There’s a certain irony in spending years telling other people’s stories, only for those stories to rewrite your own.
When Louis Fagelson moved to Denver, he planned to write about music, not perform it. For over a year, every Wednesday, he was at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom, covering the artists onstage and building unexpected relationships with the people who inspired him.
Those relationships would eventually lead to a night that put him on the other side of the microphone, so nervous he couldn’t even get it off the stand. A night that would change everything.
Since then, Louie Letdown has released original music, played a sold-out show at Lost Lake, co-headlined Cervantes with Mikey Thunder, and performed at Pretty Lights Yahn Dawn Festival in Buena Vista. Years of open mics and countless verses later, Louie is returning to Larimer Lounge on October 29, the venue where he played his first officially booked show, this time as the headliner.
Ahead of the show, Electric Hawk caught up with Louie to revisit his unconventional path from music journalist to rapper and DJ, the people who helped him along the way, and why this show is such a big milestone in his career.
Leading up to Larimer Lounge, released a new song this week with Homemade Spaceship.
Check out “Katamari”:
Reading Between the Lines with Louie Letdown
Kaylee Leitzel, Electric Hawk: Before you were performing, you were writing about music. How did you get into journalism, and how did that bring you into the Denver scene?
Louie Fagelson aka “Louie Letdown”: I started when I was in college. I took some journalism courses, and my journalism teacher, Glenny Brock, shout out to Glenny, knew I was into hip-hop. She introduced me to Edward Bowser, who runs a music blog in Birmingham called Soul and Stereo.
I sent Edward some writing samples that weren’t even related to music, and he was really encouraging. He gave me opportunities to cover new music and interview artists. I started writing for him during college, then graduated and decided to move to Denver to explore the scene out here.
Not long after moving, I ended up at a hibachi dinner that was somehow with a bunch of artists. I got there early, and this guy showed up wearing an Atlanta Braves hat. I’m from the Southeast, so naturally I started talking to him about Atlanta. After a bit, I realized I was talking to Daily Bread. I’d never really met artists I listened to in person before, so that was pretty wild for me.
I met more friends at that dinner and was later introduced to Tai Carpenter, the editor-in-chief of Compose Yourself Magazine, and Tai gave me the opportunity to start covering Research Wednesdays at Cervantes. For over a year, I went every Wednesday and wrote about the show. That’s how I met Mikey Thunder and Jordan Polovina. They were the resident hosts, and I always made a point to include their sets in my articles. We became friends, and I got a bunch of cool writing opportunities from those shows.
KL: You came to Denver wanting to cover shows and interview artists. Did you ever imagine you’d end up being the one onstage?
Louie: Definitely not. I always enjoyed writing music and had fun with it, but I’d never really put serious time or intention behind it. I did not expect to be an artist myself.
When Jordan told me he wanted to pull me up sometime, that was the first glimmer of hope. When Mikey actually hit me up to do a couple songs, I couldn’t believe it. That night changed my life. It was probably the biggest shift in priorities I’d ever had in such a short moment.
After that, I was like, “I want to take this seriously. I want to write original music and play shows.” I knew that meant a lot of open mics, performing for empty venues, and releasing music that nobody listens to. A lot of artists go through that in the beginning, but I was okay with it.
KL: You mentioned that first show at Cervantes changing your life, can you talk more about it?
Louie: I was at a birthday party for a mutual friend of Jordan’s and mine, and we were having a cypher just for fun. Somebody was playing beats, and we were all going around rapping. Jordan heard me and was like, “Hey man, I want to pull you up sometime on a Wednesday to perform at Cervantes.” I was so down, but I never really thought it would happen. Then Mikey texted me maybe a month later, on a Tuesday asking if I would want to come up and do a couple songs that next day. I freaked out and of course said yes.
