Katie Herzig Returns Home

One fateful day in Boulder back in January 2006, when word came down that Newcomers Home was breaking up, wild-eyed mourners wept openly in the streets. Folks wandered aimlessly along the Pearl Street Mall, rending their garments and clawing out their eyes. There was much gnashing of teeth, and the sky cracked open and bled forth a black and steaming rain, burning the pavement like acid, and...

Okay, so none of that happened. Still, it was a sad day for followers of the Boulder-based group. Notes posted on the band's website reflect how big of an impact Newcomers Home's gentle warmth had on its fans: "It is the type of music that I truly love, and have shared with others," reads one post. "I first saw you the very first day I moved to Colorado in August 2002 and have loved your music ever since," says another. And, posted a few weeks after the final show, "Katie, you are now my favorite singer. I am your biggest fan."

"We knew it would let down a lot of people when we announced it," says former Newcomers Home singer Katie Herzig, "because we really did have some devoted fans. But it was still crazy to read all the e-mails people sent, some saying they actually cried when they heard the news. It really felt like the end of an era for all of us, I think."

In retrospect, the Fort Collins native says that although the split seemed somewhat inevitable, when it finally came time to call it a day, she and her bandmates were a little stunned by their reactions. "We had been together eight years, and it was something I had always feared," Herzig says. "But once it was said out loud, that maybe it was time to end it, it was surprising how right it felt, almost a sense of relief. That it was time."

But from upheaval comes rebirth, and for Herzig a fresh start involved digging up her Colorado roots and heading somewhere new. Hot on the heels of the release of her second solo record, Weightless, Herzig packed up her car and lit out for Nashville. Luckily, she chose a town with plenty of like-minded individuals who were eager to welcome her into the fold.

"There's such a great community of musicians and artists here," she points out. "And you go out and see each other's shows and become friends really easily — it's really comfortable. And knowing so many artists, there's always someone you can ask to open a show for you, or someone who will ask you. It's just a really great community."

As if she didn't have enough on her plate already with moving, touring and everything else, last year Herzig was invited to join some friends who were taking a road trip down to New Orleans to help out with Katrina relief projects. Naturally — because that's the kind of gal she is — Herzig dropped everything and went along.

"We gutted houses for a week," she recalls. "Such a small amount of time considering they are still gutting houses down there. I went expecting to give, and I did, but you can't help but be on the receiving end when people are so friendly and grateful. A group of us spent a day gutting a man's house who said we did more in that day than he had done in almost a year. I think I got more out of it than I gave."

Meanwhile, back in Tennessee, a serendipitous encounter gave credence to the notion that the good you do comes back to you. A chance meeting with Joe King from the Fray led to her opening several shows for the newly-minted mega-stars, giving Herzig the chance to play before much larger audiences, including a date at City Lights Pavilion last summer.

"I met Joe in Nashville back when the Fray played the Cannery Ballroom," she recounts. "I happened to be playing right upstairs that same night at the Mercy Lounge. He'd heard my Weightless CD through Mat Kearney, then he realized I was from Newcomers Home from Colorado, and so we met up. It was quite an experience. They're really nice guys, and I think they've done a lot for Colorado musicians in general, just in terms of sort of putting the spotlight on Colorado, letting people around the country know that there are a lot of talented artists there."

Artists like Herzig. Weightless has won her praise not only from fellow musicians, but also from critics, her new friends in Nashville and Newcomers Home's fans. The record has Herzig's trademark sweetness and naked honesty, not to mention her ethereal yet insistent voice, which has inspired comparisons to Sarah McLachlan and Lisa Germano. There's a certain freedom to the album — a sense of weightlessness, if you will — that Herzig says is the result of locking herself away in her house and just playing.