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We got a chance to interview singer/songwriter Sierra Spirit as she begins a tour, opening for David Gray on his North American leg.
Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma and part of the Otoe-Missouria tribe and the Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, she is currently living in Connecticut, and was nice enough to take a few questions before hitting the road.
W♥M: How are you doing today?
Sierra: Great! Shipping off tomorrow.
W♥M: This is your maiden voyage. You’re opening for David Gray, starting in Boston tomorrow. How does that feel?
Sierra: That feels crazy. I feel like I’m dreaming. I feel like it’s not going to hit until I see that room for the first time because I’ve never been in any of these venues we are about to play.
W♥M: You're supporting your EP, cointoss, and to me it seems like a poignant title for a debut album. Is that what it felt like going into the project?
Sierra: Yeah, definitely. It was such a strange chance at fate that I somehow ended up at all these right places at the right time.
I had a friend in college who did a thing that I thought was funny. Anytime they would see a penny face-down they’d flip it face up for the next person to find. And I thought that was a real fun disruption of fate.
W♥M: You have a beautiful singing voice and I feel the human voice is the hardest instrument to play. Is that something you’ve been working on or is it something that comes naturally?
Sierra: It’s always something I’ve loved. The funny thing is: My entire life I planned to become a doctor, and I did three years of bio/pre-medical. And it had always been my outlet and release to sing and play music. It was what I did to find comfort and de-stress. And it’s really cool, like my creature comforts became my entire world.
W♥M: You currently live in Connecticut. Did you feel like you had to move away to write about your time growing up in Oklahoma?
Sierra: I think so. I grew up in the same place my entire life. I felt like I was at that angsty age. Getting away is different and I miss the strangest things. I miss driving the same route that I thought was so boring from my mom’s house to my dad’s house. And I got to a point where I started to write about things I hadn’t unpacked. I wrote about the passing of my grandmother and I don’t think I could have written about that there.
W♥M: I really like the visual you’ve told in prior interviews of you and your grandma driving around, and her with a cup of black coffee in her hand, telling you stories. Is there a specific characteristic of hers that you try to carry forward?
Sierra: She was an incredible storyteller. She could make nothing into the most enthralling story. I remember hanging on every word she said, even about the most mundane things, and I was: “Wow, I want to be able to do that.”
W♥M: You’ve said in interviews that you grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. If an opportunity arose, would you like to cover either of them and which song?
Sierra: Oooh… If I had to pick a Johnny Cash song… It’s so hard... It might be “Folsom Prison Blues” because my first CD of my own was a copy of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. The first vinyl I ever had too.
W♥M: Native Americans are finding more and more ways to tell their own stories to a larger audience. How important is it to you to have this opportunity on the tour to share your story?
Sierra: It’s so important. A lot of times when people don’t fully understand the culture it’s not even their own fault. It’s just that information isn’t accessible. And like I said, it’s really cool for me to get to do this and show people what a current and present depiction of Native people are. We are far more similar than they think. I am just a living, breathing person finding my way through like anybody else.
W♥M: It seems like the television series Reservation Dogs is filmed and tells the story of the area you grew up in. Is that correct?
Sierra: Yeah, yeah! It is. And the writer and director, Sterlin Harjo, is a friend.
W♥M: How accurate is the depiction compared to your life growing up?
Sierra: It was such a cool thing to watch, and that is exactly what it’s like being at home. Like the sense of humor. Even between tribes, the customs and traditions are so different. It’s funny to see the inside jokes of the Native community being fed to a larger audience.
W♥M: Besides yourself, are there any Indigenous artists that you would like us to know about?
Sierra: Oh, my goodness, yeah. Kalyn Fay. She is a Cherokee/Muscogee singer/songwriter from Tulsa that I absolutely love.
SIERRA SPIRIT
photo by Pierce Pyrzenski
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