Veteran folk musician David Huckfelt delves deep into power of poetry, collaboration and activism with Local Show host Diane. Catch him Saturdays in June performing alongside a diverse cast of artists at Icehouse.

What do you have in store for your June Icehouse residency? 

Yeah, I've been doing this summer residency at Icehouse. It's the second year. There's a lot of winter residencies that go on here in Minneapolis. But I like that patio. And Icehouse summer nights are pretty good, intimate. It sounds great out there. And I just put together a series that I feel offers a lot of different perspectives from a musical background. So our first show was with the artist Joan (Megan Mahoney), playing their own songs for one of the first times, and I'm a big fan of their playing. It was wonderful.

And coming up here on June 11 we have my good friend Jackie Bird, who is just an exceptional artist and human being from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota tribe in South Dakota. She's a hoop dancer, a puppeteer. She plays kids’ songs, she does schools and mostly she does ceremonies out there in Indigenous lands all over the Great Plains. And she's a powerhouse and a light. So, it's the first time she's ever done a proper Minneapolis show. And then the following week will be two old friends of mine, Ava and Linnea Mohn and from the band Coach Said Not To. They're sort of backing out of a hiatus retirement to do an opening set that night on June 18. The Pines used to play a lot of shows with Coach Said Not To way back in the day. And on the last night of the residency will be my dear friend Annie Humphrey coming down from the Leech Lake Reservation up in northern Minnesota to just kind of lay down her very nuanced and beautiful sort of resistance music. She's a force and a dear, dear close friend.  

Yeah, I remember Icehouse having some of the few shows outdoors during the pandemic. And it was my favorite place to be during those times when it felt safer than going indoors.  

Yeah, we played one with Dave Simonett. And I played, I think, at the beginning of November. It was practically snowing, and it was so cold. But it gave people a little outlet. Kind of a conscientious, safe way to gather and help keep a little fire burning for folks during that most intense part of the pandemic. And, you know, they're making some changes out there. But we need, in Minneapolis, to be able to let down all the way after the long winter and everything that we've all collectively experienced. And it's as good a place as any. I appreciate the fact that it's not too big. It feels like a collective experience there on the Icehouse patio. 

I want to jump into your activism side right away, because it's a big part of your music. And you've been heavily involved in the protests against the tar sands oil pipeline, Line 3. And I think a lot of us know it's been an ongoing fight. And I think a lot of us want to know how they can make a difference?  

Yeah, I mean, I feel there's been a real sense of losing our way in these last couple years and going back even the last four. It's an emergency state that we kind of live in now. And we're tired from it, all the various sorts of tragedies that need our attention on a daily basis are so consuming. And so sometime at the beginning of pandemic when my son was born, I just sort of threw in finding really practical ways to plug music as a support, as wind in the sails behind frontlines, water protectors, Honor the Earth, Winona LaDuke, and the hundreds of Indigenous folks up north who are just raising the alarm. And it's not an easy thing, because we don't always get the results we're looking for. The Line 3 pipeline was rammed through. And what I can see as the positive result of using music to celebrate resistance is it's got a rejuvenating effect on the people who are most committed and most engaged. The Water Is Life Festival last year in Duluth was a celebration and probably the first day off for a lot of folks on the front lines that have been shoved around and sort of beaten around their own rightful treaty lands.  

So, the balance between self-care and being plugged in is something we all have to do for ourselves in 2022. There's not every battle we can fight, but to find out at honortheearth.org, what's going on, and to show up at the head Mississippi Headwaters or Palisade (Minnesota). Really, it's about going in person, and with your eyes and your ears wide open and usually your mouth shut, and just taking a look around. Sometimes, Winona (LaDuke) tells me, come up and play some songs but we also need to move some porta potties and chop wood. And, you know, whatever it takes to connect to something bigger than yourself. 

