On Friday, Austin band Duncan Fellows released their new EP Eyelids Shut via Warner Brothers’ new distribution platform Level. The five-piece also announced a Fall co-headline tour with Sun Seeker. The music of Duncan Fellows explores multiple vibes, feelings, tempos, and perspective, often in the same song. With the new EP Eyelids Shut, Duncan Fellows explores that dynamic balance while concurrently toeing a similar line in their own lives. The band, who were recently spotlighted as an NPR Slingshot Artists To Watch have released two EPs, 2013’s Twelve Months Older and 2015’s Marrow. The band’s debut full-length Both Sides of the Ceiling dropped in 2017 and put the band on the map. Their single “Fresh Squeezed” has racked up over a million Spotify streams and the entire album was championed by local radio.
Named for the address of a ramshackle house inhabited by several of the bandmates in their formative years, they’ve now—with everyone firmly in their mid-20’s—traded a life of piling into various bedrooms for piling into a tour van, creating a mobile Duncan Lane of sorts by staying true to that era’s sensibilities of shared adventure. Fronted by Colin Harman (vocals/guitar) and Cullen Trevino (guitar/vocals), the lineup is rounded out by Jack Malonis (keyboards/backup vocals/guitar), Tim Hagen (drums), and David Stimson (bass), with musical input coming from all corners. Audiences fell in love with the Fellows’ passionate approach and charismatic energy, flocking to see them onstage in action with acts like Houndmouth, Middle Kids, The Drums, Whitney, and Wilderado , as well as at slots playing festivals like Austin City Limits and SXSW . But while the band embrace their reputation as a fun-loving band of buddies making feel-good indie jams, they also acknowledge that this perception only represents one side of their coin. “We tend towards the deeper stuff you have to chew on longer,” Harman says. “Our tendency is to sing about the more difficult things we encounter in life, and as we’ve gotten older we’ve experienced heavy things that have added more serious layers to what we do. But at the same time our most popular song is largely about waking up and making breakfast. We definitely talk about straddling that line.”
