19 NOVEMBER 2-8, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC Let’s Boogie MARK HENRICHS OF BOOGIE LIGHTS IS BRINGING BACK DISCO. BY EMILY FERGUSON Exactly one year ago, Mark Henrichs decided to dedicate himself full-time to Boogie Lights, his music project — and it paid off big time. “It’s been great!” the bubbly performer says. Henrichs always gives his music his full effort, whether he’s deejaying weddings or corporate gigs or headlining the Bluebird. Known for his gregarious stage presence, he’ll bounce from his raised electric drum set to the decks, spinning absolutely addictive soul-infused nu-disco beats. He gets so into it, in fact, that he tore his labrum in both shoulders this year. “I ended up going a little bit too hard last year in the drumming department and carrying all the equipment and just trusting my body,” he says. “I ended up messing up my shoulders at a couple of gigs in February, just drumming my heart out.” The injury didn’t require surgery — just a lot of physical therapy — and Henrichs is thankful that he’s still able to drum. “Just not as ferocious,” he chuckles. But the Boogie Bunch — the group of rotating musicians who join him on stage — has his back. When we spoke with Henrichs in January, he had a few go-to musicians to supplement his live shows with saxophone, vocals, guitar, etc. But his crew of collabora- tors grew rapidly after that, and the Boogie Bunch formed with Ricky Feria (aka Rix) on guitar, Dan Chando on keys, Ty Martinez on sax, Kylee Lund on trumpet, Melissa Joy on violin, vocalists Abi Clark, Mandy Haupt and Andrew Leerson (aka Deezy Le Phunk), a rapper and singer. “We debuted the full Boogie Lights and the Boogie Bunch with that whole live band at a Globe Hall show on March 31. And some- how we sold it out two weeks before and had this awesome headlining show,” Henrichs recalls. “It pretty much came to fruition, my vision of having all the instruments on stage. We ended up having saxophone, trumpet, keyboards, guitar, a couple of singers, and me on drums and deejaying.” Back when Henrichs started Boogie Lights, in 2017, he was trying to play as many instruments as he could, trading off between drums, bass, keys and the decks. He quickly realized that was too much, and also knew he wouldn’t have much trouble fi nding like-minded collaborators. After all, he moved to Denver from Rochester, New York, after playing Quixote’s True Blue (now the Black Box) with his former funk-rock band, Soul Junction, and being impressed by the lo- cal music scene. “It’s such a tight-knit community, but also, it’s such a transplant city, so it’s very welcoming for new musicians and really supportive for different acts,” he told us in Janu- ary. “Especially when I fi rst started Boogie Lights. I love jamming with peo- ple, and that’s kind of al- ways what Boogie Lights has also included.” And now he’s made it official with the Boogie Bunch. Several of the act’s members appear on Hen- richs’s new EP, aptly titled The Boogie Bunch, which released on all streaming platforms on October 27. The four phenomenal tracks are yet an- other indicator that Henrichs isn’t just an incredible showman, but also has top-tier compositional skills, blending funk, soul, nu-disco, hip-hop and EDM into a cohesive, intoxicating sound all his own...pure Boogie Lights. With help from the Bunch, of course. Henrichs met most of the crew through the local music scene, but his friendship with Abi Clark goes back to when they were both in Soul Junction. “We always had an amaz- ing way of writing songs together, and she just has an incredible voice,” Henrichs says. “She and her boyfriend, now fi ancé, moved out here three years ago. I just really wanted to work with her, because she actually sang on the very fi rst Boogie Lights song, ‘The Feeling,’ which came out in 2017.” Clark shares her soulful vocals again on The Boogie Bunch’s “Peak Disco,” an earworm that includes Henrichs singing over a frenzy of disco that maintains a re- lentless chokehold on listeners throughout, transporting them into a pulsating club of glitter, confetti and dance. “I actually wrote it for Abi the week of the Globe Hall show,” Henrichs says. “I had this idea and...I just wrote this entire disco track. We kind of started it a little bit together. But then I completely wrote the whole song, and then we realized that we didn’t have enough time for her to fully learn it.” Clark had a lot of work on her plate already: She co-hosts The Morning Set on KUVO radio, as well as the station’s mid- night Monday show, Infl uenced. So Hen- richs decided to sing the main parts of the song. “That was my fi rst time fully singing on a song,” he notes. “So I was just like, let’s send it! I knew I’m not the greatest singer, but it can work for what it is!” In the end, Clark was able to lend some powerful vocals; the balance between their parts really makes “Peak Disco” pack a punch. “That was perfect for her to be that back-and-forth,” Henrichs says. “It was re- ally cool to collab on that.” Another highlight is the collab with Deezy Le Phunk, who lends his bars to “We Want Le Phunk,” yet another banger. “Way You Move” is a Henrichs solo track, using samples from a rare CD called “Funky Dick,” which he bought from a San Francisco record store that sells rare 45 rpm records and mix CDs. “It’s like 24 tracks, and every single song is just amazing,” he gushes. “It’s just this classic kind of swamp-funk style, with amazing female vocalists pretty much the entire time. And this one song, I always loved — and I fi nally, fi nally visited it and chopped it up and made a song.” The intro track, “Funk Decision” — with Rix, a guitarist Henrichs met at Your Mom’s House — is perhaps the best part of The Boogie Bunch, but with each track a standout, the EP leaves listeners begging for more. Fortunately, Henrichs has a full-length in the works, which he estimates will be out in February. But that’s not all. He’s also working on a new project with Rix, called Rix & Boogie. “We worked on that fi rst song, ‘Funk Decision,’ and then soon after that worked on a second one,” Henrichs recalls. “We realized we had a re- ally good connection, and honestly, we just have a perfect kind of yin-yang.” The duo will make its debut with a free, boiler room-style set on Friday, November 3, at Your Mom’s House. That’s the venue where Henrichs fi rst started to make his mark on Denver as Boogie Lights, so he’s rev- eling in the full-circle moment. The rigorous, dance-heavy show will be fi lmed on GoPros set up throughout the venue, with Rix & Boogie performing on a stage in the center. “Energy to 100 percent and a lot of happi- ness,” Henrichs promises. “A lot of smiles!” Rix & Boogie is also working on an EP, which the pair will tease with the November 24 release of “Sunshine Feel” via Kokolores Records. “It’s about feeling in the sunshine, when you’re outside in a park, driving with the windows down and then just feeling yourself,” Henrichs says of the single. Since the act combines Boogie Lights with a guitarist who “loves music theory,” the overall sound is “hard to describe,” he admits. “It’s a little classic disco-house — almost kind of closer to Purple Disco Machine — and a lot of percussion elements and just some really good melodies with bass lines and guitar. And then utilizing a lot of the classic disco, nice string samples.” As he looks back over a year of whirlwind growth, Henrichs is brimming with grati- tude. His positive attitude has taken him far, and he fi nds inspiration everywhere. Most of all, he looks to “the beauty in the world. And on the days that aren’t perfect, the days that maybe I’m not exactly that amazing positive or my shoulders are hurting, I know that there will be something around the corner that will make me smile and kind of bring that life back,” he says. “I’ve always connected to nature, and that always really grounds me. Especially these paths of creativity really just fl owed from realizing how beautiful nature is. ... On my album, I had this idea for a universal language — about how when you give love to the world, the world is gonna give it back. And that idea? That feeling is so strong when you fully believe it.” Rix & Boogie, Friday, November 3, Your Mom’s House, 608 East 13th Avenue, free. MUSIC Mark Henrichs’s latest project, Boogie & Rix, debuts with a boiler room set at Your Mom’s House. JESSICA SMITH
