Unfiltered Canada: Full Interview with Shawnee Kish

Last year, our US team announced our newest artist interview series, Unfiltered. Now, we’re excited to introduce this installment for our Canada fam! 🇨🇦 With this video series, we’ll chat with some amazing Symphonic artists and get a closer look at everything they’re working on, personal stories, passion projects and so much more. Read the full interview with Shawnee Kish below…

Unfiltered Canada: Full Interview with Shawnee Kish

Alejandra Marroquin from Symphonic (AM): 

“Your voice is incredibly powerful and soulful. So how do you harness your emotions and personal experiences to bring depth to your music?”

Shawnee Kish (SK):

“I don’t think I have a problem. I’ve never really had a problem harnessing emotions. I feel like they come very naturally and very intensely and they have since I was little. I think it’s just the way it’s an outlet for my emotions. I feel like mostly it’s using my voice and being on stage and sharing my voice. It’s always just been an outlet for me to feel emotion. I think it’s the safest place to feel emotion for me.

AM: 

“We know that your journey includes struggles with mental health, yet your music carries messages of hope and resilience. So we were wondering, how has your music been a tool for your own healing journey, and what advice would you give to those who may be crippling with similar challenges?”

SK:

“Music has been my best friend since I was little. When I struggled deeply with my mental health and my surroundings and life circumstances and my identity, I felt alone in a world that felt very big and very lonely. And music kind of just yanked me right out from that and said, you have a purpose, you have a meaning, and you can do something that’s important for yourself.

“Your own survival, your own health, your own healing. But even greater than that, I figured out at a young age that my mission statement, my life statement, my goal is to use what I’ve learned through that journey and give that back to someone who also may struggle, especially young people. You know, it’s very hard to be young. But it was for me, I struggled with a lot of things. So to be able to give that back through my music and through my voice is…

That’s what music means. That’s what art means. That’s what art is for.”

AM:

“Following up on that, what advice would you give to aspiring Indigenous artists or LGBTQ plus musicians who want to use their art for social change?”

SK:

“I would say to any young person who is struggling, be Indigenous or a part of the LGBTQ2 plus community is that sometimes I know what it feels like to feel like your hardship was meant to break you. But I have learned that it is the very opposite. Your hardship along with who you are and who you were born to be.

Your life circumstances is meant to make you. It’s meant to guide you and to become who you’re meant to become. So don’t ever let the hardship get in the way because it’s just meant for you to overcome. It’s just meant for you to find, you know, picture the wall to go over it or through it or around it, however you might, whatever speaks to you, but don’t get around the wall. Do not stop. You know, don’t let anybody in this world take away who you are and what you’re supposed to be. I believe that.

Wholeheartedly, I would not be here without that true, authentic passion for that.”

AM:

“Following with this indigenous artist subject, how do you incorporate your cultural heritage and traditions into your music?”

SK:

“I feel like incorporating who I am, it’s not so much as a thought as it’s just, it’s in my blood, it’s in my heart and it’s in my head. It has made up my life experiences for better or for worse, the hardship of being two -spirit, the beauty of being two -spirit. So it’s in my storytelling, it’s in my voice, it’s in my passion, it’s in my emotion. It just exudes…who I am and then portrayed, I think, through my art in every which way I use my voice and I use my storytelling and I use my stage. It just kind of shines through.”

AM:

“Looking ahead, what are your aspirations and goals for your future, like the future of your music career, both creatively and in terms also of impact and advocacy?”

SK:

“In terms of what I hope for my future is I just hope to be 85, 90 years old and look back and say, you know, in my very last days say I did something important. I used who I am and what I struggled with and what my passions are and I made an impact on this world. That left it maybe a little bit easier or better or someone feeling a little less lonely in this world. And that is my hope. And sometimes it’s kind of, I feel like it’s easier said than done because I feel like navigating through that is not that, it’s not straight and narrow, but it’s my mission, it’s my passion. And I hope to be able to, that’s all I want. Where music journey will take me, I don’t know, but I…

It’s what I was meant for. So I’ll continue to grow as an artist and as a person and just hope that I can look back and know that that’s what happened.”

AM:

“By the way, congratulations for your nomination for the Junos Awards. That’s incredible. You deserve it.”

SK:

“It really is incredible. Yeah, I have, I do have a lot of benchmarks I want to meet. I am going to be working on an album and I have hopes it’s my debut album. So I have hopes for that. And as far as, you know, benchmarks and the impact that I hope it leaves, but I’m definitely working on new music. So I’m excited that the EP made that big of an impact and it’s really cool.”

AM:

“We’ve discussed how your music often touches on deep and meaningful topics, but we’re curious, what’s your like your guilty pleasure song or guilty musical, yeah, guilty pleasure musically speaking.”

SK:

“What is the pleasure of music? Oh that’s a good question. This is something I feel like I should have known to think about. Okay. This is what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna like, we’ll hang up the phone and then I’ll think of like five guilty music pleasures that I couldn’t think of on the spot. I don’t know, like I feel like, I’m curious to know what yours is because is there guilty, like I feel like I should be saying like super pop, like something super pop, but that’s music too. So I feel like there’s no shame in the music game. It is what it is and like.

You know, it would be weird if I was like listening to cartoon jams. I feel like that would be weird, but that doesn’t happen. So I don’t know what’s a guilty place for music. I’m not sure.”

AM:

“Yeah, I agree with you. I’m not ashamed of anything I listen to. I listen to a lot of Disney Channel music and that could be weird but…”

SK:

“Okay yeah, yeah, yeah. That is not weird. Disney music is the best kind of music and plus I have, she’ll be three soon, a goddaughter, and we jam out to like the best Disney songs ever and it’s the best vocal performances so there’s no shame in the Disney game. Oh my god, Gold’s singing a Disney song so I would not dream of that. I’m with you, we can party together. Disney songs all the way.”

AM:

“A lot of people have guilty pleasures in music. I don’t really, I can listen to anything and it just won’t make me ashamed.”

SK:

“No, and I’m also into different cultures too. I love listening to music that I wouldn’t normally, we wouldn’t normally, there’s no, I feel like I’m not aware of different cultural stations. You don’t really, I find in Canada I get introduced to them a whole lot. So, you know, like Spanish and just really cool eclectic different cultures of music and what they represent and the instruments that they use and how they use their voice differently. I find that very fascinating.”

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Listen to Shawnee Kish on Spotify…