By Kyle Kirves

“Hotel room, I left a poem on the stationary,” Daniel Rodriguez sings on what is certainly a fan favorite track, “Colorado.”

“I’m packing my bags and my guitar to carry and I’m headed out the door. I’m headed home, Colorado. I’m headed home.”

And while I don’t know whether that statement is factual, I do know that it is an honest one – one that embodies Rodriguez’s ethos of commitment to and conviction about the stories that he tells in song, whether they come from his life or the landscape of the imagination.

“Nothing I write is entirely fictional,” Rodriguez says, “It is rooted in my experience even if I change some things up. It may be about me, but I’ll say in the context of the song that it’s ‘her.’” And, he adds with something of a verbal shrug, “sometimes you do have to have to forfeit some reality for a really good rhyme.”

Rodriguez relies, too, on the cadence of everyday conversation to inform his lyrics. “I listen to language and the use of it,” he says, suggesting that he often leans into certain turns of phrase that have a particular lilt or rhythm to them. “Anything that can evoke a goosebump reaction,” he says, “then I know I’ve got something good. From there the imagination can take over – I can trance out and come up with something I’m inspired to share.”

“Nothing I write is entirely fictional. It is rooted in my experience even if I change some things up. It may be about me, but I’ll say in the context of the song that it’s ‘her.’”

Boulder-based and a longtime resident of Colorado, Rodriguez is very familiar to fans of Colorado music as both a formative player in Elephant Revival and now a highly regarded solo performer. In talking about the appeal of playing in Colorado, he cites the synthesis of environment, culture, venue and enthusiastic and energetic audiences – a symbiotic relationship of altitude and attitude.

“People are drawn outside in this state to observe things larger than themselves – the mountains, the skies. I mean, Red Rocks? Come on. Anybody who’s played Red Rocks knows there’s no place quite like it.”

It’s more than just the Most Hallowed of venues that Rodriguez enjoys playing. He cites the Fox in Boulder and Planet Bluegrass in Lyons as inspiring favorites among many others. “The music scene here, from the kind of fraternal support of the musicians themselves to the people that go to shows, it’s just great,” he says. “You can play almost anywhere after a while and sell out shows because people really come out for a good time with great music.”

When asked about how he got started, Rodriguez explains that, like many teenagers of his generation, he was really into Nirvana. “I asked for an electric guitar and an amp for my 13th birthday and I got it,” he says, smiling. “From there, I proceeded to torture my family playing loud, highly-distorted power chords from the basement.” Ten years later, Rodriguez turned pro and has been playing professionally ever since, though without relying so heavily on effects and instead his ear for melody and his knack for lyrical picture-painting.

“Musically, it’s pretty archaic,” he says of his more familiar work. “I lean on a lot of folk chords and constructions. It really is more about the vocal melodies and storytelling and letting the song kind of go where it wants. All of that is layered on familiar and sometimes old-fashioned chord structures.”

Not one to be pigeonholed, over the past several months Rodriguez has found satisfaction in stretching out musically into other genres and styles, where he sees more possibilities.

“I did a hip-hop record recently. I wrote the hooks and my collaborator wrote the rhymes,” he says. “And I’m working with John Forte from the Fugees on an upcoming collaboration that’s really exciting.”

Fans can look forward to a lot of new work coming in 2022 as Rodriguez works to finish a new album having just put the finishing touches on a new single. Plans are to release it in late summer or early fall.

In the meantime, tour dates will keep him busy. Playing live has renewed significance in the semi-post-pandemic days for both performers and audiences.

“Man, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to get out there and play,” he says. “It really is exhilarating.”

Rodriguez counts himself lucky to be on tour again, both solo and in support of other acts. “To do that in front of 20,000 people a night in support of the Lumineers, or Todd Snider who is an utterly amazing performer and songwriter, that’s special.” But, he points out, “it’s equally great to be out there, just me and my guitar playing in front of a bunch of people.”

So the road calls, and Daniel Rodriguez must go, but it’s nice to know that, as his lyrics suggest, he’ll always be coming home to Colorado.

Find Daniel Rodriguez’s music, tour dates, and social media connections here.

Kyle Kirves drinks beer, plays guitar, runs trails, and manages projects – all with varying degrees of success. While not a craftsman himself, he is quite content writing about the Colorado artisans who create such wonderful things and memorable experiences.