Why is it important for you, as an artist, to support climate action? 

“For me, climate change and indigenous resistance are one and the same. Alongside saving the land, cultural resurgence is an integral aspect of indigenous resistance that I embody in my work. It's all intertwined.” 

How does sustainability factor into your work as an artist? 

“As so much of my work is an ode to the natural world and my connection to it, of course I have to walk the walk as well. If I'm not touring then I'm on a frontline, and when I'm touring I'm using my platform to spread awareness.” 

-Logan Staats 

Logan Staats

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In 2018, veracious Mohawk singer-songwriter Logan Staats was chosen from 10,000 hopeful contestants vying for a spot on musical competition show The Launch. Before an audience of 1.4 million viewers, Staats won, officiating the breakthrough that would lead him to Nashville and Los Angeles, and to his single “The Lucky Ones” winning the Indigenous Music Award for Best Radio Single. “The Lucky Ones” also occupied #1 in Canada.

In the years between now and then, Staats has come home, making the intentional decision to re-root at Six Nations of the Grand River. “I wanted to bring my songwriting back to the medicine inside of music, to the medicine inside of reclamation,” he says following a phase of constant travel and intensity.

To Staats, music is a healing salve, contemplatively composed and offered to listeners in need of comfort. Since returning home, Staats has been able to create music authentically again, reclaiming his sound through honest storytelling and unvarnished, sometimes painful reflection.

An evocative testament to rock’s cathartic spirit, the album was recorded with borrowed microphones at Staats’ apartment, at Six Nations recording studio Jukasa, and at downtown Brantford’s Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts.

“My nation and my community are in every chord I play and every note I sing,” says Staats. “They’ve saved me.”