(Ash playing guitar) - I feel very passionately about my music.

I feel very invested in every single utterance that's been made from my guitar or from my voice.

My name is Ash Nataanii, and I am a Indigenous woman.

I am Diné, and I am also part Oneida, as well as Sisseton Sioux and Blackfoot.

The closer that I've come to realizing my sense of self, the more that I've realized that music is inherent to what I am.

- Ash knows how to work a crowd, that's for sure.

I think that's one of Ash's mystical powers, creating atmosphere.

- You know, I've been doing this since I was probably 16 years old.

I started in church arranging worship bands, and so, I mean, from 16 'til now I've been doing that work and that's my skillset, that's my job, that's what I do.

- She is very, very serious about what she does, and it's nice to see this, like, obsessive nature of hers, like, be channeled into something so beautiful.

- I do think that everybody should listen to her music.

I do think that that is a stipulation for having a good life on earth.

- Writing about your life is so pure and it's so real.

I think I try really hard to write about my life all the time and to be constantly transparent, but also, in a way, where I usually will revisit it and also try and make the words expand to be relevant to everyone.

A lot of times I'll end up with a song, and then at the end of it I will just go through and read it over and over and over again, because I didn't realize what I was writing, and it just kinda spilled out.

At some point the stories are just beautiful.

At some point the stories are just hard, and they all want to be sad.

"Everything Must Go" is a probably close to, probably like a 10-year-old song.

I was having a really difficult time finding my place, honestly.

So I was just listening back to some of my old stuff, 'cause I often do that to take inspiration from like, you know, to just revisit older mindsets, and so I took all the feelings that I had processed from that time and wrote a song about it, which was essentially that I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I ran away.

That song was kinda prophetic in and of its own right, because, you know, it was always called "Everything Must Go."

Well, what ended up happening was that I'd left Browning and I took nothing with me, except for my music equipment.

(Ash playing guitar) (electronic note echoes) ♪ I spent fifty cents in a discount bin ♪ ♪ Nurturing all the trouble I'm in ♪ ♪ We're somewhere along the line ♪ ♪ The cost is double every problem solved ♪ ♪ I pressed repeat but the decade's gone ♪ ♪ And Morrisey is a lie ♪ ♪ I spent 30 years at a discount rate ♪ ♪ Strangled songs as you abdicate ♪ ♪ It's lonely at the top ♪ ♪ And, Jesus Christ, for every lie ♪ ♪ We packaged in between our thighs ♪ ♪ You think I'd learn how to have a good time ♪ ♪ Oh, pleas?, please, pleas?

♪ ♪ Pleas?, please, pleas?

♪ ♪ Give us money ♪ ♪ Give us money ♪ ♪ Oh, please, please, please ♪ ♪ Please, please, please ♪ ♪ Give me honey, oh ♪ ♪ Give me honey, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, please, please fuck off ♪ ♪ Oh, please, please fuck off ♪ ♪ And bury me with it ♪ ♪ And bury me with it ♪ ♪ Stuttering and stuck ♪ ♪ Stuttering and stuck ♪ ♪ Reveling car crash praise ♪ ♪ Reveling car crash praise ♪ ♪ You're only sleeping better ♪ ♪ Only sleeping better ♪ ♪ When you catch the blame ♪ ♪ When you catch the blame ♪ ♪ It's always by the blood ♪ ♪ So songs forever bleed ♪ ♪ I kissed a lamb of god ♪ ♪ I kissed a lamb of god ♪ ♪ Knowing hindsight is a thief ♪ ♪ Knowing hindsight is a thief ♪ ♪ You suckle every crush ♪ ♪ Til your pockets fall asleep ♪ ♪ Pockets fall asleep ♪ ♪ Don't leave me ♪ ♪ Don't leave me ♪ ♪ Singing all alone ♪ ♪ Singing all alone ♪ ♪ Please, please, please ♪ ♪ Please, please, please ♪ ♪ Give me honey ♪ ♪ Give me honey ♪ ♪ Oh, please, please, please ♪ ♪ Please, please, please ♪ ♪ Give me sunny, oh ♪ ♪ Give me sunny, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, please, please, please ♪ ♪ Please, please, please ♪ ♪ Give us money ♪ ♪ Give us money ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please, oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please, oh, please ♪ ♪ Oh, please ♪ (Ash plays electric guitar solo) - Go, go!

(Ash plays guitar) There's this memory that I have where I'm driving down the road with my mom and I'm about five years old, and she asks me what I want to be when I grow up, and me, not knowing the difference between like, I said, I was like, "I want to be a magician," and she's like, "A magician?"

