Nathaniel Rateliff's Wheel keeps on turning (VIDEO)

Nathaniel Rateliff had a shot at being the next chart-topper like Chris Daughtry or Chad Kroeger. Instead, the Denver-based singer-songwriter chose a very different path, one that could make him the next underground hero like Bon Iver or Iron & Wine.

That is, he took the quiet route to what he hopes will be success in the music business beyond Denver.

"Life is good right now, though it's not quite glamorous," Rateliff said recently, sitting in the shade of his backyard. "And I'm all right with that. That's the choice I made between Rounder and Roadrunner."

Rounder and Roadrunner are record labels. Roadrunner is the 29-year-old, metal-focused label that is home to Nickelback, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sammy Hagar and Slipknot. Rounder is the modest, 39-year-old folky label that is home to the Woody Guthrie archives, Nanci Griffith, Delta Spirit and its newest signee, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Wheel.

Rateliff's story is one of two bands, two styles, two voices and two labels.

When Rateliff's previous group, Born in the Flood, turned down an offer from Roadrunner, the singer's intentions were made clear. He wanted his newer, softer, trendier band -- the

Nathaniel Rateliff and The Wheel open for Mason Jennings on Thursday at the Fox Theatre.

Rateliff signed with Rounder in early October at a Connecticut venue where the Wheel was opening for the Fray. Lawyers sat around the artist as he signed the many documents, and when he was done, his friends in the bands and crew applauded. Then Rateliff and his Denver-based manager, Bart Dahl, smoked cigarettes and popped a bottle of champagne.

"Nobody knows who Nathaniel is, so that infrastructure is going to be huge in developing him and his career," Dahl said.

A label deal gives an artist's career direction. It also provides a means to record, distribute and promote music on a wide and professional level.

But there's a trade-off. When the Wheel plays Boulder's Fox Theatre on Thursday and Denver's Bluebird Theater on Friday, part of those ticket sales will go to Rounder. When he sells CDs and T-shirts from here on, a percentage of those profits, too, will go to the label. He signed what is called a 360 music deal, and while it looks uneven on the front end, it all feels better on the whole, Rateliff said. If the band is successful, everybody gets a bit of everything.

It helps, too, that Rounder's expectations of the Wheel's profit and sales potential are substantially more realistic -- lower -- than what Roadrunner's would have been with Born in the Flood. Dave Godowsky, Rounder's head of A&R, is one of the Wheel's biggest fans.

"Every person I've showed Nathaniel's songs to has freaked out about them," the Boston-based Godowsky said. "I showed them to a friend of mine who works in the publishing business at Chrysalis, and I told him, 'I know this sounds like the kind of thing you hear everyday from people, but this isn't lip service. These songs are amazing.' He called back a couple days later, and now he's signing him to a publishing deal."

Read the full story at DenverPost.com.