Michael Marcagi | Fox Theatre | Summer Guide, Alternative, Singer-Songwriter | Denver Westword

The rise of Cincinnati singer-songwriter Michael Marcagi is a homegrown success story. With a career built largely through the support of grassroots social media groups, the folk-rock singer has proven that listeners are hungry for earnest storytelling rooted in age-old American musical traditions. Marcagi gained attention with “The Other Side,” a depiction of the claustrophobia of small-town life, but it was his cinematic homage to the leap of faith — “Scared to Start” — that drove his TikTok views into the millions. In just a few weeks, he had amassed a legion of adoring fans and secured a record deal with just two songs to his credit. His debut EP on Warner Records, American Romance, expands on that promise, highlighting the timeless sound and engaging sense of emotional truth that make Marcagi’s music so immediately compelling.

Despite playing and singing in rock bands throughout his childhood, Marcagi always struggled to imagine himself as a solo artist. However, his persistent desire to record some of his sparser acoustic songs—ones he rarely dared to play in public—eventually inspired him to try his luck. He dipped into his savings, moved to upstate New York, and settled into a studio outside Woodstock to work with producer David Baron (Lana Del Rey, The Lumineers, Shania Twain). The two assembled a team of top-notch musicians to back Marcagi’s intimate and raw guitar and vocal performances, which utilized folk and bluegrass instrumentation, deep rock drums, and lush vocal harmonies.

All of the songs Marcagi has recorded – including the five on American Romance – mix authentic storytelling with sadness, frustration and boredom. Avoiding getting lost in confessions, he turns his experiences growing up in the Midwest into vignettes that examine the cracks in human relationships. By his own account, he was instilled with a rigidly prescribed set of family values ​​due to his origins in a predominantly conservative and religious town. The EP’s title track examines this directly, outlining scenes from an archetypal failed marriage of teenage lovers.

“There are all these family norms that you have to conform to,” Marcagi explains. “I’ve just seen so many of my friends fall into the trap of getting married very young and then watching the marriage fall apart before they’re even thirty.”

Even at his most blunt, Marcagi is careful not to judge the choices made by the characters in his songs. If the songs on American Romance convey a message, it’s that there’s no “right way” to get through life, and that we learn something from every relationship that can benefit us. That message comes through clearly on “In the Light,” which Marcagi claims he feels more connected to than any other song he’s written. The defiant, stomping anthem is carried by an infectious mandolin and piano motif and disarmingly direct lyrics: “So screw everything you bought, it’s not what you got/And be who you need and not what you’re taught/You know you can’t hide from all this pain/And stand there in the light.”

Marcagi never undermines his listeners’ opinions, nor does he take them for granted. “The audience is usually smarter than the musicians they’re listening to,” he says. For him, there’s plenty of evidence that modern listeners of all generations understand and can relate to the specificity and sophistication of songwriting. It’s one reason he strives to remain as open and accessible as possible – both in his music and in his public persona. If what’s happened in his career over the last year is any indication, he might be on to something.

“I want people to feel like they know me,” Marcagi says. “I’ve never been able to relate to the mysterious rock band thing – four blurry faces in a field where you don’t know who the guys are. I don’t want to hide.”