And I was like, "Yeah, they have like a stick and they play music," and she's like, "Oh, a musician."

She's like, "Ah, I see."

I like to kinda dream that you can perform a magic trick even when no one's there.

How much can I put into my music so that if no one was around, it would still do something?

Great Falls is a weird place.

(Ash laughs) I have a complicated feeling towards that place, because, in some ways, it does feel like a hometown, moreso than anywhere else that I've lived.

It was the first place that I felt accepted.

Up until that point I had suffered a lot of racism and really harsh treatment while we were living in Bismarck, North Dakota while I was growing up.

And so, when we moved to Great Falls, that happened a lot less.

It didn't stop happening, but it happened much less than it did before.

I remember my first bands.

That's always gonna be the sweetest memories Like, you know, I wanted a group of friends and I wanted to play music.

And so, when I was finally able to start doing that, it was life changing.

I grew up in church services that were revival worship services, so like, ecstatic experiences all over the place just via music.

Like, I remember just, like, my dad would start preaching, he'd start winding everyone up, and he'd be yelling, and crying, and he'd be impassioned and saying all these things, and the, you know, people would start playing in back behind him, and eventually, before you know it, it's just like, it just bubbles up and it buoys and then it blows up.

And there was this feeling, you don't know what it is until you experience it.

All I knew was that it was really important, that it was something that I needed.

Being a pastor's kid is really hard.

It's such a unique perspective to have.

I mean, I was basically groomed for being a pastor for a really long time, and began to eventually believe that that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

I'd say the aspects of what's obviously bad about religion is the repressive tactics, but there's a lot of great aspects to it too.

And I think that that's what becomes so complicated is that even though it was my biggest wound in life, it was also sometimes my greatest joy, and someplace that's always gonna sound very worshipful in my music is because I spent a lot of time worshiping and crying and, you know, being joyful in places of ecstatic experience when I was younger.

And that will always be somewhere there.

♪ Solace and victor ♪ ♪ Solace and victor ♪ ♪ Fighting for life ♪ ♪ Fighting for life ♪ - When I moved to Missoula, I was, I moved here during a special time is what it felt like.

There were a lot of really cool bands that would just pop through.

I had an opportunity with, like, my band, FUULS, to like, open for both Frankie Cosmos and Porches during the same show.

You know, that's like, how?

(laughs) It's really cool, but out in Missoula, you know, that was an option, and so I stuck it out here, 'cause I was like, yeah, there's so many just, like, random things that pop up, so I've kinda just stuck around and nurtured that as much as I can, and believed that music can make a difference here, so.

- Ash is super compassionate, super supportive.

I mean, when we first started playing music together, my chops were not up to par.

I probably wouldn't be playing music right now if I didn't play music with Ash, honestly.

♪ Like a burning bridge over holy water ♪ ♪ I will lay me down ♪ - Missoula has, like, an excellent community in so many senses.

There's so much support now.

It feels great to be in a place where there is kind of a mutual understanding as far as art and music is concerned.

- Have always loved singing with Ash.

It's like, top 10 best feelings on the planet.

(Ash and Charlie giggle) - Love that song.

- Me too.

I had to overcome so much in order to be out, you know, I had to overcome so much in order to be, like, proud of my Indigeneity.

You know, I grew up in the Northwest and in the Midwest, and there's so much suppression of who you are.

I think that every single time that I've had to, like, break off a limb, as much as it hurt, only allowed for something to grow back better.

There's nothing better than being able to scream about it on stage, and say like, you know, "This is who I am, and this is where I come from, and it's never going away."

You know, like, that assertion of autonomy is so vital for everyone.

It's not just my thing.

It's necessary for everyone to be able to say that in their life at one point.

That this is who I am and it will never change.

Like, this is the best part of me.

- "You Look Like Elliot" is my favorite on the album, actually, and it's been my favorite for a really long time, like, since she first wrote it.

I just think it has such a amazing attitude of it, of just playfulness while saying something very serious and very poignant and important.

- The initial inspiration for "You Look Like Elliot" was, I was in a bar, I was in The Badlander way late one night and I was there for karaoke, and someone, this younger guy came up to me, and he grabs my shoulder and he spins me around, and he's just like, "Oh."

Like, just like, he turned me around basically to look me in the eye and look disappointed.

He's like, "I thought you were Elliot Smith."

And he kinda slumped his shoulders and turned around and walked away.

