Samantha Crain

Musik

Stickball.

It's just called stickball.

Oh, whoa. I actually don't know. We just call it stickball whenever we're down at the cultural center. I think they... Say it's indigenous stickball, because stickball is also like what you play in like a playground in New York. That's like baseball, though.

I don't. I think it did. And I think like a lot of the northern Muskegon tribes, they just play lacrosse now. And then a lot of the southern, like southeastern Muskegon tribes, they play indigenous stickball.

Old school.

Yeah.

No, I live in Oklahoma.

I live in a town called Norman, which is like... I know her. I've heard that. Yeah, it's, you know her.

You know her. Yeah, it's just like a college town. It's...

I know, I was at your show. You were.

I think I did. And I'm so glad I didn't know that I was going to do this whenever we went to the show. Because I have a real bad habit of like two glasses of wine and saying something really stupid to someone. Like if I would have known I was going to do this, I would have been like...

Yeah, we got good people.

It's like one street. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. That's actually, that's so right. It's 100% right. Every time I have people come visit me, they're like, oh, I should move here. And it's like, you're going to get over it real quick. You have to be like from here, I think, to really like appreciate it.

I grew up in a town called Shawnee, which is also not that far from Oklahoma City. It's like 45 minutes. And lived there until I got out of high school. And then I just sort of bit-bopped around the whole world and lived in various cities for like a year.

I'm chalk top. Now, the tribe is based in southeastern Oklahoma, which is where most of my, the rest of my family live, like my grandparents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. But the town that I lived in was not, is not part of that reservation. It was just where... An outlier? Yeah, outlier.

No, no, it's not... It's just a land thing? It's just a land thing, yeah. It's just where the boundaries are. So I wasn't, I would only kind of get to be like around... Oh, ja.

Yeah, unless you were like invited in.

Yeah, no, I understand that. I think, yeah, because the reservation system is a little bit different in Oklahoma, where it's just like, it's all together. It's like mixed in with city borders. And so everybody just lives in the same cities. You're just like technically on reservation. So you get a lot more.

Yeah, I scored Fancy Dance, yeah.

The movie was amazing. I love it. She's so good in it.

The minute I start feeling like half comfortable with someone, I become like the oversharer. Oh, yeah. And I start saying things that I'm just like, this person has no idea what I'm talking about.

Yeah. I'm just like, oh, they want to know. And then all of a sudden I'm telling them about like when I was five years old doing something with my uncle. Yeah. And they're just like, oh, that's okay. I just want to know.

Oh, I don't know. That was just like a made up thing.

Also, okay, also in Shawnee, wo ich kind of like grew up, grew up, my dad owned a powerlifting gym.

And he did like a mail order business through that. And also traveled a lot for that. And also, do you know what the power team is? Like from a Christian?

Okay. So like in Oklahoma... Die Südbaptisten hatten dieses Ding, das die Power-Team hieß, das war ein Gruppe von großen, buffen Männern, die rumgingen und Dinge an Revivalen machten und sie prechten und Stärken zeigten. Echt?

Just big dudes being like, I can do all things through Christ.

Yeah, tent revivals or like in an actual church.

And my dad kind of did a version of that too, where he would like go around and like preach and play songs and then like rip phone books in half.

Ja, es war sehr viel Teil des Südenbaptistischen.

War es ein Lord's Gym T-Shirt?

I think that's a Lord's Gym T-Shirt. That was a very big like deal in the 90s, especially around Oklahoma.

Yeah, it became like a very popular T-Shirt.

Ich bin mir ziemlich sicher, dass wir eines dieser T-Shirts hatten, als ich als Kind in meinem Haus reingekommen bin. Das ist so lustig.

So that was weirdly no, because the Choctaws, especially in Oklahoma, are very ingrained in like the Southern Baptists just through.

Yeah, they got us. They got us. We even have like this thing. I mean, part of the reason why I started writing songs in the Choctaw language is because the only songs that really exist on recording in the language now are Choctaws.

basically translations of southern baptist hymns so we have like a big hymn tradition in the tribe where they sing the the hymns like jesus songs in the choctaw language and i was just kind of like i would like there to be something else for us to sing about in our language but so no it was all pretty southern baptist

Ja, weil ich denke, dass sie alle in der gleichen Weise fühlen, dass sie wünschen, dass sie in ihrer Sprache singen können, aber vielleicht nicht über Jesus. Weil es so viel Begegnung dazu hat. Zu Jesus? Ja, mit den Boarding-Schulen und dem Kolonialismus und all dem. Also ich denke, sie wollen ablein, sich zu etwas zu verbinden, das weiter zurück ist.

