Meet Denver Cooper

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Denver Cooper. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Denver below.

Denver, so glad you were able to set aside some time for us today. We’ve always admired not just your journey and success, but also the seemingly high levels of self-discipline that you seem to have mastered and so maybe we can start by chatting about how you developed it or where it comes from?

This is a good question. I don’t really consider it discipline… for me playing music in any form was just my idea of a good time! Sure most people don’t sit 8 hours a day and play instruments for 20 years straight but, that’s how I was able to escape and feel important and powerful. Before I knew it I was doing shows and tours and recording and many other things. So my discipline comes 100 percent from a true love for the craft.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Well, I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Even before I could even speak yet, certain songs would just rattle me a certain way so my mom tells me haha. At the age of 3 I got a tiny little acoustic guitar that my dad could play a one string melody on and he would do that every night before bed. It’s one of my first real memories actually and I remember watching and listening to that one string in aw. A few months later I obviously had to try it and I studied his fingers for so many nights I could play it! Anyways, I got my first real electric guitar for my 5th birthday and I never put it down. By 10 I was playing gigs already (and in bars) haha. How cool is it when your dad sings in bar bands and can sneak you in at 10 years old! From there my life was set.. 10 years after that I was touring Europe and recording and had been a part of so many bands tours and recordings. I just couldn’t stop and still can’t. I am privileged and honored to have met, played with or worked with so many wonderful talents such as NZM with the guys from Yngwie Malmsteen, my own solo stuff of course, Lizzy Borden, Vicious Rumors and many original bands I’ve been in and or featured on, studio session work for so many and of course my latest thing called Carpe Noctem with the multi award winning powerhouse of a classical pianist Marta Brankovich whom I believe also was a part of this same magazine in the past! With her we’ve won many awards together, traveled all over and even were featured four times on the big screens in Times Square. Next year I am hitting the road again for some MAJOR festival touring with the Vicious Rumors guys!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

As far as skills and knowledge I may be the wrong person to ask! Haha. Well being born in raised in Detroit I did play ice hockey for around 9 years which was the thing to do and I absolutely loved it! But my dreams and mind were made up at such a young age I really just focused on becoming a musician. I didn’t do poorly in school. I had a variety of grades. English, science, history and of course music were classes I was really interested in. I may not have gotten the BEST grades but I learned and was interested in these subjects and still am. I was already playing so many shows a week in my high school days that it made school nearly impossible. With no regret but definitely no recommendation I dropped out at 17 and left to go persue my dreams in music. Never looked back and to be honest it was always really good to me. It was actually suggested by the school that I do anyways hahaha!

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

For me going all in was how I was raised… “don’t half ass anything” and that’s exactly what I did from the moment I started. I was in love for life. However in that mind set I became well rounded because, it leads you down paths you never would have found and THAT Interested me every time. So I say pursue your interests and just enjoy the ride you never know what it can become or where it will take you.

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