Photo: Lindsay Mills

I come from a decidedly working-class background and never really left. My parents started their own printing business in Phoenix, and the mix of ambition and discipline required to do so profoundly influenced me. Then again, Dad always thought work for work's sake was for suckers and encouraged me to find a way to make my own way in the world, too.

I had always written songs, but there was always work in the morning, so, even though I thought of myself as an artist, I never got the chance to just sit in that identity, and it began to feel like that window was closing. In 2023, I decided to take the leap of faith and apply for the opportunity to be an Artist-in-Residence at the Object Hotel in my native Arizona. The resulting maelstrom changed my life more than I could have ever imagined, and it is the direct inspiration for my new EP, Object Impermanence.

At the height of Summer, I went down to Bisbee with the band’s next album, The Sighs and Strength, already written and a couple of goals. My band, Katie Mae &the Lubrication, is the destination for the songs, but I am the source. The Sighs and Strength was to be our first full album, and I didn’t want to rush into production until I had a chance to deepen my connection with them through performing them solo and stripped down. I was going to publicly play the songs as often as possible to fine-tune them before heading up to The Garage in Camp Verde to record them—studio time ain’t cheap, y’all. The second goal was less defined. I would live each moment as if it were worth making art from it, which is what I consider The Life of an Artist.

Bisbee is the quintessential Arizona town. One of the few places in a young state with real history and culture. The type that the rest of the state claims as its own without earning it. Around the time of statehood, it was a full-fledged boom town of 25,000 people crammed into a few square miles. Two canyons come together, and the town crawls up the walls. San Francisco is easy compared to these streets, and the most convenient way to get around is on the thousands of stairs that connect the miners’ shacks on the slopes with the bars and businesses in The Gulch. All the money from the mines and surrounding ranches came rushing into town, and some awe-inspiring, monumental-scale buildings were built. Among them is the Object Hotel, whose ground floor was once the town’s Woolworths. The room I stayed in was on the top floor and lacked many modern conveniences. It was once the maid’s room and resembled a monk’s cell. I vividly remember the temperature in my room being 93°F at 3 am one morning.

The town doesn’t just live in the past, though. Modern Bisbee thrives as a modern art mecca with the densest concentration of Freaks I’ve ever encountered. In short, it was/is perfect. The cowboys and hippies really do sit right next to each other every night at the St Elmo Bar, Bisbee Grande, and Copper Queen.

The songs I brought with me were a function of what I had been doing in Phoenix the past few years. Working full-time and then partying hard on the weekends. I love that stuff, but can’t ever go too hard because rent ain’t cheap either. The result is bombing around town on the weekend, playing shows, and hanging out at my favorite spots, especially The Dirty Drummer, Chopper Johns, and Gracie’s Tax Bar. Given limited free time, I had gotten really good at combining my love for the nightlife with my love for making music. When I arrived in Bisbee, I had complete freedom of the clock for the first time ever. What I quickly learned was that complete freedom was really dangerous for someone like me. Not that I stopped, mind you, instead I leaned in and made art out of it.

The six songs on Object Impermanence were written in the aftermath of that month. The title track was written by the time I got home, while others came to me over the course of the following year. When it came time to record, I knew I wanted to go back to the place that inspired it and record it in the Object. Those old buildings possess such great character and a rich history. There’s something that leaches into your soul if you let it. It must be something about the boom-or-bust nature of the place. The entire range of human experience unfolded in those halls and may explain Bisbee’s reputation as one of the most haunted towns in the West. Through the wizardry of Max Harms, we turned the hotel into an instrument, and its natural reverb is the only effect we use on the record, a fact I am proud of. Where am I from? Arizona, Phoenix, Bisbee, and Outer Space, and I’m really confident that it’s all there in the EP.