vibrant folk and Western music scene. Describing himself as an “unrepentant balladeer from the Colorado Piedmont,” Coker shared stories about songwriting, community, and the influence of Western landscapes on his music. He also performed live acoustic versions of songs from the new record and discussed the collaborative spirit behind his Colorado-based band and recording process. (Air Date 2/23/2026)
Listen to the studio session here:
Transcript:
Wendy Mills: Duncan, welcome to KGNU.
Duncan Coker: Great to be here with you. Thanks for having me on.
Wendy Mills: It’s great to have you here, and I know you have a special house concert coming up. We’re going to be talking about that, and about you, what you’re doing, and how you got into all this.
Duncan Coker: Right on.
Wendy Mills: Do you want to start off with some music perhaps?
Duncan Coker: Let’s do that. I’d love to. This is a song called “Rodeo Girl.” It’s for my wife, Julie. She’s right over there in the studio.
Wendy Mills: Hey, Julie.
Wendy Mills: Very nice.
Duncan Coker: Thank you.
Wendy Mills: That’s “Rodeo Girl.” It’s found on the Roadside Attraction CD, your latest work.
Duncan Coker: Yeah, that’s the first cut off our record that came out last November called Roadside Attractions.
Wendy Mills: It’s a great work. We really enjoy it here at KGNU.
Duncan Coker: Thank you so much.
Wendy Mills: You’ve been into music for a long time.
Duncan Coker: Since I was maybe 15 or so. Maybe even earlier. I started out with choir, like church choir.
Wendy Mills: Right. That’s what I was reading about.
Duncan Coker: I had some great music teachers and really loved to sing, as a soprano back then.
Wendy Mills: And then your voice changed.
Duncan Coker: Yeah, then my voice dropped. Everything changed. Then I had some friends and we had our full-on garage band doing Stones, Beatles, Animals, all those ’60s bands we were into. I’ve always kept up with it, I guess. Peaks and valleys over the years.
I was doing a lot of singer-songwriter music, especially since Julie and I moved to Boulder with our family. We have two daughters. We moved out here in 2013, and I really got into the music scene here. It’s really great. I was welcomed into the folk and bluegrass scene. I’m not a bluegrass player, but I love to sit in on some picks. I’ve really kept it going.
Wendy Mills: This area is so incredible for music and for different jams that are going on. Everybody is really embracing people to come in.
Duncan Coker: I want to give a shout-out to Harmony House right here in Boulder, and Robbie, who runs that. Maybe three or four years ago I went there to take lessons and sit in on the ensembles they have. It introduced me to lots of people in the bluegrass world, and that was huge.
The other one is Planet Bluegrass and Song School. This will be my fourth year going. Four years ago I went for the first time, and it opened up so much. It’s so supportive, and I met a bunch of great people.
Wendy Mills: Speaking of songwriting, I was reading that you are an “unrepentant balladeer from the Colorado Piedmont,” and I thought that was really cool. My geology geek kicked in because the Piedmont isn’t quite the plains and it’s not quite the mountains. I just love that description of what you do.
Duncan Coker: Thank you. I love words too, and I try to find interesting, fun words to put in my songs. That description just came to me. It’s hard to describe who you are and your music in five words or something, but that one fit. The Piedmont is this area right between the mountains and the plains, which is where we are, and it fits my music too. It’s a mixture of folk, country, and Western.
I like the word “unrepentant.” I think songwriters should try to be original and be themselves. Don’t fall into a specific group or try to write for a category.
Wendy Mills: People always want to put artists into a genre.
Duncan Coker: Right. I don’t want to be negative on music, but what I’m drawn to is more the Texas kind of sound — Guy Clark, Hayes Carll. I just saw Hayes Carll up at Washington’s a couple nights ago. Artists like Jackson Browne too. I love all that stuff.
Wendy Mills: We’re not black-and-white individuals, so why put music into strict categories? I was thinking more Western — the wide spaces, the Piedmont.
Duncan Coker: Totally. “Western” is a word I’m really drawn to in my music and how I describe myself. I think the music in the Mountain States has its own flavor, and it’s really Western. That’s where I feel like I belong.
Wendy Mills: I want to get into the band and the solo work, but how about sharing another tune with us?
Duncan Coker: Let’s do that. This one goes out to my mom. She’s going to be 90 in July. It’s called “Polly.”
Wendy Mills: That’s nice. I played that as the first tune starting off. It was wonderful to hear the acoustic version.
Duncan Coker: Thank you. On the record it’s kind of a Southern rocker, but we do a lot of acoustic shows, and it’s really fun to take the same songs that are fully produced and strip them down.
Wendy Mills: Speaking of which, let’s talk about your house concert that’s coming up.
