Samantha Crain: Music, Poetry and Stolen Gear

Choctaw singer-songwriter Samantha Crain chatted recently with Indian Country Today about her path as a musician, life on the road and her upcoming new album Kid Face. This week, Samantha's getting more press but for the sad news that her guitars have been stolen!

On November 16th, Samantha posted a plea on Craigslist that her two workhorse guitars, the ones she uses for touring, writing and recording, were stolen from her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma. For a musician, losing the tools of one's trade is heartbreaking much less a huge expense and threat to their livliehood.

"These are my life and blood" Samantha wrote in her post and her community was quick to respond with ways to support her. A donation campaign is now online to help raise funds to replace Samantha's Martin acoustic and Jagstang electric - check it out at donatesamanthacrain.blogspot.ca.

In happier news, Samantha Crain recently spoke with Vincent Schilling (host of Native Trailblazers) for Indian Country Today. In Singer-Songwriter Samantha Crain Talks Music, Poetry and Neil Young Samantha shared her now established career got started a bit by happenstance:

I started playing music as a means to travel, actually. I started this as an afterthought that I grew to love tremendously and found an identity. I started touring and writing when I was about 18 or 19. I didn’t take any time to hone it, I wasn’t one of those people who started playing really young and then it eventually turned into this. I naïvely jumped into it all at once.

I wrote six or seven songs and then I said I can go play these in a coffee shop wherever I want to go. that’s kind of how I started, I just started booking shows for myself all over the place or wherever I thought I might want to go spend some time and then I realized, “Well I should probably make a record so I have something to sell to the people while I’m playing there.” I said, “Well I guess you should probably write some more songs…” I learned about it as I was in the business.

I grew to love and appreciate the art of songwriting—that has become my main focus of it now. I still do a ton of touring, but songwriting is something that is super special to me and I love meeting other songwriters and hearing about the other ways they write songs.

When I was in college, I was a creative writing major. I studied poets and how there were all of these different movements and poetry. I feel like there is that same sort of thing and songwriting, it’s just not so cut and dry and talked about as much. I find the same thing in studying different songwriters in different areas of songwriting. I think there can be the same thing said about the movements there were for poetry and art.

Samantha goes on to reveal the poets she's been most influenced by, how her new album Kid Face represents a shift in her songwriting style, and why she just wants to be Neil Young. Read the complete interview here and be sure to check out the fundraiser to replace her instruments too.

Samantha Crain Living Life on the Road

RPM's Marika Swan caught up with Choctaw singer-songwriter Samantha Crain mid-tour to talk about the art of packing, what it takes to keep healthy on the road and what's changed for her in the six years since she started this job.

I interviewed Samantha Crain a few weeks ago as she was just setting off on her spring tour - by now she's all finished up and back home. Her Choctaw father introduced her to the guitar and at the age of 25, she has been touring for the last 6 years. So since she was 19 years old she has toured for at least 6 months of the year and sprinkled the other half with one-offs, festivals and mini-tours. I managed to catch this busy veteran after she finished doing a spot on a local radio show:

Marika Swan: How did your interview on the radio go?

Samantha Crain: It’s one of those things about interviews because everyone wants me to tell them how exciting my life is. But it’s just as normal as anybody else who has a 9-5 job. Well not just like it because it is very different but it's not overly exciting. I am doing what I like to do which is traveling but also I’ve gotten used to it. It’s the routine that I get into.  Driving to the city that I am going to play at, do whatever radio stuff or interviews that we do. And then we play the show and then we talk to people after the show. Then you go to sleep then you wake up and you do it again. It's not like a road trip. It can be if you want it to be. Which sometimes we want it to be. But sometimes it's exhausting to do that. This time around, we are all mellowed out a little and just want it to be a business trip. As you get older in life you need some routine in your life or you kinda go nuts. And that’s where I am at right now. We are going to cities we are really familiar with. We know where we like to go and people that we’re going to see. Its really enjoyable and satisfying because you are working for a paycheck and you want to be working for it.

MS: Probably the way you feel about it all now is very different than when you were 19.