I did a remix of “Always All Ways” by Pretty Lights and GRiZ’s “Feelin High.” I’d written raps to those songs a long time ago. They pulled me up around 8 p.m., and there was basically nobody at Cervantes yet except the staff. I was so nervous I couldn’t even get the microphone off the mic stand. I’d never performed onstage in front of people before. I had no idea what I was doing.
Later that night, GRiZ came and played an unannounced set. I got to meet him backstage, and I had to give myself a pep talk. I was like, “All right, Louie, hold it together. Just tell him you like his music and that you appreciate it, and get out of there. Don’t linger.”
I remember thinking that was the coolest night of my entire life and that I wanted to have more experiences like that. That’s when I started writing more music, releasing music, doing open mics, and trying to find show opportunities wherever I could.
KL: And years later, you and Mikey co-headlined Cervantes together. A bit of a full circle moment.
Louie: As full circle as it gets, or as the Pretty Lights community likes to say, “full swircle.”
Mikey has given so many artists their first opportunities in Denver. He’s helped make crucial connections for people like Marvel Years and Maddy O’Neal, and I’m pretty sure he gave GRiZ his first Denver show. He’s helped put on tons of artists.
I had a show at Lost Lake last year that sold out, and Greg Glassman from Cervantes reached out about doing a headliner on the Other Side. I told him I’d love to bring Mikey into this because he’s the one who got me my start. He’s always supported me. I look up to him a lot as an artist and a friend, and he deserves to play headliner shows. It was really cool to help facilitate that.
KL: Were there other people who helped you get comfortable performing when you were still finding your footing?
Louie: I have to shout out my homie Sarah Mount. She had a band called Sarah Mount and the Rushmores, and she’d invite me to come rap for a couple songs whenever they played shows. It was the dopest group of artists, just the nicest people ever. Getting that stage time was a really important part of my come-up.
Playing with a band is so different from playing with a DJ. Things can change in the moment, and you’re looking around, keeping your head on a swivel, getting cues from other artists onstage. It helped me a lot.
Sarah also had a residency at Dazzle, a jazz club in Denver. I honestly think performing for a seated audience at a jazz club while they’re eating dinner is even more intimidating than performing at Pretty Lights in Buena Vista. It’s completely silent. You’re maybe ten feet from the people in front. At Cervantes or a festival, if you mess up, there are a million other things going on. At Dazzle, you’re the only thing happening.
Sarah played on a lot of my earlier stuff, and she’s helped shape me as a person and an artist. The way she carries herself and works with people in the industry has been hugely influential.
Becoming a Letdown
KL: Going even further back, when did you first start writing lyrics? Has rap always been part of your life?
Louie: I’ve basically been writing since middle school. I had a music MySpace back then, which definitely was not a reflection of who I am.
I was listening to Lil Wayne and all those DatPiff-era mixtape rappers from the Southeast, where I grew up, and trying to emulate what I heard. But I didn’t have any of those experiences. I was in sixth grade writing about selling drugs. I was not selling drugs. My friends’ parents were calling my parents about how vulgar the music was, and my parents probably rightfully censored me.
I didn’t really start taking music seriously until college. My roommates were career musicians, and they encouraged me and helped me record my first couple songs. I never released them, but that’s when I started really using my writing for music.
KL: You’ve had a few names over the years. How did you land on Louie Letdown?
Louie: Pre-COVID, I was going by Louis XIV. It’s a much better name, one might argue.
When things started opening up again, I was playing a show at Your Mom’s House, and Spotify somehow put it on the page of a band from the 2000s that also went by Louis XIV. They had millions of streams. I’d never heard of them. I got an email from their manager with the subject line “Cease and Desist.” The gist was that they had the rights to the name, and I could either change it or fight an expensive legal battle that I’d lose. I knew I wasn’t going to win and wasn’t even going to try.
My roommate had been calling me Louie Let Down as a joke for a while, and I’d thought about using it for a DJ side project. When the cease-and-desist happened, I was like, “Well, nobody will ever steal the name Louie Letdown.”
