Atlanta roots · Denver heartbeat

Our story

Built on shared instruments, cold sidewalks, and the belief that a horn line can turn strangers into a community.

An interactive history

The Second Line:
From the Streets to the Stage.

01Atlanta · The beginning

One horn. No money. Big dreams.

Brothers of Brass traces its roots to Atlanta, Georgia, where bandleader Khalil Simon and close friends David and Eryk started as broke, hungry musicians with more ambition than gear. Some nights Khalil and David literally shared one trumpet, taking turns because they could not afford another horn.

They huddled against brick walls, borrowing Wi-Fi from nearby businesses to pull up sheet music and expand their repertoire. At first, the grind brought in less than $20 a day apiece. Then Dragon Con put Eryk “EJ” on the same corner. Instead of competing, they joined forces and learned to catch the rush of fans leaving Braves games at Turner Field.

Police pressure, busking restrictions, racial profiling, and street-music turf wars were part of the education. So was Southern marching-band discipline—especially Khalil’s HBCU training. They already knew how to project, move a crowd, and hold a line. Music was not just income. It was identity and survival.

02Denver · A new home

They followed the sound west.

When baseball season ended and Atlanta turned cold, the band chased opportunity through other cities. Some runs flopped. Denver clicked. Outside Coors Field, they found a city where the sound—and the story behind it—felt at home.

Khalil and David moved permanently on December 6, 2014. A late-night search for indoor crowds led them to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, where they played bundled up outside holiday shows like The Grinch. Those cold nights planted the seeds of one of Denver’s most recognizable sounds.

In 2015, Khalil’s sousaphone thundered down the 16th Street Mall and drew saxophonist Armando Lopez toward it. Drummer Jake Herman joined the orbit. When David left for the U.S. Marines in 2016, Khalil folded Armando and Jake into Brothers of Brass—preserving its name and giving it a Denver heartbeat.

03Memory · The heartbeat

The architect of feel.

Krishnaswami Ramachandran Azad moved from Kansas specifically to join Brothers of Brass. He brought groove, belief, brains, and an extra dimension of nerddom and joy. Offstage he was a Super Smash Bros legend, a comedian, and family. Onstage he was the calm in the storm.

With a degree in music composition, Azad heard complex time signatures like basic arithmetic. He could break down odd meters in seconds, then give the band a roadmap through grooves most people would fear. He bent hip-hop, second line, funk, and psychedelic jam energy around the pocket without ever losing it.

Azad helped turn a raw street act into an ensemble ready for clubs, tours, festivals, and protest marches. His unexpected passing in May 2021 tore through the Denver music community. His rhythm still rides in every second-line groove, his mind echoes in the horn lines, and his spirit is woven into the band’s DNA. We will never forget Azad.

04The street · Music with purpose

Party starters. Protest soundtrack.

On most days in Denver, you do not need a ticket to hear Brothers of Brass. For nearly a decade, they have been part of the city’s living soundtrack—tearing up the 16th Street Mall, DCPA let-outs, Rockies and Broncos games, and Phish lots at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

During the George Floyd protests in 2020, the band became part of the movement’s emotional core. They led marches, amplified chants, and turned rage and grief into something organized and powerful—megaphones beside sousaphones, voices inside horn lines.

That dual identity remains essential: party starters and a pressure valve for the community; celebration and resistance; Black joy and collective memory. A festival field or a city block—the band plays every space like it is the most important stage in town.

05Everywhere · Still moving

Sidewalks became main stages.

A cross-country busking run in 2019 carried the band through city corners and stadium lots before ending at Forecastle, performing with Moon Taxi in front of tens of thousands. Since then they have shared bills or collaborated with Murs, Leftover Salmon, Lettuce, Rebirth Brass Band, The String Cheese Incident, The Motet, and more.

Outside Days placed the once-busking band among national headliners in 2024, 2025, and again in 2026. Yet the scale never changed the engine: the same street-born intensity, the same instinct to meet a crowd where it is and move it somewhere new.

On record, Brothers of Brass brings New Orleans brass tradition into funk, hip-hop, R&B, and psychedelic jam textures. HBCU precision still locks the hits together. The horns still move as one organism. The story keeps expanding—but the line never forgets where it began.

This is music with memory.
This is sound with soul.

The story is still being written.

See us live Book the band