This Denver Artist Is Prepared for the Apocalypse

“The world is always ending for someone.”

The words open over a black background, before grainy black-and-white footage shows a man falling through the air. The scene marks the beginning of the new visual album from Denver artist ego n friends, or ego for short, and it’s his favorite project so far.

If It Never Ends is already available to stream, but the visual album will drop with a viewing party at the Department of Creative Pursuits on December 5. And before that, ego will be performing at the Bluebird Theater on Saturday, November 29, opening for Keenan TreVon alongside E.M.E. and AC Yung.

With such widespread accessibility to global issues — whether it’s videos of bombings or influencers becoming quasi-politicos — it’s easy to succumb to the throes of existentialism. But If It Never Ends provides a different position; the name itself implies a question: Would you be doing anything differently, whether the world were ending or not?

Ego has observed that life is rife with paradox, and that’s a theme he has pursued in his music. His last release was named are u alone?, yet it was filled with collaborations with other local artists. His albums’ titles pose a prompt, and his music provides the answer — sometimes an unexpected one.

“This album is called If It Never Ends, and it’s about the world ending, or more so about the feelings that come with the feeling that the world is ending,” ego says. “So the paradox is, people are going to come with this feeling that it’s apocalyptic, but the album itself is meant to uplift you from that, to feel confident in your path amidst this seemingly crumbling world.”

He had recorded a song for the album back in January, before going to visit family in India, where he recorded the bones for two more tracks. “Making music in India made me think about reality differently because of what I was experiencing,” he says. “As immigrants, we feel detached from our cultures a lot of the time, because I’m not necessarily seen as an ‘American’ [here], but my cousins see me as way more American than Indian. So there’s always this back and forth, and then there’s this…pride that comes from being an immigrant and being proud of your culture.”

However, he adds, “I don’t think I ever thought about generational trauma until I got there for the first time as a full adult. … It just kind of shocked me, because my parents just gave me ‘good’ India; they’re not going to talk about the trauma. So that whole trip was a mind-expanding experience.”

Ego pursued the ensuing emotions with creativity, as he also digested international policies that were making daily headlines. And while the album serves as a reminder that your own choices and actions could make the world less bleak, ego doesn’t use the songs as a salvo against specific injustices or absurdities plaguing the country (though there would be many to choose from). That choice has made the tunes more timeless, with enough shelf life to take people through disasters decades to come.

“A lot of music is very specific right now, which is kind of tiring me out because it takes away from the poetry in a lot of ways,” ego says. “Rather than just giving an idea away, it’s painting a picture and a feeling.”

The visual album helps illustrate the tracks, too. Each of the videos is shot in one take, showing ego roaming around different locations in a Utah desert. At one moment, he’s seemingly being chased through an abandoned trailer park; the next, he’s tied to a chair in front of a dusty-red mountain range, before we find him inside a graffiti-filled, decrepit building, trying to free his bound wrists.

“There were so many crazy, weird spiritual things that kind of aligned with this whole thing,” ego says.

He enlisted his team, which included Christian Hundley (director), Andrew Hanson (photography director), Dan Stubbs (colorist) and Jackson Lowry (assistant director). When he told a friend he was planning to head to a desert with the crew to shoot, the friend recommended a particular spot in Moab. At that point, ego wasn’t sure they would be traveling out of state; by the time the team decided on Moab, ego had forgotten the specific place his friend had suggested.

“And then we went to that exact same patch of fucking land,” ego says. “I love shit like that, because it feels like it’s the universe affirming that you’re doing the right thing. Everything just ties together in this beautiful way.”

Once at the site, “We shot really cool one-shot videos, two of them, and then we had two more to shoot that weekend, and then we had two more to shoot another weekend,” he says. “But halfway through that four-shot weekend, we realized, ‘Oh, my god, we should be making this a narrative album.'”

Throughout the series, the desolate landscape and ego as its only occupant add weight to the album’s overall message of singular creativity. For ego, If It Never Ends wasn’t about making another hit; he’s had his share already — his 2022 song “Lose All Control” currently has more than 200K streams on Spotify alone.

“With this project, it was definitely super internal from the jump and felt like it just channeled out of me,” ego says. “And with that comes not doing crazy-lyric, super-hot-take TikTok clips…I’m over all that. If you look at the world, why would you do that? Why would you not make genuine art right now? Why would I still try to blow up?”

Ego is a somewhat ironic moniker for such a collaborative musician; he explains that the name originated from when he was severely ill with an autoimmune disease. “Music was the only place where I could actually put in a confident version of my personality,” he says. “Music was the only space where I could have any semblance of an ego. Now, as my career has grown, it’s more a reminder to just not be soaked into my ego. … It’s forced me to kind of be more of a humble person.”

Since he moved to Denver from the Bay Area five years ago, he’s put his all into his music as well as Friendly Collective, his recording studio and brand that uplifts local acts. “Friendly Collective is creating this cool foundational net for good art,” he says. “It’s really been taking off. I’m pouring my financial mind into that and letting my art not have to be dictated at all by finances as much as I can. This is something that I can put my efforts into and see not necessarily a quick return of investment, but a clear return of investment. … That was kind of a revelation I had this year that allowed me to make music for me, not for numbers or streaming or anything like that. Those numbers are just icing on the cake.”

The collective acquired a new space this past summer, and has been offering it up for recording residencies and Q&A sessions that it publishes on social media. The studio stands out from others with its earthy tones and moss wall art, while another bright room hosts a gallery with local art, a lounge area and a photoshoot space.

Before he came to Denver, ego had been making music for about five years, but it was here that he felt his career begin to take off. “I’ve had many ups and downs in my music career,” he says. “This is the first time where I actually have motion. … It’s the right amount of artistic vibe out here while still being livable and being able to have balance in your life. That’s the overall thing: I came here for more balance.”

As he returns to his indie roots on If It Never Ends, ego is also examining how to weave his present and future. Lately, he’s been reading a book on metaphysics titled Reality Transurfing by Vadim Zeland, and while he calls it “very woo-woo,” he’s locked into what Zeland calls the “pendulum effect.”

“There’s this effect that happens when you create more negativity in your life, where you act on more negative feelings, even if you’re doing good things,” he explains. “Essentially, positivity doesn’t happen like a pendulum; it happens in waves — so it will subside, and then another one will come, and the goal is to be able to ride it. Like, I’ve been through different points of my life where things get bad, and then as soon as I kind of piece together a solution here, something else will go bad there, and [the cycle] starts again. So the goal for me in those moments is to recenter and tell myself, ‘This is just a part of my path. This is what’s supposed to happen.'”

Confronting life’s trials only makes the good parts shine brighter. “It does flip negativity,” he explains, “because at its core, there’s nothing negative without positive.”

And with that acceptance comes a whole new vista of opportunities. The visual album ends with a reminder: “With every end of the world, there is a new world that follows.”

If It Never Ends: The Visual Album Premiere, 7 p.m. Friday, December 5, Department of Creative Pursuits, 2150 Market Street; tickets are available on Eventbrite. Ego n friends plays Bluebird Theater, 3317 East Colfax Avenue, with Keenan TreVon, E.Me. and AC Yung, 8 p.m. Saturday, November 29; tickets are available at bluebirdtheater.net.