No, I'm still like in the learning process. Really? Yeah, I mean, I... Right, sure. side by side comparisons of like English way of thinking and Choctaw way of thinking.

It's very verb heavy. So everything is about like movement and change and doing. My thing that I'm kind of obsessed with right now is there's no Ja. Ja. Es ist im Grunde ein Wert, der sagt, du bist nur so, wie ich dich jetzt beschreiben kann. Oder an diesem Moment. Das bedeutet nicht, dass das, wie ich dich beschreibe, du bist, wer du bist. Und ich finde das unglaublich freundlich.

Und ein bisschen buddhistisch. Es ist so, dass du Mulden bist. Du enthältst all diese Dinge.

Genau.

Yeah, it's great. And just being able to think about things like that, think about people that way, think about how you're perceiving the world around you. Right. I think it's like very freeing. It like unlocks you from a lot of this idea of how I'm perceiving my life is how it's going.

That's good. They had it figured out, man, I think.

Dann, wenn ich in dieser Sprache schreibe, öffnet sich diese ganze andere Sache. Das ist das, was ich wahrnehme. Ja. Also ist es sehr vielmehr wie eine mehr beobachtbare Art von Schreiben, die ich finde, wie ein ganz anderes Aspect of like writing and creating.

Yeah, it was very much a family business. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, we had the gym, and then my dad also competed in powerlifting. Like, he would... But there's no money in powerlifting, so it's like, you do it for the love of it. And so we would travel in, like, this van to different competitions, so he could... They just had powerlifting competitions around? Yes, yeah.

Different states, even different countries. And he would... Basically, we had like our own jobs. So he would set up in order to like pay for these trips that he would be going on. He would set up like a little table with like vitamins or like protein bars or like equipment. So he could like sell them to like other lifters. He's very resourceful, honestly. And so I would usually head that up.

And that was back whenever they had the credit card things. That was like the big.

Ja, also ich hatte einen von diesen, den ich als acht Jahre alt anbiete, wo ich einfach Leute Kreditkarten-Imprints nehme. Und dann würde mein Bruder diese kleine Videokamera arbeiten. Mein Vater hätte eine Videokamera gesetzt, weil er herausgefunden hat, dass alle dieser Lüfter ihre Wettbewerb schauen wollten, aber die Leute hatten keine eigenen Videokameras.

Yeah, so my brother would set up a VHS camera and film the whole meet. And then my dad would sell copies of the tapes to people. And we just traveled around and did that like a lot.

It is. Did you see Iron Claw?

Die ganze Familie. Ja. Von seinem Vater. Sein Vater war einer dieser Muscle Beach Leute.

Ja. Sie lebten in vielen Orten, als er groß war. Aber er war da draußen und dann in Oakland für ein bisschen und so. Und er war ein Powerlifter. Ja, er war wirklich in die ganze Jack LaLanne Fitness-Sache. Und ich denke, das ist mir zu meinem Vater und seinen Brüdern und Schwestern gefallen.

Sie, also, ja, sie waren. Mein Vater war derjenige, der sich auf den Topf des Piles gelegt hat. War er ein Champion? Ja. Er war einer der Besten, der jemals lebt, ehrlich gesagt, für seinen Gewicht. Ja, wenn du seinen Namen nennst, wer in Powerlifting ist, wird wissen, wer er ist.

Ricky Dale Crane. Such a great name for it, right?

Yeah, when I was a little, yeah. Well, up until I was like 16, I competed.

I was. I got like records and stuff. But the thing was, I didn't really like, I didn't like it. I just liked being good at something, I think.

No, it's an individual sport.

I was, but just purely genetically. Low center of gravity.

I mean, probably a year ago. And it was very little, I'm sure. It's like my...

Oh ja, das mache ich. Eines Tages war ich beim YMCA und ich hatte einen Squat. Und ein Mann sagte mir, du hast eine großartige Form. Und du warst so, lass mich dir das erzählen. Das wurde mir von sehr junger Zeit in den Kopf geschlagen. Dein Vater ist nicht mehr da? Nein. Er ist im Oktober gestorben.

He runs my dad's gym now.

