Anthony Ruptak

Making music for the apocalypse.

Anthony Ruptak is a veteran of the Colorado music scene. A paramedic, songwriter and birdwatcher, Ruptak performs his original work with a focused mission: to interrogate the effects of the human condition and to soundtrack american suffering. Ruptak's sound ranges from vulnerable acoustic performances to powerful and maximalist multi-instrumental experiences likened to Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, and Death Cab for Cutie. Ruptak's new LP "Tourist" was released in late 2025 to much critical acclaim.

“Each verse feels earnest and lived-in, every breath a radiant and resounding reckoning.” - Mitch Mosk

— Atwood Magazine

“Ruptak’s songs are not dystopian; they respectfully soundtrack American suffering. He deserves a listen.”

— Americana UK (Album: Tourist)

“Uproarious and invigorating”

— Pop Matters

“If you can listen to “Phantasmagoria” and not want to buy the album immediately, or failing that, try to change the world, then perhaps music is not for you after all!” - The Big Takeover

— Dave Franklin

“Tourist captures the sound of an artist confronting a fractured world with both clarity and compassion. It’s a record written from the front lines of daily life — part personal excavation, part social mirror — and it feels both timely and timeless.”

— American Pancake

“He channels lived experience into visceral, soul-searching soundscapes.”

— Urban Life Wash Park

VINYL RELEASE: TOURIST

Something about being somewhere new. Somewhere, sometime, seeing and feeling and breathing in a new place. The intoxicating sensation of freedom and autonomy you get when you force yourself to step outside of your routines of your automated, manufactured life. It's standing at the ocean's edge, watching your feet get swallowed up by the cold sand before the next frothy wave uncovers them again.

To be a tourist, gawking like a child at the habitats of other people, other animals, feeling excitedly estranged from your own familiar nest. To be a passerby, a traveler, a visitor, here on this heavenly body, on the inner perimeter of earth's 6th mass extinction. To accept the promise of inevitable death, decomposition, transfiguration, and rebirth.

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Tourist was written by Anthony Ruptak during his first years as a city paramedic. Every day Anthony has a front-row seat to American suffering. He processes his experiences by disappearing into the wilderness with his wife and dog. These songs are the result, crossing lines between society and nature.

This album grapples with homelessness, addiction and recovery, poverty, loss and grieving, suicide and mental illness, and the paralytic spectatorship of a burning world beyond our saving. The counterpoint: the escapism of love, human kindness, finding safety, the innocence of animals, translations of birdsongs, the enormity of the glittery cosmos, the softness and brutality of the high alpine tundra, and the blue mystery of the rising ocean. Concrete jungle indie rock meets a backpacker's dirty boots, Tourist comes along with us as we bear witness to the death rattle of providence, to the solemn passing of time.

Releasing as his third full length record, Tourist drifts between wonder and nostalgia - flutes, synths, and piano weave through walls of emo guitar and pulsing drums like light through fog.

The album is Anthony Ruptak's first available on vinyl and was released June 28th at Denver's iconic Hi-Dive with his full band, plus beautiful additions of trumpet and cello to recreate the record live on stage. Supporting acts Porlolo and The Trujillo Company opened the show. A portion of the proceeds were donated to the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.