Duncan Coker likes to leave a little distance between himself and the characters that narrate his songs. That way he’s free to imagine himself as a long haul trucker, a cowboy or a young singer with dreams of a Nashville music career. He can put himself back a decade, feign an accent or wind up on a different side of the continent. Whatever it takes to move the story forward. What else is songwriting but real feelings channeled through fiction? Every character a sideways version of its author but in another multiverse.
Still, Coker’s songs are true-to-life. He keeps his antenna up, always looking for the signals in the noise. He is a stenographer of the human condition. You might even catch him in the dairy aisle, thumb-typing a phrase he overheard into his phone, destined for a spot in his next verse. Coker’s songs also grapple with the realness of life—the loss of his father or his love for his wife Julie. He enjoys the puzzle of conveying big emotions with a few choice words that rhyme.
Duncan was born in the South Carolina lowlands and raised in New Jersey. He was the standout soprano in his all-boys church choir. But when Coker’s voice dropped an octave, he left the pews and found his sanctuary in a friend’s converted garage, plugging in his Fender Squier and turning the amp up loud. As a Jersey teen, Springsteen’s working-class anthems were too cliché, so Coker tuned the radio dial to 102.7 to hear Floyd, Zeppelin, Yes and Rush on WNEW. Classic rock, before it was classic. To this day, those timeless chord shapes still evoke his childhood bedroom—radio blaring, guitar in hand, windows wide open to the river running out back of his rustic cedar shake home.
Coker’s debut, self-titled album was a long time coming and he spent years honing his craft at open mics and songwriting circles in Boulder, Colorado, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
These days, you’re most likely to find him packing up the PA and pedalboards into the back of his twenty-year-old Toyota Highlander and heading to another gig somewhere along the Front Range. He and his band have been building a loyal local following, earned one song—and one story—at a time. With the release of his second album, Roadside Attractions, Coker is leaning into a more collaborative approach to songwriting. He still plays the occasional solo show, but he really shines in the company of his bandmates: Jason Paradise (electric guitar), Neva Wilder (fiddle), Jim Dorschel (drums), and Jerry Ware (bass).
This summer, Coker and the band will make a pilgrimage of sorts to Central and West Texas, where so many of the artists he reveres first found their voice. When pressed to describe his music in a single word, Coker chooses “Western.” He has always been drawn to the rugged and the authentic, so it’s only natural he’d find his footing—and his voice—out on that wide-open horizon. That’s true of the venues he’s drawn to as well. Look for him at Denver’s Skylark Lounge or the White Horse in Austin, Texas. He’ll be onstage doing what he loves—telling stories, trading licks, and chasing that perfect line.