Yeah. Where you grew up? Well, it moved around a couple of times, but it is still in Shawnee. He had it in a garage and then he had it in another shopping center building. And now it's in a building that's kind of near his house.

I think he just saw that he was really good at it. And he just wanted to be the best at something, I guess.

No, I mean, like I said, my brother has just now gotten this handed to him because my dad passed away in October. So my brother worked there, but he's just now gotten it.

It's very much like, it's not like walking into a Planet Fitness, it's like... die gleichen acht Jungs, die drei Stunden dort jeden Tag verbringen und einen Schmerzabbruch zwischen ihren Szenen machen. Es ist so sehr gruselig.

Wenn du eine Frau bist, die versucht, sich aufzutonen, ist das nicht, wo du hinfährst.

I think probably like 15, 16.

Yeah, I'm realizing that's not for me. I was, I mean, a couple of things like converged where I was realizing that I was more of like a creative person. I mean, I always like wrote things. Ja. Ja. Ja. I was just starting to listen to music more and there was guitars at our house because my dad played.

But I'm very stubborn and I don't like people teaching me things. So I'm like, I, or I didn't at the time. What was the music in the house? Like 60s folk, you know, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan. Oh, those are good. Yeah. Joan Baez. Yeah, my dad was like a huge folky. Really?

Es könnte Bob Seger gewesen sein. Es könnte alles gewesen sein.

Ja, er war ein Volk-Mann.

Ja.

Well, I mean, like I said, I was like culturally a part of that, especially during the summers. But the music element of our tribe, like what we have contact with, is mainly just like social dances. So there's not a lot of...

There's like two or three. I'm kind of just now discovering this, but there's this guy that does a radio show called, I think it's called Wateka Radio out of Minnesota. And he's Lakota, I think. But he has a radio show where all he plays are... Das waren ursprüngliche, native Musiker, die zwischen den 50ern und den 70ern gearbeitet haben.

Es gibt also all diese unbekannten Rekorde und Tapes, die er einfach findet. Und er spielt diese auf seinem Radio-Show, und das ist sehr cool.

Ja, ich habe das gehört.

Ja, er kommt aus Norman, wo ich wohne.

I was just listening to an interview with him the other day. Where was that? George hat ihm diese Lieder gesungen und ich konnte sehen, dass er es mir nicht geben wollte, weil er es selbst machen wollte, aber ich habe es ihm mitgesprochen und es geschnitten und er hat eine von George Harrison Liedern gesungen.

Yeah, I think I just went and bought a guitar chord book from the local music store.

Yeah, and that's really what I started out with. It was like G, C, E minor, D. And I just started writing poetry to music, basically, I guess.

I mean, that was sort of my... That was the easiest entry level. I was definitely listening to a lot more... Pop, oder was auch immer, auf der Radio, an diesem Punkt. Aber das Volk-Ding sah aus wie eine Low-Barrier-Entry, weißt du? Du konntest das hören und sagen, oh, ich brauche nur eine Gitarre, und dann kann ich eine Song schreiben.

Ja, du kannst das als Teenager ein bisschen einfacher visualisieren, als, oh, ich brauche vier Leute und Amps und einen Drummer und einen Bassist. Das fühlt sich sehr schwierig an, wenn du 15 oder 16 bist.

So there was like a little coffee shop in Shawnee that had an open mic. And I did that for a couple of years while I was still learning. And I'm sure it was very bad. I think I was playing like Radiohead covers or like Bob Dylan covers or something.

The times they are changing.

You got to do that one.

No, no. Or like, what's the, the one that, like the hurricane that's like seven minutes long or something.

I'm trapped.

Nicht bis... Ich mache wirklich nur Open Mics. Und dann fahre ich nach der Stadt, nach Oklahoma City und mache Open Mics. Ja. Du könntest finden... Es gab eine klassifizierte Seite im lokalen Kunstpapier, die alle Open Mics listet.

Ja, es wäre 2002, 2003, 2004 gewesen. Ja, ja, ja.

I think how that kind of moved into me doing this for like a more of like a job thing was that Right after I, well, after I graduated from high school, I tried college for like a semester at Oklahoma Baptist University.

It was in Shawnee. Yeah. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So that just was like, well, it's here. Yeah. And then I heard about a musician's like commune colony thing on Martha's Vineyard.

Yeah.