Duncan Coker: We’ve got our first house concert coming up, and we’re pretty excited. We have a band called Flattop Rider. The concert is this Sunday, March 1st. Doors open at 5:30, and we’ll play from 6:00 to around 7:30. There’ll be some light food and snacks — kind of the house concert vibe.
It’s going to be at 487 Dakota Boulevard in Boulder. We’re asking for donations. You can get tickets through Instagram — go to Flattop Rider and there’ll be a link for tickets. But you can also just show up at the door. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Wendy Mills: You’re playing all along the Piedmont.
Duncan Coker: We’re doing pretty good. We’re starting to get a little traction. Exactly — all along the Piedmont.
Wendy Mills: I love that. I see the Velvet Elk on the 13th, Salt Road Brewing on the 26th with a trio, and Skylark Lounge in Denver.
Duncan Coker: We’re doing their Western Wednesday series. Every first Wednesday of the month they have a Western night at Skylark Lounge. This will be our second time doing it.
Wendy Mills: It’s nice to have a place to listen to Western honky-tonk.
Duncan Coker: Exactly. There’s a good little circuit of places from Fort Collins all the way south of Denver, and we jump around.
Wendy Mills: I also see Lyons, Niwot, Broomfield, Boulder, Loveland — all along the Piedmont, right?
Duncan Coker: We’ve got a good lineup. We just love to gig. We love getting together and playing.
Wendy Mills: Can you talk a little bit about the band, Flattop Rider? Did you want a bigger sound for some of the tunes you’ve written?
Duncan Coker: It’s really the same band. This year we’re just rebranding a little bit. It took us a while to come up with a fun name that worked for us, and that’s Flattop Rider.
On drums is Jim Dorschel. Playing fiddle is Neva Wilder. On electric guitar is Jason Paradise, and Jerry Ware is on bass. Then there’s me. That’s our five-piece core band.
Katie Mensel, who’s a wonderful singer, sits in with us a lot when we do acoustic shows, which is what we’ll be doing for the house show. So you’ll see Katie, Neva, Jason, and me for that show.
Wendy Mills: Your website is really wonderful and intuitive. Bravo.
Duncan Coker: Thank you. We’re a do-it-yourself band. I do it all. Independent music. We’ve got some cool stuff up there. It’s flattoprider.com.
Wendy Mills: It seems like you approach writing songs the way some people approach writing a novel. I saw the phrase “stenographer of the human condition.” That’s a lot of what songwriters attempt to do, and you succeed.
Duncan Coker: Thank you. I really love the craft, and I view it as a craft — like woodworking or building something with your hands. I love stories and books and reading. What I really like about songwriting is that you get to take a story and distill it down to basically 24 lines — maybe three verses and a chorus. Every word becomes important because you don’t have many words to work with. Then you throw rhymes into it. I just really love it.
I’m always working on it, and I always have some song running in the back of my mind. The stories just come. You can’t force them. Some are about me, and some are completely made up.
Wendy Mills: A lot of songwriting comes from seeing a character and extrapolating — imagining the “what if.”
Duncan Coker: For sure. At Song School I took a class with Steve Seskin. He said, “You can write only about yourself, but it’s going to limit you. Take any story you like and write about it. The ‘you’ will always come through in the way you tell it.” You’re allowed to make stuff up in songwriting.
Wendy Mills: It seems like everything is blossoming for you and your music right now, which is exciting.
Duncan Coker: It feels that way. I always say “we” because it’s communal for me. I have my band, my bluegrass friends, my singer-songwriter friends. It’s all been really supportive. Right now we’re just happy to get out there and play. That’s the magic for me — getting to play live.
Wendy Mills: Fabulous. We’ve been talking with unrepentant balladeer Duncan Coker. His band is Duncan Coker and Flattop Rider. He performs solo, with a trio, and with the full band. He’s playing all along the Front Range and coming up on March 1st at a house concert. You can get all the information at:
Duncan Coker: Flattoprider.com.
Wendy Mills: Is there anything else you wanted to touch on?
Duncan Coker: Let me give a shout-out to the people behind the record. Roadside Attractions was all recorded at Broadway Studios right on Broadway. Bob Barrick, my good friend, produced it. It was mixed at Coop Studios by Christopher Wright, and Dave Glasser did the mastering up in the hills. All the musicians were basically Colorado-based, so I’m proud that we’re all local and independent.
And come on out to the house concert this Sunday.
Wendy Mills: Again, the house concert is at 487 Dakota Boulevard. More information is at flattoprider.com. What are you going to take us out with?
Duncan Coker: Let’s do a song. This one’s called “No Kid Anymore.” It’s also off the album. Thanks so much for having me.
Wendy Mills: It’s been a pleasure, Duncan.
Wendy Mills: The music of Duncan Coker. Thank you so much again.
Duncan Coker: Thank you, Wendy. Thanks for having me.
Wendy Mills: Thanks.
