A married couple make up roots rock duo Shovels & Rope. Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst have made music together since 2008. The Charleston, South Carolina band is closing out their fall tour in Colorado this weekend with shows in Englewood and Aspen. It's a homecoming for Michael Trent, who grew up in Arvada and still has family in Denver.
“It’s so new and different now. Everything has changed so much. I’ve been on the Casa Bonita list for a couple years now it feels like, still waiting for that invite, but I did grow up you know, that’s like where we did all the birthday parties, every friend’s birthday party was at Casa Bonita,” Trent recalled.
The band recently dropped their 10th studio album, “Something Is Working Up Above My Head.” The lead single that got our attention is the murder ballad "Colorado River." Trent says it was inspired by receding water levels in the West.
“There were all these crazy stories in the news about things turning up,” said Trent. “Bodies in barrels and interesting, nefarious tales that you could derive from that. I just had an idea for a song envisioning a boy and his father going out for a regular camping trip. And as the song unfolds you realize that they're really out there doing some dirty work.”
“Love Song From A Dog” has become a fan favorite since Shovels & Rope started performing it while on tour with Colorado singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov.
“We knew that he had a listening audience,” said Trent. “We had kind of this really unexpected, big reaction and it became kind of a highlight each night during that tour. And it gave us a little bit of confidence in the song and then we ended up having Greg sing on it because it felt like it was incubated in his world.”
The music video pulls together home movies of Michael and Cary Ann, with their family's plott hound.
“That was our old dog Townes, rest in peace. We took him on the road all the time. A lot of the clubs knew him. When we first started this band it was just us two and the dog in the van, sleeping in Walmart parking lots and showing up to the gig. He was always there. And he was the dog that we had before we had kids, so that’s your OG baby.”
Longtime Denverites may remember Michael Trent from his late 90s indie pop rock band Tinkers Punishment. Their music is hard to find on the internet, but we dug up a fan video from 2003 outside the Hard Rock Café on the 16th Street Mall.
“I have resisted going back and checking out that stuff,” said Trent. “It's kind of like going through the high school yearbook. You're like, ‘not sure what we're gonna find on this page!’”
Shovels & Rope play the Gothic Theater on Friday, December 13 and Belly Up Aspen on Saturday, December 14, 2024.
