15 NOVEMBER 28-DECEMBER 4, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | FIND MORE MUSIC COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/MUSIC Heavy Fruit INDEPENDENT LABEL BRAEBURN RECORDS RETURNS AFTER DECADES ON MUTE. BY JUSTIN CRIADO As an audiobook narrator, Derik Hendrickson spends most of his weekdays alone, holed up in his home studio recording page after page of instructional material for a slew of upcoming nonfi ction releases that make up his queue. It can be exhausting, the 49-year-old says, but it’s steady work. Plus, he’s always learning something new, whether it’s about crystal healing for novices or how to stockpile wealth through property investments. Hendrickson isn’t too picky when it comes to the topic, and at this point, he’s loaned his voice to nearly 200 titles that are currently available on Audible. This adds up to a lot of talking to yourself, he says. “I can’t imagine how many people around the world are falling asleep to my voice,” Hendrickson quips, “but it’s kind of fun.” It helps to have a sense of humor. But to stay fresh — and sane — between chapters, Hendrickson regularly takes breaks. Music, his lifelong passion, always breaks up the monotony: He can listen to someone else’s voice for a change and discover new bands at the same time. Before Hendrickson found a home in Fort Collins and got into the audiobook game, he ran an indie emo label in Salt Lake City called Braeburn Records. It initially served as a way to release material for his friends’ group, Pictures Can Tell, but Hendrickson continued to dabble in other projects that sparked his interest. “I released about eight records in late ’99 and the early 2000s, then moved on with life and got lost chasing whatever it was I needed to do at that time for the world, as it were,” he says. “I had a couple kids and did all that stuff that life entails.” While the endeavor naturally fizzled by 2003, if you happened to look up those early Pictures Can Tell records on Discogs recently, you’d see Hendrickson’s unoffi cial pseudonym, “Derek Braeburn,” under the label contact information, complete with his previous Utah address. “I think I kind of became known that way, like Johnny Rotten or something. I don’t think I have that much notoriety, but it’s what people assume,” Hendrickson says. “I love that, because it’s a group-source thing; people put in their two cents as they go. I let that be, but I need to go back and update that.” Especially since Braeburn Records is offi - cially back. Hendrickson decided to “breathe new life into it,” as he likes to say, earlier this year, mainly thanks to his 21-year-old son, Maxwell, who drums in the local act Mood Swing Misery. The FoCo post-hardcore trio planned to put out a record, and father and son looked at sev- eral options in the area, including the legend- ary Blasting Room, right in their own backyard. Then the senior Hen- drickson had an idea. “We talked about him getting into the stu- dio and recording his re- cord. We were having a conversation, and I said, ‘You know, how about I release your record?’” he recalls, adding that his work-from-home schedule, which in- cludes freelance marketing gigs, means that he has time to put toward such efforts. One thought was to start a brand-new label together, but Maxwell pushed his dad to resurrect Braeburn, which he’d considered doing several times before. And that nudge was all Hendrickson needed. “He looked at me and said, ‘I want to be on Braeburn, Dad.’ He’s to blame for me breathing new life into it, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do for many, many years,” he admits. “I’ve been watching him as a proud parent but missing out on part of the action, so I decided to dive back in. So with a two- decade delay, we have breathed new life into it in Fort Collins now that we’re over here.” Mood Swing Misery’s debut EP, Thoughts of Losing You, which was released in April, served as Braeburn’s “open for business” sign, and Hendrickson quickly took on more music work, given his connections within the scene and a little Salt Lake City serendipity. “Some old friends of mine in a band called Suicide Cages and I started hanging out a little bit more, and I went and saw them play a few more shows,” he explains. “I ran into them in Salt Lake in May. We started talking, and I surprised them when I told them I wanted to release their next record. They weren’t aware I was starting a label up, either.” Now the new Suicide Cages album is set to be complete by early 2025, Hendrickson shares. The plan is to offer it on vinyl, CD and 8-track (yes, those are still a thing). “I found a mom-and-pop shop somewhere in the Midwest that puts new tape into old 8-track cases,” he says. “I’m pretty excited to have a weird, novelty, limited-run 8-track.” Braeburn is aiming to re-release two Sui- cide Cages EPs — Mother of Thousands (2024) and All Things Ruined by Man (2022) — on one cassette soon, too. The label and band also teamed up with Colorado Springs com- pany Ritual Skateboards on a special-edition deck that was available for the Denver crew’s third-anniversary show at the Marquis The- ater earlier this month, during which Suicide Cages donated a portion of the door cut to the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition — a solid move in support of “those whose rights are in jeopardy” post-election, according to the band. Aside from Mood Swing Misery and Suicide Cages, Braeburn is also currently working with up-and-coming Colorado deathcore purveyors Irah Nox, Fort Collins emo trio Talking Point and NoCo hardcore group Wolfblitzer. As a one-man show at the moment, for Hendrickson it’s all about helping local musicians achieve their goals, no matter what that looks like. “It’s a lot of fun to discover new music. It’s a lot more fun to help the artist develop- ment of that music and maybe be another member of the team to help that band get to a further spot, whatever that is,” he says. “Give them a little extra momentum or a push of some sort. It’s something maybe you can’t do when you’re trying to be a businessman and a musician. In my mind, playing label was always a fun thing, and I wanted to see if I can do it a little better with a few more years of experience in life.” There are fi ve releases, including a reis- sue of both Pictures Can Tell albums, on the slate for next year already. That could change between now and then, but Hendrickson is pleasantly surprised with how much he has going on since bringing Braeburn back from the dead only seven months ago. “I’m kind of building things up pretty quickly for being silent for so long,” he says. “It’s fun to have some things going on.” Although he hasn’t really thought about the number of bands or a workload thresh- old he’d like to get to, Hendrickson’s motto right now is “The best apple of the bunch,” a reference to the label name and the artists he hopes to pick off the ripe tree of Colorado’s alternative music. “Before Honeycrisp was the apple of choice, Braeburn was my apple of choice,” he explains. “In my mind, Braeburn was the best apple of the bunch, so I decided to name my label after the best apple. Isn’t that weird?” The more you know. “I pick and choose according to what really catches me or what I can feel when I hear it. I’m always actively looking, but I like to be fairly picky, as well,” he continues. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I have too many. Luckily, I’m not at that stage yet. I’m still in the excited mode, where I want to make sure some of these bands are heard and give them all they can to promote what they’ve got and what they’re doing. It’s not an easy thing to make a record. It’s not an easy thing to be in a band. It’s not an easy thing to make this your passion — so it’s pretty exciting when people are supportive of it.” So keep an eye out for Braeburn Records and what’s next. And if nothing else, for Hendrick- son, it makes the reprieves from narrating the latest self-help book or whatnot a little more exciting. As he puts it, “This is the stuff I get to do on breaks in between chapters and books.” Email the author at [email protected]. MUSIC Mood Swing Misery is the reason Braeburn Records decided to get back into the game after twenty-plus years. GRAYSON REED