Some of my lyrics are kind of self-deprecating, so it fits the style of music I make. In everyday life, I make fun of myself, and I don’t mind being the butt of the joke. It’s funny, it’s easy to remember, and it’s authentic to who I am. If I saw somebody called Louie Letdown on a festival lineup, I would wonder who that is. Hopefully somebody else has felt that way too.
KL: You’re a rapper, a DJ, and a producer. What feels like the core of the project to you?
Louie: I rap and DJ far more than I produce. I’ve produced a couple of my own songs. “Check This” came out in August 2025, and I produced that one myself, although my friend Homemade Spaceship mixed and mastered it. I also produced “PK Fire,” which is an older one.
I stream on Twitch twice a week, and those are DJ sets. But if you go to SoundCloud or Spotify, all my original music is hip-hop. All my originals are me rapping. That’s the core of the project.
DJing has opened me up to opportunities I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. It also means I can DJ for myself when I play live. If I’m going on tour or can’t find somebody to DJ for a rap set, I can just do it myself.
KL: You’ve talked about being nervous before big performances. How do you actually keep yourself steady once you’re onstage?
Louie: Two main things. The first is practice. You have to get your verses to the point where you’re on autopilot. You’re not thinking about what the next line is. You’re thinking about the crowd, making eye contact, and the performance itself.
Through many, many open mics, I learned I had to practice to the point where I wasn’t thinking about the lyrics at all. That meant a lot of time in front of the mirror at my house and a lot of time onstage.
The other big thing is being sober. I’m not saying I’m completely sober, but before I perform, I don’t drink, smoke weed, or do anything other than drink caffeine. It’s easy to think that you’re better after a few beers, but you’re not. Rapping is technical. There are a lot of words, and you have to get them out the right way at the right time. Being inebriated might feel like it helps your confidence, but it’s not going to help the performance.
I don’t use backing vocals for my verses, so there’s nothing to fall back on if I mess up. You just have to know those lyrics all the way through.
Back to Where It Started: Larimer Lounge
KL: Your first officially booked show was at Larimer Lounge, and now you’re headlining it. What are you planning for October 29?
Louie: I’m super excited. I love Larimer Lounge, and I really appreciate the opportunity. My first booked show was there, before I was even Louis XIV. I was just on the lineup under my own name. I wish I still had the poster..
For this show, I’m mostly doing a DJ set, but I’ll rap a couple of my originals too. It’s happening after Bass Bingo, which leans into dubstep and heavier bass music, so I want to ride off that energy a little bit. But my DJ sets are really eclectic. I play mid-tempo bass, house, garage, dubstep, trip-hop, electro-soul, rap, hip-hop, a bunch of genres. I want to keep it interesting and play music from my favorite artists and friends.
For this, I’m playing music I haven’t put into my sets before. I want it to feel very new.
KL: You also got to choose the lineup. How did Sweetboi, Pants, and DTNT come together for this night?
Louie: Sweetboi was my first choice. I discovered him at Badger Bass Camp in 2025, and then Mikey played one of his songs on a stream. After that, I did a deep dive into his catalog and haven’t stopped listening. He’s an everyday listen for me. His sound is like a meeting of the worlds of Pretty Lights, Tipper, and your favorite rapper. He’s somewhere in the middle of that triangle.
Then there’s my boy Pants, shout-out to Lance. I discovered him through his Twitch streams, and he fits the night perfectly. He’s a newer DJ, plays really cool hip-hop, mid-tempo and sound-design stuff, and just moved to Denver. I want to expose people to his sound. I think he’s got a lot of potential.
The opener is DTNT (‘Date Night’), my friend Nick, who goes by Cat Party, and his wife Olivia, who goes by Tina Bae. Together they’re DTNT. They play bassy, slutty house music, which is perfect for setting the vibe. They’re two of my best friends, and you can tell how much fun they have onstage together.