Where you could like apply, you could send in a tape and if you got picked, then you'd go live there for like eight months. Right. And they would teach you how to like record your own music on Pro Tools. Where'd you find that? I just like heard about it through like friend of a friend. Wow.

Yeah, I applied and I think I sent in a cassette tape recording of me doing the times they are changing, I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly. And I got selected to do that, so I just went out to Martha's Vineyard and lived there for like eight months.

Nein, ich meine, wir sind viel gefahren. Aber das war das erste Mal, dass ich mich fühlte, als ob ich etwas mit Musik verbunden habe. Und auf deiner eigenen Seite. Ja.

Ich würde lieber mit den Inseln beschäftigen, als mit den reichen Leuten, die einen Monat oder zwei im Sommer einbekommen.

Keine Recherchen-Restauranten sind erlaubt. Ja, das ist schön. Ja, sie müssen alle grüne Häuser sein. Die grünen Schimmel.

There was like 20. So we all lived like in this big barn, like in bunk rooms. And we just like... Played guitar? Yeah, we just jammed, honestly. Jammed and learned how to like use Pro Tools. And we put on like fake variety shows like once a week. We'd all like form bands with different people.

Yeah, that was the first time that I did a lot of like any sort of like collaboration or like learning how to... I learned a lot about song structure, I think, just from seeing how other people did it.

Yeah, real bands. Real full bands.

Yeah, it was exciting. It was good.

Yeah, I think I felt like, well, I've come out here and I've like... Musik mit anderen Leuten gemacht habe. Ich habe eine Frau mit dem Namen Beth kennengelernt, mit der wir entschieden haben, dass wir Tours starten. Das waren die Tage von MySpace, als man auf MySpace-Venues messen konnte und ihnen ein Lied schicken konnte. Wenn sie dich liebten, buchten sie dich.

Wir haben das für zwei Jahre gemacht. Ich glaube, es war eine Bonneville-Sendung. Eine alte Bonneville, die einen riesigen Trunk hatte, und wir haben unsere Gitarren da drin gepackt. Und wir haben uns zwei Jahre lang Tours geplant. Hast du zusammen gespielt?

Sie macht immer noch das. Ja, sie lebt in St. Louis und sie macht St. Louis-Singer-Songwriter-Stuff.

Beth Bombara.

Ja, ich meine, wir sind Begegnungen. Wir sind ein bisschen auf unsere eigenen verschiedenen Wege gegangen, aber wir sind immer noch freundlich.

Ja.

Yeah, I mean, that was like the true road dog days where you're like. Ich weiß nicht. Ich weiß nicht.

Oh yeah, so many weird things. There was one time where we were in Nebraska and this guy was like, we went back to this guy's Ja. Ja.

Ich denke, du musst einfach total naiv sein und dich als Kind überleben.

Ich weiß, ja.

We just traveled around for like two years, just touring a ton. And then... Wir, da war dieser Typ, der, oh, das war es. Beths Freund war in einer Band namens Barry, die war, ich glaube, sie waren aus Chicago damals.

Ein sehr, wie, Mittleren, Teil dieser ganzen Mittleren Post-Rock, wie, Cat & Jazz, so. Ja. Ich versuche, ich war nicht sehr.

Ich war nicht so sehr in all dieser Musik. Es war sehr viel die Midwestern-Emo-Post-Punk-Szene, die an der Zeit stattfand. Und sie waren ein Teil davon. Und sie haben uns für sie auf einer Tour geöffnet. Oh gut. Der Leadsänger Joey hatte ein kleines Studio. Und zwischen Touren haben wir mein erstes EP gedreht.

Und dann habe ich von da an angefangen, was jeder sagt, was du nicht tun sollst, nämlich eine unbeschlossene Demo zu Rekordlabeln zu senden. Und das war es, was ich tat. Ich habe meine EP zu verschiedenen Rekordlabeln gemailt. Und einer von ihnen endete... Es war lustig, wie es umgegangen ist. Das Label war Ramser Records aus North Carolina. Und ihre große Band ist die Avett Brothers.

Sie haben eine sehr insularische Fanbase.

Ja.

Ich habe es gemacht und es war nicht der richtige Welt, um in die Welt zu kommen. Du denkst das nicht? Nein, ich denke, es war für mich so stiltig. Ich denke, es hat mich wirklich beeinflusst. wie lange es mir gedauert hat, bis zu dem Punkt, wo ich die Rekorde machen will, die ich machen will.