You work a lot with the Native American population, and I'm pulling a quote from your bio: "I'm not native, but for me, it would be a stretch to say that Indigenous thought, spirituality, and friendships spared me from being a casualty on the rocks of American Christianity. It's an undeserved mercy I want to repay in some way, and for this record (Room Enough, Time Enough) I wanted to bring storytellers and voices that we have forgotten how to listen to in unison without falling into nostalgia or idealism." Can you expound on that a little bit? 

That sounds pretty expansive as it is. It's a wordy guy talking. For me, it's the relationships first and foremost. And I mean, we're just barreling like a drunk guy at a party into the self-indulgent moment. And the noise level – it feels at peak. We don't have time to mourn one tragedy before the next one hits. And so I think there's a humility to it. I mean, it's something to call yourself an activist or an ally. But really it's something that is entirely about listening more than talking. And so, when it comes to my friendships, people I love and care for who have helped me through difficult times, to the birth of my child during pandemic, my friends, my native friends – I cherish the light in the humor that comes along with having been pushed into small corners for generations.

And a lot of times, we do wonder how we can plug in and help. It's not about you, that's what I just keep telling myself. That's the opposite of what musicians are supposed to be doing on social media and with their lives is always talking about themselves. So we just try to wash that cognitive dissonance a little bit ... I know you've had Joe Rainey's music on the program. Andrew Broder and Joe worked together to make this great, incredible record. And a lot of what Andrew Broder talked about is getting out of the way and trying to support. What does the supportive role look like? So, that's just something I think about all the time. 

To bring it back a little bit your former group to The Pines, which was no stranger to The Current's airwaves ... Can you tell me a bit about your evolution from playing in that group, where you traded singing lead and doing harmonies, into being more of a front person, and really developing your own sound? 

Yeah, I never really talked about it too much. You know, The Pines were – I would venture to say maybe the most hopeless romantics in the touring world for years. And there's an ethic out there, there's an approach about music that – you don't want to take up all of the oxygen in the room. And if it means trumpeting your own achievements constantly, then part of the instinct is to retreat a little bit. And that's kind of what happened with The Pines, was that we just had put our heart out there in the world so often in so many strange locales coast to coast. And life tends to take a backseat. But music is there to support life and to rebirth life.

And so when we took a pause, it ended up being a long pause. And I had a lot of songs that had been kind of sprouting for some time. And they all came together at my artist residency at Isle Royale National Park. And I think from that time on, it is the self-obsession, self-indulgence of music, I keep coming back to it, but I had a strong desire to plug stuff in. And I'd seen where music has lit sparks for people, performers who can touch on something special and so that's the direction that I started heading immediately. And The Pines break, it's an indefinite hiatus. But the world's on indefinite hiatus, in my opinion. And we're trying to find a back. 

Yeah, gosh. And it does feel like such an insurmountable task sometimes … but every voice, everything counts at this point. Being an activist requires action and being active, and you definitely do that very much so. You tour a lot, you attend protests, and you're a dad. How do you not tire out physically, mentally? 

I mean, I do tire out. I want to be careful, too, because songs exist for their own sake. I'm not at all suggesting that, what we all need to do is take some kind of political stance, always in our music; but to reflect the times that you're living in. If you don't have an ear tuned to it at this point in time. We're in a long emergency, and it doesn't seem to be ending.  

So I think a light touch. Sometimes the feeling that if you hold something any lighter, you wouldn't be holding it at all. But that's what's asked of us right now, we don't get to say the word "mine" as often as we'd like to. So I take rest. I have been spending most of the last two years with my son, obviously, in quarantine; and then as we kind of stretch out of it, that's my world. And it's never hit harder what kind of a world he's walking into. And so my heart goes out, really, to any parents right now. Especially given the news in the last couple of days. Trying to plant a seed that you won't be around for its fruition, and looking toward the next generation, seven generations. What else are we doing if not that? So, hopefully we can help each other to stay strong. And the music can have a refresh, a total rejuvenation, if it's done right. 

Thinking back to when you were a kid, do you feel like you could see yourself being a musician growing up? Did you have folk musician heroes, even when you were a youth, that kind of led you in this direction? 

