NEDERLAND — Music is a relatively new adventure in Emily Pennington’s life. For her, it’s also one of the most unexpected, something she’d tried but never considered pursuing.
“To be totally honest, I played guitar a tiny bit in college and got really down on myself because it’s really hard and it hurts your fingers,” recalls Pennington. “I kinda put the guitar down for 10 or 15 years and didn’t even think about it very much.”
Initially, she followed creative pursuits in Los Angeles as she worked to be a film producer. That pursuit slowly transitioned into work as a freelance outdoor journalist; Pennington has since been published in Outside Magazine, Backpacker Magazine, Lonely Planet, Business Insider, and even The New York Times and The Guardian.
She settled in L.A. for nearly 20 years, but in 2023, she realized she needed a change of scenery. She made her move to Boulder, and for the first time, her home base came with darker, colder, and snowier winters.
“I was a little bit nervous about having my first real winter,“ Pennington says. “I wanted to give myself a big creative project, and I decided to start learning guitar again.”
Pennington is still, and always will be, an adventurer at heart. The “Brazen Backpacker” wandered Sweden’s forests at the age of nine, trekked solo through the Himalayas, and recounted her journey across the United States in her book Feral: Losing Myself and Finding My Way in America’s National Parks.
Settling into Colorado and finding connections early on, particularly in the music scene, inspired her immensely. She especially felt encouraged to continue her musical avenues with the help of her partner, Oliver Franklin.
“I think I got to level up very quickly as a new guitar player because I had such a great inspiration in my home life,” she says. “I think we have a lot of the same musical influences and very similar musical tastes.”
Influenced by musicians from Lucinda Williams, John Prine, and Bob Dylan to Big Thief, Mitski, and The Decemberists, the two started performing together locally. They’ve ultimately built their duo act, Trouble’s Braids (named after a Tom Waits song), into a four-piece group that performs what they call “rowdy goth Americana.”
Especially through these performances, Pennington feels more connected to Boulder every day. That in-person connective spirit is still her primary motivator in the community.
“I think that songwriting is the ultimate antidote to the modern condition,” she says. “Music is a very communal experience. Music is very much meant to be shared. It’s also literally scientifically therapeutic. I think that both of those things are gonna become ever more critical as we continue to get even more deeply entrenched in online and social media spaces and digital worlds.”
Emily Pennington will be performing solo at Busey Brews, located at 70 E. First Street in Nederland, on Sunday, March 15 starting at 2 p.m.