Which is really bizarre, because, first off, like, I'm an Indigenous trans woman and not a white man from Nebraska.

So it was like, just this very really strange feeling.

There's just like a very bizarre experience of feeling erased, right?

Like, already as an Indigenous person.

So to have your music, which you know is very unique and sounds like you, be compared to someone else, like, there's, you know, there's a gentle irritation to it.

So I was venting my frustration about that, and was venting my frustration about how there's pressure to maintain kind of, like, white standards in music, and how it's impossible to get paid.

(Ash laughs) The lyrics speak for themselves in that song.

(drumsticks clicking) (high-pitched electric guitar octave plays) (upbeat rock music) ♪ A dirty sieve ♪ ♪ A dirty sieve ♪ ♪ With a glassy-eyed past ♪ ♪ With a glassy-eyed past ♪ ♪ Licks the wound ♪ ♪ Licks the wound ♪ ♪ Through the strain ♪ ♪ Through the strain ♪ ♪ Of a cigarette ♪ ♪ Of a cigarette ♪ ♪ Smoke bomb brain ♪ ♪ Smoke bomb brain ♪ ♪ My Sissy's out back ♪ ♪ My Sissy's out back ♪ ♪ Choking Jack Kerouac ♪ ♪ Choking Jack Kerouac ♪ ♪ In a vision ♪ ♪ In a vision ♪ ♪ That I couldn't recall ♪ ♪ That I couldn't recall ♪ ♪ Til today ♪ ♪ Til today ♪ ♪ He was half past prime ♪ ♪ Put his nickel on a dime ♪ ♪ But she bit, grabbed, fire walked ♪ ♪ Ripping out his pages ♪ ♪ And dreaming naked on the witness stand ♪ ♪ I said, "I'm never gonna imitate a white man's hands."

♪ ♪ And in my panoramic ♪ ♪ And in my panoramic ♪ ♪ Esoteric orphan toil ♪ ♪ Esoteric orphan toil ♪ ♪ I started spittin' ♪ ♪ I started spittin' ♪ ♪ Up the ethers ♪ ♪ Up the ethers ♪ ♪ In suicide joy ♪ ♪ In suicide joy ♪ ♪ Like I was burning up ♪ ♪ Like I was burning up ♪ ♪ In Cassadagan midnight oil ♪ ♪ In Cassadagan midnight oil ♪ ♪ Like I'm the incarnation ♪ ♪ Like I'm the incarnation ♪ ♪ Blooming out of Delacroix ♪ ♪ Blooming out of Delacroix ♪ ♪ When Connor sang it, man ♪ ♪ Yeah, I felt that hit ♪ ♪ But why does everybody gotta sound like Elliot Smith?

♪ ♪ It's like a lightning strike ♪ ♪ It's like a lightning strike ♪ ♪ In the body ♪ ♪ In the body ♪ ♪ You're like some error ♪ ♪ Started banging round my trash can ♪ ♪ Five dollar words ♪ ♪ Five dollar words ♪ ♪ For cheap booze ♪ ♪ For cheap booze ♪ ♪ In the poppies ♪ ♪ In the poppies ♪ ♪ I felt terror in the mirror ♪ ♪ Of a white man telling me ♪ ♪ To choke it down ♪ ♪ Choke it down ♪ ♪ Like a karmic toilet bowl ♪ ♪ 9 to 5 and you're in line ♪ ♪ To choke it down ♪ ♪ Choke it down ♪ ♪ Til you struggle like you're told ♪ ♪ Coffee's black and cigarettes ♪ ♪ But the sugar's burnt ♪ ♪ But the sugar's burnt ♪ ♪ That the wallet we foretold ♪ ♪ Money stacks and torture racks ♪ ♪ It's the way we try ♪ ♪ It's the way we try ♪ ♪ To get on up out the cold ♪ ♪ To get on up out the cold ♪ ♪ But every stream is bought ♪ ♪ But every stream is bought ♪ ♪ To keep me poor ♪ ♪ To keep me poor ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ I gotta pay my rent ♪ ♪ That's just the way it goes ♪ ♪ Hey, Charlie, is that the way it goes ♪ ♪ That's just the way it goes ♪ ♪ Well, that's just the way it goes ♪ ♪ That's just the way it goes ♪ (Ash plays distorted electric guitar solo) (electric guitar wails) - I have two identical twin boys named Joel and Simon.

If you're not good to yourself, you won't be good to your children.

And I think that that's really, honestly, very telling, because our children are who we are.

They're how we live on.

