Red Rock Indian Band artist holds pre-release party for new song
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Red Rock Indian Band’s Sara Kae held a pre-release party for her latest song, Do You Think of Me, on Sept. 12 at the Paramount Theatre in Thunder Bay.
“It was so fun and I think the best part was seeing all my friends play beforehand,” Kae says. “They’re so talented, and some people had been playing for the first time as a band and that was a really special moment.”
The group of musicians included Cassidy Houston, Fae Alexander, Carly Martin, and Morningstar Derosier.
“For me, it was just watching my friends shine and share their stories,” Kae says.
Kae had earlier worked with Shayne Ehman, Zoe Gordon, and Wyeth McCormick to shoot parts of a music video for the song at Chapman’s Gas Bar in Fort William First Nation.
“We’ve been working on some side projects for release coming up, and we kind of have a little element of Chapman’s Gas Bar that makes an appearance, so that was really fun to do,” Kae says. “And I had my friend Kai Davey-Bellin being one of the actors in the music video. I wanted to do something local, a place that I love, and I feel like I’m always at Chapman’s every other day getting gas, seeing the family over there. They’re so lovely, so I like supporting that business.”
Kae released Do You Think of Me on Sept. 19.
“This song was recorded when I was in Toronto,” Kae says, noting that she did a month-long residency with CBC and SOCAN in July. “This song was a product of that residency.”
Kae says her song is about a relationship that had gone sour.
“My music right now has been going really awesome,” Kae says. “I’ve just been working on making a bunch of my social media content and creating music that I feel passionate about, and having a lot more of a country vibe to it and keeping those pop elements. I feel like right now, I’m really honed into my sound, and I feel like I’m starting to collaborate with really cool people who are bringing that out even more.”
Kae says she also met James Bryan McCollum from Prozzäk while she was doing the residency in Toronto and ended up writing a song with him that they performed at the Wake the Giant Music Festival on Sept. 6 in Thunder Bay.
“It was something fun that we did, a very cool moment,” Kae says. “It was cool to be able to share that unreleased track that I did with James that we’re hoping to work on in the near future.”
Kae says she worked with producer Hill Kourkoutis on the Do You Think of Me song.
“She’s a Juno Award-winning producer and she worked on my track,” Kae says. “So I’m really honoured to have her as part of this project.”
Kae says she is currently planning a move to Toronto.
“I’m just in the process of a big change in my life and I’m just going to keep focusing on creating music that I feel good about and hopefully performing more,” Kae says. “I love Thunder Bay and it’s a great community and it’s helped me so much over the last four years here, but I’m ready to kind of grow a bit more, so I’m going back to the city.”
Information and recordings of Kae’s music are posted online: sarakae.com.