I mean, absolutely. I came from a small town in Iowa, where sports are just pounded into your young mind. And my mom likes to tell me that I used to sing in bed every single night. And I knew I wanted to write, and I was writing from a young age. And I knew that I needed some other way to put this writing in front of people and connect with it. And when the guitar came around, when recording came around, I think I just felt that those methods of inspiration are the crown jewel of how change happens. And to be involved in it, the long dialogue of folk music, folk song tradition – the feeling of self-expression that can lift people up. Yeah, I was always right there. I lived in about eight cities in about 10 years and traveled all over this country. So that's in my blood too, from a very young age. And touring is a risky proposition these days, but I think I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. 
 
I think that you're someone that has a keen attention to detail, even visually. A lot of the music videos you put out are beautiful and really well done. And your band has such a pure sound. You know how to collaborate. I would love to hear about how you approach your artistry. 

I think collaborating comes natural to me. Creating a platform, building it out, making it beautiful, and then stepping aside. That's something I've always been drawn to. But I think the main thrust of the artistry, where my real heart is, is I have some kind of firm, old school, almost slightly Amish belief in the power of poetry. The simplicity, combination of words that can actually maybe break a little lock off the way you're thinking about yourself or your world. I used to obsess about someone like Leonard Cohen who would have about 45 verses for a song that ended up with four verses. And that kind of practice and craft is not for everybody. But it's something that I've always been drawn to. It's hard to approach that without an agenda. But there's beauty in language, and there's power in language.

And so, to me, I feel like it's that saying, I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things. There's something about that process to me that is endlessly fascinating. And to get at the heart of the matter, with the mind of a poet is like, sometimes I feel like I'm just child's playing at it. But it's the whole craft. For me, it's what I really care about the most. And then finding some incredible players. Once it comes time to deliver that stuff, I just feel so fortunate in Minneapolis to be able to call close friends with so many incredibly talented musicians from JT Bates and Jeremy Ylvisaker, in my band, Liz Draper, Eric Koskinen. The list is endless. And it feels incredible to be part of that community in this town. 

Do you think there's anything attributable about Minnesota that makes it have such a great roots music scene? 

Maybe, to our credit, all that long, alone time in the winter, and the fact that everybody is in a hurry to get indoors somewhere, and every conversation is short, and the nights are long. If there's anything it does, maybe it helps people not take themselves quite so seriously. And be super staunchly traditional about any genre of music. I know, it happens. But in our town, I feel like people have enough solitude to get a little bored and question their conclusions. And so experimentation tends to grow out of that. Why would you stick to your guns and regurgitate and say the same thing over and over. So jazz musicians end up playing with folk musicians end up playing with country bands and then end up in the hip-hop world. And you know this better than most. This is what you do. You pull all this stuff together in your music, which is incredible.  

I've always been heavily influenced by my surroundings, and I've always been so wanting to be involved, because I find it so fascinating. And I'm so moved by the music here. I think it's just incredible. 

And there's a legacy, too. The land obviously speaks to it. For whatever reason, to be fair and honest, a lot of what passes for folk music can be very self-indulgent, and it can be quite boring. Let's be honest. Not everybody's bag. And so, I guess building on the legacy of some of these Midwestern songwriters who find ways to transcend – don't ever expect this treasure to come in the same kind of box, and don't box yourself in. There's a way that you can call Alan Sparhawk's work roots music. It's that and so much more. So yeah, just the graciousness, I think.  

Agreed. Anything you can plug for future stuff that you're working on? 

There's going to be some events this summer going on for clean water, for Water Is Life, June 25 in the Chequamegon Bay in Wisconsin, where it's all pretty by the big lake. We're going to be gathering the communities united by water. And we're working on a couple of big events that we're going to be really excited to tell everybody about coming up at the end of summer as well. So I'd say, in your summer plans, obviously get out, enjoy yourself, see some music, but maybe show up in person and on time at one of these events. Go see what Honor the Earth is up to and just see if you can maybe put your voice or your ears at least behind protecting our natural resources here because we need them badly.