If Black Belt Eagle Scout’s founder Katherine Paul (she/they) could be doing anything, anywhere right now, she would be at her home in LaConner, Washington tenderly playing the guitar. Instead, Paul, affectionately called KP, is deep into a U.S. tour with her band and a stretch of dates abroad in New Zealand the U.K. are slated for late 2023.
KP, who is a native Coast Salish/Swinomish multi-instrumentalist and producer, is in the middle of a long journey. Black Belt Eagle Scout is exploring the galaxies via planes and the earth by its paths. She took a meaningful shortcut in February 2023 by thoughtfully sharing many of the world’s wonders on the album The Land, The Water, The Sky. KP’s version of life is 46 minutes and 24 seconds long. The record propelled Black Belt Eagle Scout to new heights. Adoring fans familiar with her tunes and new ears alike want to rock out to her music live. KP is grateful for that, but she’s still excited about playing her guitar alone.
“I want to dedicate a lot of time and my energy to connecting to guitar,” KP said. “When I play on stage I’ve been trying to have some more tender moments with my guitar. That gets me excited for when I go home because I’m like ‘I want to learn all these cool things.’”
KP and the band are getting around the world by flying and sometimes buckling up in the occasional rental car. Anyone who’s sweatily been a part of ‘get-in-the-van’ style touring knows a bandmate is bound to break out an instrument and play for hours. It’s easy for some, but KP can’t get her kicks that way.
“My bandmate Nay, they are just ‘in the zone’ with their laptop doing stuff in the back of the van,” KP continued. “I feel like that’s hard for me because I need to have a quiet space with lots of space. I have a lot of pedals. I’ve been wanting to experiment with EarthQuaker Devices, some other cool pedals. I still need to figure out which ones I want to use because I’ve just been experimenting.”
Pedals would only enhance KP’s music. Everyone who’s seen Black Belt Eagle Scout can agree: KP can shred.
At Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago this July, Black Belt Eagle Scout slammed one of the weekend’s thrashiest sets on the small Blue Stage. At least one other set had already been canceled for lightning in Chicago’s Union Park before Black Belt Eagle Scout was scheduled to play. Some people questioned if they would perform. Then, for a brief moment, one chunk of sunshine blasted through the clouds and rips blared from amps in the corner of the festival. People’s heads looked up. Black Belt Eagle Scout was in fact playing.
KP’s crew powered eight total songs from her three records, mostly from The Land, The Water, The Sky, but they even snuck in “My Heart Dreams” from her 2019 full-length At the Party With My Brown Friends. It was a thunderous show. Black Belt Eagle Scout were in a way headliners, for at least the first half of Saturday at the festival. Right after the band exited the stage, the whole crowd was evacuated from Union Park for 90 minutes while severe weather passed through.
“It was exhilarating. It was beautiful. It was meaningful, and it was really f–king fun,” KP recalled. “I’ve wanted to play this festival for a long time. This being the first time I’m playing it and having such an awesome audience and an awesome experience means a lot to me.”
Audiences are good to KP everywhere she goes. Be it her headline shows or perhaps opening dates with Julia Jacklin (whose Pitchfork set was abbreviated by the storm) and Alex G in August, people have similar attitudes about her music.
“Sometimes we play and some people come up to me, especially small shows, and they’re like, ‘never heard of you, I just got a ticket.’ Pitchfork was awesome. And so much fun.”
If KP could be doing anything other than playing her guitar at home right now, she’d probably be in Albuquerque, New Mexico. KP loves immersing herself into native culture, and she thinks New Mexico has plenty of good native music. She should know, she grew up in the native community she recently moved back to in Western Washington, a place she’s called home most of her life.
“There’s kind of a music scene at home, but it’s more so just a place to live,” KP remarked. She’s lived in several places, including Portland, Oregon for 13 years. “I enjoy the music communities while traveling but I think my favorite place to travel is to Albuquerque. There’s a lot of really cool native bands. A lot of really cool, like, native fans are there too which is nice. And so it’s nice to have a native community and also music community.”
KP’s community exists all over the country, she’s found great native bands in urban areas across America.
“I was just remembering hanging out in Minneapolis, It’s a great native scene,” KP said. “We have so much fun there. Some of our good friends that lived there have moved away, but we still have enjoyed it before. New York City too. That’s a place with a pretty huge urban Native population. There’s a lot of really good friends for us in the Bay Area of California too.”
Black Belt Eagle Scout’s first two records were entirely performed without community. KP played the instruments herself on both Mother of My Children and At the Party With My Brown Friends. Sure, some hands volunteered to mix for her, but that’s still impressive. Her approach on The Land, The Water, The Sky was a touch more community-filled.
“I do all the songwriting for the band,” KP admitted. “This last record, I played the guitars, and then I played the drums and the keyboard but my friend Grace, she played the bass. She has a particular playing style that like I wanted to put into these new songs.So then she got together with Nay who is playing bass live in the group on tour, and they got hooked into Grace’s style. So now Nay is playing at a different standard.”
When it comes to KP’s standard–it exists within her guitar.
“Again, I’ve been thinking about my life as a guitarist lately, and just trying to expand upon that. So hopefully next year, there’ll be some more guitar stuff from me. Maybe not, maybe after.
KP is Black Belt Eagle Scout alone but Black Belt Eagle Scout is not just KP herself. It seems the act is the community she started by herself. A community worth taking across the country, across the pond, and then home again, so she can be in an open space with pedals and play her guitar tenderly.
“Definitely can’t wait to play my guitar tenderly,” KP said. “It’s what I’m most excited about. Can’t you tell?”
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