Sugar Britches is a witty, catchy, sometimes savage, country band on the rise. Brian Johanson, the lead singer and guitarist, has been playing music for 20 years now. Johanson released his first album Don’t Make Her a Mix Tape Yet You Idiot in 2019 with Josh Long full of funny songs and a few more serious tracks that touch on heartbreak, addiction and loss.
Now, Johanson is working with Lance Ruby on electric guitar, Ansel Foxley on dobro and Ben O’Connor on upright base to bring you his latest album No One Cares That It’s Your Birthday, set to release next month. The band put out several sneak peeks including “Quinoa Cowboy,” “Walking Up Walls” and “Cryin’ in the Drive-Thru.” “‘Quinoa Cowboy’ was really fun to write,” says Johanson. “The song describes all the hippie cowboys of Colorado, but really, it’s a song about me. I eat pretty healthily, don’t drink and love to wear sandals to my outside concerts in the Summer.”
Hear Them Live
You can see Sugar Britches live on August 6 at Timnath Beerwerks in Timnath, August 12 at Buddies at City Star in Berthoud, August 19 at Backyard Tap in Loveland and August 20 at Number 38 in Denver.
You can also watch Sugar Britches’ music video, locally made and produced by Smallsongs, to get a sense of the singer and taste of the tunes. “I’ve worked with Smallsongs twice now and both times quickly produced great music videos with awesome sound quality and a down-to-earth vibe.”
Smallsongs
Smallsongs is a one-man music video crew authentically capturing local talent in Denver and beyond. “I’ve been lucky enough to do a couple of shoots with Sugar Britches,” says Cole Mitchek, Creator of Smallsongs. “They’re the nicest and funniest dudes. The most recent one was shot off Harmony Road on the outskirts of Fort Collins nearby an abandoned house.”
Mitchek, an Evergreen native, started Smallsongs in 2019 after earning his degree in filmmaking at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2013. He keeps all his videos consistent with a warm color grade, filming the video in one take, setting up outdoors with background activity and opening each video with a living portrait; “For a brief moment, the audience gets to look straight into the eyes of the musician before playing us a song.”
In addition to Sugar Britches, Smallsongs has also produced videos for Radical Face in Denver, Clem Snide in Boulder, Renée Reed in New Orleans, Julie Doiron in Berlin, Widowspeak in Brooklyn and many others. Mitchek has new videos coming out all the time so subscribe to the YouTube channel for updates.