Ich denke, ich habe viele Rekorde hergestellt, wo ich versucht habe, weil das Label, das ich hatte, sehr viel beide Füße in dieser Welt war. Ja. Und das war, wie ich vermarktet wurde.

Yeah, and I wore like a plain old shirt.

So they were like, you're good, come on.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, the band was great. And I mean, I think we always like put out stuff that Ja, genau.

Yeah, I think it's actually more of like a fashion sense than it is like a music, honestly. Like, I think it's more like a scene than it is like a type of music.

Ja, ja.

Yeah, it was. But I think because I was young and very unsure of myself, I was maybe trying to write songs that maybe I am not the best at writing. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like trying to kind of make something fit into like a genre or something.

I think I'm like getting in there, yeah. But I really don't feel like I'm fully... Das ist wunderschön. Danke. Weißt du Jason Molina? Er ist mein... Wirklich? Er ist mein... Entschuldigung, alle Nachbarn. Er ist mein Geist. Ich liebe ihn.

Er ist großartig.

Gut. Ich würde gerne über ihn reden. Er war ein echter Poet, ein echter, ehrgeiziger, offener, reiner Nerv. Die Verletzung davon.

Ja.

Ich habe ihn nicht getroffen. Es gibt einen Song auf Kidface, der für ihn geschrieben wurde. Es heißt For the Minor. Ich habe den Song für ihn geschrieben.

Ich war eigentlich, wir waren supposed to be like playing some shows with them that later that year. So I was going to get to meet him, but he passed away before that happened. And so I wrote this song just like kind of commiserating that. But like he, I had a lot of friends that knew him. So I kind of got the down low about him through that. But I had this moment where,

Es war sehr früh, als ich angefangen habe, Songs zu schreiben. Ich war wahrscheinlich 16 oder 17 Jahre alt. Ich fuhr oft nach Oklahoma City, um zu diesem Konzervatorium zu gehen. Das war wie ein DIY-Punk-Club. Und es gab einen Rekordstor, der neben mir lag, namens Size Records. This was back when you would kind of browse a CD shelf and buy a CD just because you like the cover.

And I bought a Songs Ohio CD. I think it was The Lioness, just because I liked the cover. And I was driving home after the show that night and I put the CD in my car and was listening to it on my drive back. And Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. seine Gedanken und seine Emotionen. Und ich war einfach so, ich will das tun. Das ist, was ich tun möchte.

Ja.

Ja, ich denke, er ist vielleicht.

Ja, ich weiß es nicht. Vielleicht seit sieben, acht Jahren.

Secretly Canadian?

Oh, cool.

Yeah, you can only listen to it at certain times, yeah.

Same. I think mine comes from like... Die Idee von Leidenschaft. Ich habe viel Zeit alleine verbracht. Und ich habe eine sehr introspektive, leidenschaftliche Sache, die ich hineinbekommen kann. Und es wird sehr schmerzhaft und sehr traurig, sehr schnell. Und das ist, denke ich, wenn ich jemanden wie Jason Molina singen höre, in dieser Weise, kann ich mir nur vorstellen, dass er alleine ist.

Und es ist wie... Und navigieren. Und navigieren das.

Und es ist wie etwas, das mich sehr tief befindet.

Ja.

Ja, ich denke, ich meine, nur aus der Perspektive von einem Songwriter, der versucht, ihre Karten zu zahlen. Da ist das Element, das immer poppt, wo du sagst, ich wünsche mir, dass mehr Leute das oder etwas haben.

Aber ehrlich gesagt, denke ich, dass die Art, die du gerade erwähnt hast, perfekt ist. Es ist einfach so, dass nicht jeder den gleichen Zweck hat, wie in der Kunst. Ich war gerade in Alaska, in Sitka, Alaska, am Ende des Januari. Und ich helfte, ich machte einen Fundraiser für eine Tribe da oben, die Klingit. Das Kixadi-Klan der Klingit-Indianer. Und sie gaben mir einen Ehrennamen.

Ich glaube nicht, dass ich das völlig richtig sage. Aber es kommt aus einer Geschichte, die bedeutet, dass wegen des Kolonialismus und der Art und Weise, wie die Dinge gegangen sind, alle ihre Kulturen und Traditionen in diese Box gelegt wurden. Und es gibt einen Lid auf der Box.