SC: Oh yeah definitely. I mean also when we go to new places I get a lot of the excitement that I felt when I was first starting. When I go to Europe now and do shows I am very excited to see the cities. Anywhere in the States though is pretty much familiar. There are lots of cities that I have played over and over and over. I really love that too though, it's really nice to feel like they are your home away from home since I am not home a lot. I also have different resources available to me now. I wont happily sleep on the floor every night like I used to. Being six years older, you need a mattress under you once and a while. Just to be healthy you need some sort of routine. Get a good sleep, have something good to eat and maybe go jogging every once and a while. It’s just the things that become important to you as you get older. It’s probably that way for anybody who has a job. For me I just need to fit it into a day that’s otherwise pretty strict.

I just try to think of it like instead of me trying to get out of being a part of society this is how I fit into society. I think that everyone is there own cog in this machine that we live in and this is what I do. It's my job and it's because I love traveling and that’s very much a part of me. I love to play music. This is me contributing to society. We all work in our own ways so everything can move together so I don’t like to think of it as me trying to get out of being a normal person.

MS: You must be an expert packer.

SC: I’m actually not good at it. Its one of those things where I wish I had that skill and I feel like I’m getting better at it. When I first started touring the situations that I was traveling in were like we were in a really small vehicle and we could all bring one backpack full of stuff for two months. But I was also 19 years old so two weeks without showering, I didn’t care. Then we started traveling with a trailer so we had more room so I would literally bring everything that I wanted. Two giant suitcases full of stuff and like a bicycle. Just all sorts of books and tapes. And now I am doing more Europe stuff and I have to cut back on what kind of stuff that I can take. I pretty much take a small suitcase for however long I am going to be over there. Now I am trying to relearn the art of packing. You’d think I’d be good at it but I never bring what I need. And I bring everything that I don’t need.

MS: When you get full of doing what you do now, do you have other things that you dream for yourself?

SC: I don’t want to think about it. It would just be worrisome to think about all the things that you’d rather be doing other than what you are doing. It doesn’t seem very healthy. I think that you should focus on what you are doing and then when your path isn’t working out and you need to change the path of your life then you can think about that. Anytime that I feel unhappy it's probably because I am thinking too much on the "grass is always greener" mindset. So it makes it more sense to me to think about what I am doing now and try to focus on that as much as possible.

MS: So you try to live as much as possible in the present?

SC: I try to because I don’t think its something that comes to me very naturally. I think naturally I am a very futuristic thinker and so it’s better for me to kind of live where I am at for my own mental health.

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Here's a lil' video of Samantha Crain's Churchill with Penny Hill, Brian and Laney of O Fidelis and Daniel Foulks, by VDub Sessions who documents Oklahoma musicians on the move.

Indigenous Music For The Holiday Season

We've been keeping our antlers tuned to the moccasin telegraph to bring you this great list of holiday music from some of our favorite Indigenous musicians here on Turtle Island. Enjoy!

First on our list of holiday music is Star Nayea, a pop/blues/rock singer based out of Seattle, Washington. Here she brings us a classic tune first introduced by ElvisPresley called Blue Christmas:

Next, check out Swil Kanim, a Coast Salish violinist, and his version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas:

Métis singer-songwriter Don Amero has released a 7-track Christmas album this year entitled Christmastime. Stream the songs and buy the CD or download at donamero.com/christmastime.

Choctow artist Samantha Crain from Shawnee, Oklahoma, recorder her holiday song Breaking The Ice for Christmas compilation Fowler Volkswagen Presents: A Blackwatch Christmas. Preview her track here, and head to fowlervwchristmas.com to download the entire album for free.

Lastly, we've assembled a festive YouTube playlist of holiday season videos for your Christmas enjoyment!

Track listing:

War Child - Twelve Days of Indian Christmas (Round Dance) Laura Burnouf - Little Drummer Boy (In Woodlands Cree) Jana Mashonee - Silent Night (Sung in Arapaho) Joey Stylez - Snow Angel J Dizzay - You're My Present

To view this playlist in YouTube click this link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL67440DA5AF9FBCD2 

DOWNLOAD: Hillbilly Vegas - "Helluva Night"

The name alone of Cherokee/Choctow band Hillbilly Vegas gives you an idea of what to expect from their music - a southern influenced, rockin' good time.

All long-time musicians, these Oklahoma-based boys got together to make some music for fun. However they quickly found there was an audience for their mix of country rock who were ready to dance all night long, from flatbed trailer gigs to casino shows, from Oklahoma City to Nashville. Their debut album  Ringo Manor is named for the home studio where the band writes and records. They sent us the album to check out and this track is our current favourite.

DOWNLOAD: Hillybilly Vegas - "Helluva Night"