Like many singer-songwriters, Katherine Paul pours out her heart and wrestles with personal issues in her songs. But the 29-year-old resident of Portland, Ore. — who will perform at Davenport’s Village Theatre Saturday, Sept. 22 — isn’t like most singer-songwriters.
Performing under the name Black Belt Eagle Scout, she’s an indigenous queer musician whose debut album, “Mother of My Children,” is about “grief and love for people, but also about being a native person in what is the United States today.”
“I grew up around indigenous music. We’re from an Indian community, so I’d dance at powwows. My family has a drum group,” Paul said in a recent interview. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a musician, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I didn’t think I wanted to do this for a career until recently. It’s been a passion of mine. ... I’m trying to be dedicated to that — that’s a huge thing to want to do.”
People are also reading…
She took classes in anthropology, sociology, gender studies and French at Lewis & Clark College, a private liberal-arts school in Portland.
“I studied people — I’ve always been interested in cultures,” Paul said. “Growing up on an Indian reservation, it’s a natural thing to be inquisitive about other people’s cultures.
“All my music is about my identity, growing up in a traditional and cultural way. That definitely finds its way into my songs, just in how I view the world, but I also try and play to inspire young native youths,” she said.
Paul taught herself how to play guitar and drums as a teenager, and in 2007, she moved to Portland. She got involved with the Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls, eventually diving into the city’s music scene by playing guitar and drums in bands.
She wrote songs for her first album the fall of 2016 “after two pretty big losses in my life,” she said. “My mentor, Geneviève Castree, had just died from pancreatic cancer, and the relationship I had with the first woman I loved had drastically lessened and changed.” Heartbroken, Paul found respite from the weight of such loss in creating songs.
“I don’t play music to write songs,” she said. “I play music to process feelings, and sometimes what comes out of that is a song.”
“Depending where I am in my life — be it happy or sad — I feel a certain way, and whatever I’m going through, feeling, that comes out in my playing,” Paul said. “This record in particular, there’s lot of grief, a lot of love, a lot of anger sometimes. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in the world.”
Her stage name came from a friend, and reflects her aspiration to be great.
“We were playing in a band, and after that band disbanded, I asked if I could use that name,” Paul said. “Black Belt Eagle Scout has come to mean ‘trying to be the best person you can be.’ Those two things are the highest roles you can be.
“For me, it’s finding your creative self, and finding who you are as a musician, to bring that out in the best possible ways you can.”
Saturday’s gig at the Village Theatre, 2113 E. 11th St., in the Village of East Davenport, also will features Saintseneca.
Admission is $12. For more information, visit http://blackbelteaglescout.com.
“Depending where I am in my life -- be it happy or sad -- I feel a certain way, and whatever I'm going through, feeling, that comes out in my playing. This record in particular, there's lot of grief, a lot of love, a lot of anger sometimes. I'm trying to figure out what's going on in the world.” -- Katherine Paul