And even as an Indigenous parent, and I also understand that from a different lens, because I carry my parents, and I carry my grandparents, and I carry those who came before me, and, you know, and then I get to pass on my language, and my feeling, and my memories into my children, and have this kind of inheritance go all the way down.

Healing looks different for everyone.

And one of the aspects that I love about healing is that it can be very bleak at times.

I mean, you have to acknowledge that you're in a place of needing to heal before you can ever really heal.

I think one of the worst things about this reality right now is that we're encouraged to kinda get over it and just, you know, be like, oh, you're making too much noise, just pipe down or whatever.

And we're encouraged to just, like, be functional, instead of actually acknowledging what hurt us.

And I think that when we go to places of what was hurting, what we end up finding is that it hurts a lot more than we think.

And so, to be able to kinda dig through the bone, somewhat, and get into the nitty gritty is pretty heavy work.

So I like to be able to facilitate that sometimes.

I like to be able to have my music be a conversation that other people feel like they can be a part of.

- Ash has a very special ability to take this very, like, raw, tender, like, sort of formless emotional material, and weave more of a story out of it where there's, like, meaning in the experience of the pain and transformation.

- "MAB" was specifically in reference to Queen Mab and about how our dreams are what kind of mother us through the moment, and mother us through our trauma, in specific.

Trauma is a very universal thing to experience.

Everyone has it, whether they acknowledge it or not.

And we often imagine things better than they were in order to get through.

And so, I was thinking about some of the thoughts that I kinda told myself when I was younger.

You know, some dreams are helpful for the moment, but they end up hurting us later on, because we don't know how to let go of them.

At some point we have to trade in the dream for what actually happened.

And so, there was this kind of, like, frustration that I had where I was like, "Oh, well things are not as rosy or beautiful as they were."

But in letting go of that dream, I also let go of the nurturing that it gave me.

It's more than just a liberal sentiment to say, like, you know, "Things can get better."

The only way they can get better is by acknowledging that things have been bad for us, individually, and acknowledging the parts of our personality and our behavior that are not great, and indulging the grief, to some degree, and visiting the darker places and starting that journey.

There's no other way.

(upbeat rock music plays) ♪ Honeycomb ♪ ♪ Bus ride home, there was a pony on a race track ♪ ♪ Honey, I was true ♪ ♪ As the bee stings do ♪ ♪ There was no one there to walk me back ♪ ♪ I run straight out the door ♪ ♪ 'Cause the bullies poured out ♪ ♪ Shrieking, "Little white girl" ♪ ♪ I ran past the fear ♪ ♪ Tasting those tears ♪ ♪ And flying faster than the rocks hurled ♪ ♪ We're bruised from all the care ♪ ♪ The laundry weeps with my brother 'neath the stair ♪ ♪ Soaking curses in my prayers ♪ ♪ Coyote laughs and dyes my mother's hair ♪ ♪ Da da da da da da da ♪ (Ash plays electric guitar solo) ♪ Black video tape magically erased ♪ ♪ She said at least we know we've got gays ♪ ♪ But the boy in apartment three ♪ ♪ Would kiss my grief ♪ ♪ To never listen anyway ♪ ♪ And so I roped sugarcane ♪ ♪ At a wire bed frame ♪ ♪ Blanket in a courtyard ♪ ♪ Wearing a dress that yawned your voice ♪ ♪ But skirts rejoice ♪ ♪ And now you love me like it hurts good ♪ ♪ We're bruised from all the care ♪ ♪ The laundry weeps with my brother 'neath the stairs ♪ ♪ Stroking curses in my prayer ♪ ♪ Coyote laughs and dyes my mother's hair ♪ ♪ But he's singing crazy town ♪ ♪ A redemption struggle silent at the mill ♪ ♪ My gift to your size twelve ♪ ♪ Strikes drop dead dreams alight with a dollar bill ♪ ♪ Burn the dollar bill ♪ ♪ Burn the dollar bill ♪ (electric guitars slowly warble) (Ash strums electric guitar) ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Magic trick moonlight ♪ ♪ Sleep just like a coma ♪ ♪ Sleep just like a coma ♪ ♪ Midwives birthing night ♪ ♪ Midwives birthing night ♪ ♪ It's true ♪ ♪ It's true ♪ ♪ I speak of nothing ♪ ♪ I speak of nothing ♪ ♪ It kept us all alive ♪ ♪ It kept us all alive ♪ ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ ♪ Oh, can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Can I call you Mama ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ ♪ Please don't say goodbye ♪ (upbeat rock music)