Stylistically, I think the whole night makes sense. It’s also a chance to play a show with people I love and artists whose music I’m a huge fan of. It’s the best of both worlds.
Showing Up for the Right Reasons
KL: You’ve gone from writing raps as a hobby to headlining Denver venues. What did the hustle look like, and what would you tell yourself at the beginning?
Louie: Just consistency. Just writing every day. I get off work, put on headphones, walk my dog, listen to instrumentals, and write raps in my notes. I’ve basically been doing that since 2018. I’m not saying I’ve never missed a day, but I do it consistently. Over time, you develop those skills.
Connections are important too. Music journalism helped me get my footing for those first shows and collaborations. My advice to up-and-coming artists, especially in Denver, is to go to your friends’ shows. Buy tickets from your friends. Show up and support them because it’s a community. You never know who you’ll meet.
There have been plenty of nights I didn’t really want to go, but I’d already bought a ticket and made a commitment, so I went. Sometimes I met someone who unlocked an opportunity down the line. Showing up matters.
Outside of that, comparison is the thief of joy. You’re always going to see somebody get a show you feel you deserve, and you’re going to get opportunities somebody else thinks they deserve. If you give all your energy to who deserves what, you lose sight of what it’s about, which is creating art.
Focus on writing music you resonate with and love. Everything else, the shows, the labels, the collaborations, those opportunities will come with time.
KL: You once described yourself as people’s “least favorite nerdy rapper.” Is that just a joke, or do you really feel that way?
Louie: It started as a joke. I was just thinking about what could be a clever sentence in my bio. But I do try really hard not to let any of this go to my head.
Headlining Larimer Lounge or Cervantes is something I never would’ve dreamed of in 2018. I’m not trying to take away from that, but there’s still so much room to grow. Even if I were headlining stadiums, I think it’d be important to stay grounded and remember why I’m doing it.
I enjoy creating music and sharing art. I also think artists have a responsibility, to some degree, to use their platform to speak on issues. Hip-hop came out of counterculture and taking a stand on social issues. I want there to be substance in my music, not just braggadocious stuff. I want to talk about real issues in the world.
KL: Does putting those beliefs into your lyrics ever bring criticism?
Louie: People have been pretty supportive. Denver is pretty inclusive, and a lot of people here align with my stances. I’ve played shows in other areas where people might not agree as much, but nobody has ever heckled me about it.
Hopefully someday I’ll be big enough for that to happen. I think it would mean I’m reaching people outside my bubble.
I’ve had negativity on the internet, but I don’t really pay attention to people who are just hating to hate. Fans will say to keep politics out of music, but music is political. Especially hip-hop. The earliest hip-hop artists took stands and made politically driven music. That’s an important part of it.
KL: If somebody is hearing Louie Letdown for the first time, what’s the song or verse you would point them toward?
Louie: Maybe the second verse of “Check This.” “Channels” as well, though that one’s kind of old now. I’d say the second verse of “Check This” is a pretty good representation of modern Louie Letdown, both production-wise and lyrically.
KL: So what’s next? Is there any major take away you want people to get from this?
Louie: I’ve got a song called “Katamari” coming October 21, produced by Homemade Spaceship. It’s the first song from an EP called Homemade Letdown. All three songs on the EP were produced by him.
Also, go listen to new Louie Letdown, and if you’re in Denver, buy tickets to Larimer. It’s going to be super fun.
Outside the music stuff, be a good person. Have a stance on something, and research your stances. It’s easy to read a headline or hear a friend say something and just accept it as how the world works. Do your own research, form your own opinions, and have empathy for other humans. There’s a lot of messed-up stuff happening all over the world, and I think the least we can do is be aware.
Do the research, and vote. Please vote.
See Louie Letdown live at Larimer Lounge
Thursday, October 29, 2026 | Doors 7 p.m. | Show 8 p.m. | Sweetboi, Pants + DTNT
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