Und es gibt Leute, die hierher kommen, die den Lid ein bisschen ausdrücken, damit mehr von den Traditionen und mehr von der Kultur, mehr von der Sprache herauskommen können.

And the verb, the action of pushing that lid off is the word Schikaklikse. So my name means to push a little bit off the edge. And that's how I feel like my position as an artist or a musician is. It's not to be the one that brings everything to the masses. It's the one that just pushes like... Ja. Ja. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of a...

Yeah, because in general, the, I mean, the sign of... Ja. Ja. I wish I could do more, but because I'm kind of what I explained earlier, where the further in that you get, the harder it gets, because it's more about a mind change than just learning the language. And so I'm in that situation now where I'm having to be more serious about the mental capacity of writing in the language now.

Ja.

Ja.

Ja. Ja. Ja.

Well, yeah, I mean, I got to play to like English speakers. But that's what, I mean, I'm an English speaker. So it's like, I've got feelings inside. I've got to get out, you know, now. I can't wait to learn the Choctaw language in full.

Oh, yeah. It might have been... He had a podcast for a little bit. Before he got turned into real big. We did a conversation on there once. And he did say something really interesting to me once, which was about there's always this feeling like you're not doing enough. I guess in quote unquote activism of like pushing forward the like

Agenda is not the right word, but you know, pushing forward like the identity of native peoples or something. And I think I was expressing that to him, just feeling like, I'm not going to these like protests and I'm not going, because like I've got a job and I've got to like do this. And he was like, you just being... an active, like, Choctaw artist, that's activism.

It's activism to be living, doing what you're doing at this moment.

Something to that extent.

Right, exactly. Yeah. So, that was just, I mean, I was like, oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense.

Well, that record was really interesting because I was at a really dark time personally because I had just gotten into a pretty severe car wreck that really affected my... I couldn't use my hands at all.

Yeah, I had gotten into a bad car wreck and there was a lot of skeletal and nervous system damage.

I was just going through a busy four-way intersection and I got T-boned.

I still flinch going through four-ways.

Und es hat mir viel Schmerzen gemacht. Es hat mir die Schulter und den Nacken verletzt, was meine Arme und Hände beeinflusst hat. Und ich wurde wirklich depressiv, weil ich nicht Gitarre spielen konnte. Ich konnte nicht sitzen und Lieder schreiben. Ich konnte nicht mal eine Kuppe halten. Oh mein Gott. Und ich wurde wirklich depressiv. Ich war einfach im Bett für ... Ja.

But in the meantime, I just had like a voice recorder that I would just lay in bed and like kind of hum songs into.

And not thinking like I would ever get to play them or anything. I just thought this thing that I've spent my whole life doing, which is being a musician.

So that became... when I finally got sort of Well, the other weird thing about that is that's when I started using open tunings, too. Because as I couldn't do bar chords or things, as I started getting use of my hands, a friend of mine suggested, just tune it to where you just have to hold down one string or something at a time. It'll be easier on your hands.

And that's when I started kind of going in that direction, too.

Yeah, well, that's kind of when I started using them, yeah.

Ja, es ist ein anderer Eindruck. Und es gibt mehr Platz für andere Dinge, um Dinge zu machen, die man normalerweise nicht hören würde.

Es lässt dein Gehirn sagen, oh, ich habe noch nie gesehen, dass das Raum geöffnet wurde. Also was kann ich da hinlegen? Es öffnet die Veranstaltungen und alles auch. Aber das war, ja, also schlussendlich konnte ich meine Hände wieder benutzen. Und ich ging zurück zu diesen kleinen Geräuschreden. Und ich habe angefangen, Demo zu machen. Und ich war einfach so, ich muss mich umdrehen.

Das ist ein Rekord, also muss ich den Rekord machen.

Do you do that like with comedy? Do you just ever like walk around or like talking to yourself?

Nice. I love that. I feel like that's how I live my life. I'm just hoping that I'll make up the punchline before I get caught with my pants down. Exactly.

That's kind of like what I do at my shows. I tend to have little quippy jokes and stories in between, which is someone, well, a lot of people have noted to me that what I do and say between songs is very different from the songs. And it's like, yeah, because I know that this shit is heavy. Yeah, we're going in. And I'm not trying to make y'all want to kill yourself by the end of the night. Yeah.

I would like you to understand that you can hold both things at the same time.

