Q&A: Singer-Songwriter Sierra Spirit Invokes a Raw Lens with Her Debut EP ‘coin toss’
EXPLORING HONEST STRUGGLES AND THE JOYS OF GROWING UP, Native American artist Sierra Spirit champions vulnerability and strength with her twangy indie-rock music. Her debut project coin toss is a 6-track compilation of personal stories from love to loss, With an underlining focus on her own authenticity She pulls from her lived experiences growing up with the red dirt of Oklahoma, the home of both her tribes — Otoe-Missouria and Keetoowah Cherokee.
While Spirit may be new to the music scene — her first song “ghost” released just this year — her ability to captivate an audience with her intentional lyrics and comforting, guitar-driven soundscapes shines through. It was this track that gained attention from labels and quickly led to her signing to Giant Music, bringing her vision of releasing her first EP to life along with the invaluable support from her personal community.
Inspired by Phoebe Bridgers’ vulnerability and storytelling in her own work, Sierra Spirit aims to not hold back on expression with tracks like “bleed,” which explores personal relationship flaws and insecurities.
Read below as the singer-songwriter opens up about the process of discovering her own sound beside industry collaborators, the reminders that keep her trudging on her music path, and what album pushed her to finally learn guitar.
Credit: Pierce Pyrzenski
LUNA: Your debut EP just dropped, how are you feeling?
SPIRIT: It’s crazy. We started working on this over a year ago and it feels good that it’s finally finalized and ready — it’s been changing up until 2 months ago. I feel like I’ve been sitting on the music for a long time.
LUNA: What has the process of discovering your own sound been like?
SPIRIT: I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of sessions with some really talented producers and writers. As someone who just started making music recently, it’s cool to have all this time to work with other people as well as on my own and see what parts of me really stick through.
LUNA: Can you walk us through the writing to production process of coin toss? Did you go into it knowing you were making a project or did it kind of just come together?
SPIRIT: The goal was to make an EP. We started with 4 songs and it ended up being 6 — I thought I was going to have trouble even writing those 4 songs but I came out of sessions with 15-20 scratches. Even when I thought it was finished, it wasn’t. I’m really glad, because some of the songs that are on the EP now that weren’t on it initially really bring the project together.
LUNA: How do you know when a song is finished? Is it a gut feeling?
SPIRIT: Playing it for people who I know are going to be honest with me to tell me if it feels done. It’s cool to be able to share little pieces of this along the way with friends and family. They played a bigger part in the process than I think they realized.
LUNA: What’s the ideal setting for someone to fully digest coin toss?
SPIRIT: One thing that I’ve always really liked doing is, when I have an artist that I really love and they come out with a new project, I’ll save it for the perfect setting. My favorite way of falling in love with music growing up in the country in Oklahoma was to drive at night with the windows down. It’s such a good, visceral environment. It’s the place I listen the best so maybe a car ride.
LUNA: What song on the project are you most proud of?
SPIRIT: “i’ll be waiting (pug)” is probably my favorite. It’s dedicated to my grandmother and “pug” was the nickname given to her by our family. I would not be as connected to my indigenous culture as I am without her. She also taught me to be a storyteller. My parents were working really hard when I was young, and I was grateful my grandma was there to help and raise me in the culture.
LUNA: Do you ever write a song that you really love, but you feel like it’s too personal to share? How do you navigate that?
SPIRIT: When I feel like something is holding me back from releasing something really vulnerable, I’ll kind of just sit back and think of all the times I needed to hear a certain song that was probably hard for someone else to release. It’s easy as an artist to become selfish, in a way, with your work — you’re curating things down to the bone. But just because this is hard for me, there’s probably someone that genuinely needs to hear it. Getting over my own hump of being worried about being vulnerable puts everything into perspective.
LUNA: Is there a piece of advice you’ve received that has stuck with you as you expand your career as a singer-songwriter?
SPIRIT: I signed to Giant Music earlier this year and I was the first signing under the new president. Something he said the first time I met himthat stuck with me is “the next 24 months of your life are going to affect the next 24 years.” Any hard moment, when I'm feeling burnt out or homesick, I just think of that — it truly is an investment in my career. I needed to hear that. It pushed me to write some of my favorite songs.
Sierra Spirt and Sterlin Harjo
LUNA: Besides creating music, do you have any other interests or hobbies that you’ve incorporated into your artistry?
SPIRIT: I went to school for graphic design so I’ve designed all of my own merch, my logo, branding — typography stuff. It’s really cool that what I saw myself doing for the rest of my life is still, in a way, a huge part of what I’m doing now. I’m happy that I took that journey, because now I have a little bit of both. It can be hard sometimes to describe exactly what you want to another artist, so it’s special that I can take exactly what I see in my head and put it onto a screen.
LUNA: What was the turning point where you decided you wanted to pursue a career in music?
SPIRIT: This first project was more for the experience of doing it. I had planned out the next year to pursue it independently and all of a sudden I put my first track out earlier this year and within a couple weeks I had some interest from labels and was signed very quickly after. I feel very blessed and grateful. It’s something I’ve always wanted but — and it’s kind of a common experience for people of color — I didn’t grow up seeing a lot of native people doing what I wanted to do. There were no indigenous artists on the radio or in movies. A career in music didn’t seem like something that was reachable.
But for the first time in a long time, being indigenous is no longer a setback — it’s an advantage for me. It’s something that makes me unique, and it’s a part of the reason people want to hear the stories I’m telling. Even a generation ago when my dad was growing up, it was very different. And the generation before that, residential schools were in place basically to assimilate indigenous people into American culture. It was really cool to have people rally around me and believe in me. I hate that that’s what it took for me to finally do it ,but it was also really affirming to have the people that I wanted to hear my music the most actually be proud of me and believe in what I’m trying to say.
LUNA: Who’s a dream collaborator you’d want to work with in the future?
SPIRIT: My end-all be-all is Phoebe Bridgers. I learned how to play guitar through playing Stranger in the Alps over and over. I remember falling in love with that album during the beginning of my time in college. I was sitting in my car in the dark, it was raining, and I listened to it for the first time all the way through. It all kind of fell into place. I was like, “this feeling I’m feeling right now is what I want to carry into my own music.”
I wanted something that I loved enough, that I wanted to understand in a different way, to push me through the hump of frustration of learning guitar. I’m left-handed and I learned to play right so I could go anywhere and just pick up a guitar and play. She’s a huge reason that I write and the main reason I play an instrument. Somebody who writes so honestly, with so much intention and passion is such a huge draw for me, and I aspire to be that type of artist. It would be cool to have the chance to be in the same room as someone who had that big of an impact on me.
LUNA: What else can we expect from Sierra Spirit in the future?
SPIRIT: As much as I love doing all the recording, I’m super excited to start playing more live shows. I’m celebrating my release of the project in my hometown: Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have another show in LA on October 17th. Those will be the first times I’m playing the EP front to back. I’m falling in love with it in a whole different way.
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