We recently connected with Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm and have shared our conversation below.
Kaeley, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
My first full-length album “The Canary Collective: Vol 1” was a meaningful project to me, as was the opportunity I got to realize a dream of having Bob Boilen, head of NPR music, nod towards me by featuring my Tiny Desk Contest video submission on the All Songs Considered blog at the beginning of the pandemic, but I still feel like my most poignant thing I’ve been a part of so far has been the “Believe Her” music video. We put out the call and received scores of photos of survivors of medical and sexual abuse holding signs that said “Believe Me” so that the “collective” of people out there who’ve been disbelieved in doctor’s offices, courtrooms, and beyond could be featured as a part of the music video for my song I’d written about the topic.
Kaeley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
It is my goal to be thought of as a sort of “musical Erin Brockovich.” You know, the badass woman who was played by Julia Roberts in the movie about the environmental activist who helped connect the dots and advocate for Californians who’d gotten sick from a utilities company covering up the fact that they’d poisoned a town’s water system. I can only dream of being one percent as cool and brave as the real Erin Brockovich, but a girl can dream. I am a songwriter and community organizer and I perform and release music, host a podcast, and organize events under the artist name “KPH & The Canary Collective.” I call my genre of music “people power indie folk,” and I play piano, baritone ukulele, banjo, and sing.
Why would I choose such a long band name?
Well, it didn’t feel right to perform as just myself. I wanted to allude to not only the roving cast of sick and disabled and/or neurodivergent artists with whom I perform but also the whole world’s collection of other sensitive people for whom the major societal systems aren’t working.
Who’s a canary, you ask?
I’m alluding to the mining practice of bringing a canary into a mine so that, if the toxic fumes were too much for the canaries, that was the signal for the humans to get out of the mine before they keeled over, too.
If you got sick and you can’t afford your medical treatment like me, if you lost a home in a forest fire, if your town’s water got poisoned, if your landlord denied a mold issue in your home despite your whole family developing chronic illness, or if you were assaulted and the “justice” system turned away – I sing for and with you.
I sing for and with the sensitive canaries of the world, because a canary’s song is a warning cry for everyone to get the heck out of toxic mines society tries to tell us are fine and normal.
I am supported by fans on Patreon for my work in the world and I also have been enjoying creating virtual sound healing experiences on Zoom for anyone who feels like trying it. It’s been a very healing tool for me on my health journey. I also create custom songs for people’s birthdays, anniversaries, births, and funerals, and that’s been incredibly rewarding way to work with my intuition to help people mark and emotionally move through important life transitions.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was working as an environmental lobbyist in Washington, D.C. when I was 25 and I fell ill with some mysterious symptoms that just wouldn’t go away despite my many attempts at getting help from doctors. I went from marching around the senator’s offices in a business suit to needing help traveling from my bed to my bathroom. I learned the lesson real hard real fast that one must be sustainable with their energy expenditures in their bodies, and everything within our bodies are connected as ecosystems, just as Earth’s parts are. I found out I had some under-treated infections that the healthcare system had missed, and I developed immune system complications like “Environmental Illness,” “ME/CFS” and endometriosis. I found out it takes the 1 in 7 people with endometriosis in the world an average of 10 years to get properly diagnosed let alone treated for the complicated inflammatory reproductive disorder which affects all systems of the body and can leave people bedridden. Unable to work a desk job, life’s twists and turns nudged me to focus on making music and trying to make a change from bed. I then discovered there were so, so many others with a similar story like mine, and I teamed up with lots of kindred spirits with chronic illness to make music and art to share our stories as a warning cry of some of the less understood effects of climate and ecosystem disruption.
I released an EP “Hi From Pillows” in 2017 with Local Woman Records and dreamed up and co-organized “#BedFest 2017,” a virtual music and arts festival in which hundreds of other bedridden artists from around the world submitted songs and visual art expressing the pain of struggling to afford medical treatment and performed via international video conference.
My friends and I also co-founded and helped organize a series called “Sick Womxn and Queers Shows” in the Pacific Northwest in which music, poetry, and interactive educational skits were used to demonstrate the importance of humans doing something to make healthcare, housing, and clean air and water more affordable and accessible to all.
With my last grant-funded full-length album “The Canary Collective: Vol 1,” I collaborated with more “canaries” to make a Joni Mitchell and Sufjan Stevens-inspired set of symphonic anthems sharing my story of connecting with other chronically ill and disabled artists.
I released another album in August 2020 titled “The 5 & 3” which features more of the symphonic sound and includes violin by world-renowned violinist Kerenza Peacock. KPH & The Canary Collective has shared the stage with some of our biggest influences and heroes such as Mutual Benefit, Rainbow Girls, Buck Meek (Big Thief), Twain, Y La Bamba, Lucy Dacus, Kyle Morton (Typhoon), Mirah, Tomo Nakayama, and Julianna Barwick.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Learning through the school of hard knocks medical mysteries, I have had to get creative in how I define “success as a creative.” How will I know if I’ve “made it” in the music industry? My old definition of “making it” as a musician might have involved headlining South by Southwest music festival, but now I would be so happy if I could do a backyard house show tour with 15 kindred spirits in the audience lounging in hammocks, singing along to lyrics that I wrote that helped them get through a hospitalization or a recovery period from trauma. That would be a fulfilling dream.
Since the pandemic has called for even more hermitting and keeping safe away from airborne viruses and thus away from big crowds, and while I’ve still be going through medical treatment for the endometriosis complications, I’ve been enjoying moving more towards composing for film and TV and creating virtual sound healing experiences and custom songs for folks online. And, course, I’m still releasing albums and doing outdoor smaller performances.
I received another 2 grants from King County 4Culture to arrange and perform some songs I wrote around the theme of “A Canary Orca-stra: Songs of Land and Sea.” Last year, we had a Zoom concert and fundraised for an Indigenous-led organization, Se’Si’Le, which is calling for honoring of treaty rights and restoration of salmon and orca populations through the safe removal of the Snake River dams. In 2024, a further grant will help me realize my dream of playing in person in a more accessible outdoor venue so that more sick and disabled audience members can enjoy live music again.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.canarycollective.org/music.html
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kphcanarycollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kphmusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmHQaCukm0OMExjU2T1nJJg
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/kph
Image Credits
Doug Indrick, Chelsea Rose, Hannah Hamavid, Kayla Childs