Ja, ich meine, ehrlich gesagt, es ist wahrscheinlich einfacher, es zu markieren. Weißt du, was ich meine? Es ist viel einfacher, wenn jemand eine spezifische Persona hat.

Ich hatte einen krankeren Moment.

Yeah, I mean, I still have like some issues, but I can still, I can play again.

Yeah, I think, I mean, it's like what you were talking about earlier, about not trying to put yourself in a box. I think that record, A Small Death, that was the first time I produced a record myself. And it was the first time I just fully trusted every decision and every feeling that I had. And that opened up a whole new... And then I saw how well it was received.

And so that opened up a whole new... Ja. Ja. You have a trust that it's going to end up where it needs to be as long as you're present.

Yeah.

Did she sit in this very seat? She did, yeah. And I'm like, I want some of her, like, good vibes to rub off on me.

It's so necessary for growth, like, because you have to be able to, like, accept, like, receive, not accept, but receive, like, how other people do their work, or else you're never going to learn anything new about yourself.

Yeah.

Well, so Gumshoe, even though it has ended up being about collaboration when we got to making the record, when I was writing the songs, it really was about opening myself up to collaborating with like people. And I'm talking about collaborating on like an interpersonal level, like collaborating in relationships, collaborating in friendships, romantic relationships, family relationships.

And I had always been such a lone wolf. So like... Ja. Ended up. That sounds so sorry. I was in this relationship for like three years with somebody who was an addict.

And I was struggling a lot with what the right thing to do there was. And trying to be vulnerable and let this person in, but also trying to like protect myself and Oh mein Gott. Oh Gott, ja. But at the same time, it was just like I was also trying to apply that to my friendships and my family relationships.

Yeah, but you don't even get to that point of learning how to do that unless you kind of let yourself get taken advantage of. Does that make sense? Well, yeah, but you have to be vulnerable and like make those mistakes before you can get to that point.

Yeah, and then you're like, I need to figure this out.

Yeah, and it comes from that whole process of realizing that you have to open yourself up and be vulnerable. Maybe not doing that in the most smart or productive or safe way. And then doing that process of finding your boundaries, trusting yourself, trusting your own voice in a situation and your own... Ja, ja.

Kind of informing how we recorded the record too, which was just like me letting in a couple of co-producers with me and also recording the whole record like in a room together. And we're not like separate and doing stuff separately. We're just like trusting each other in that moment in that room. And just sort of like, yeah, trusting that you can say...

Ja, und du hast Zeit, um es auszuprobieren. Das war die größte Sache für mich, weil ich immer auf so einem steilen Budget gearbeitet habe, dass alles geplant und wie du weißt, du hast eine bestimmte Menge Tage, um das zu tun.

Aber mit diesem, wir haben uns dafür gesorgt, in diesem Rekordstudio in Indiana zu gehen, weil ich es nur für zwölf Tage erlauben konnte, damit wir Zeit und die Luxur haben können. Ja, das ist großartig. Ich glaube, die eine, die mir aufgefallen ist, war die Be-Attitudes-Sendung.

I want a piece of property.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, at the wrong time, though. It's like, who wants to buy a piece of property right now?

It's still more expensive, but maybe it'll get cheaper.

I don't really have a... Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja, das ist eine seltsame Sache, weil, weißt du, niemand denkt darüber nach. Ich weiß. Ich weiß das. Ich hatte einen Drummer namens Anne. Ich liebe sie so sehr. Und sie ist so wunderschön. Und sie würde immer so viel Zeit auf ihr Haar und Make-up verbringen. Und jedes Mal, wenn wir durch ein Storfront-Winkel gehen, würde ich sie sehen.

Weil sie wollte, dass sie immer präsentierbar ist. Und ich erinnere mich, als ich sagte, niemand schaut auf dich.

Das war wahrscheinlich nicht richtig, weil sie so wunderschön war. Vielleicht war jeder auf sie aufmerksam.

Um, so I, how did I get, Erica, the director just reached out to me and I'm assuming, so she was one of the writers on Reservation Dogs.

And the indigenous arts community is pretty like. Tight. Tight.

And I've done, um, music for Sterling's like older movies. Yeah. And I did some music for some various, um. Yeah. Yeah.

Of course.

It is collaborative in its nature. You're trying to make somebody else's vision happen, more or less, not your own. And I think she just wanted to have somebody that was... Yeah. Yeah. Ja. Ja. Das war gut für dich.

Nice to see you again. Nice to see you.