How Digging Roots, Ghostkeeper and more are making music a family affair

A swell of guitar melds with muted drums on the song "Tropical Métis" as echoing harmonies swirl together: "Somewhere and somehow, I'm gonna become your man/ and we will live a life and we will have a boy/ no ah we will have two boys," sings Shane Ghostkeeper, whose bandmate, Sarah Houle, is his partner in music and life. The married couple is at the core of the four-piece alternative rock band Ghostkeeper, and they also have two sons.

"The song was also really inspired by our eldest son's concern for the death of our solar system, blowing up and swallowing us in five billion years," Ghostkeeper explains of the climate anxiety-driven track from the band's newly Polaris-longlisted album, Multidimensional Culture. "I thought it was fitting to put down in song to soothe him that Sarah and I's love, his mother and father's love, was something that would go on forever in various forms."

The song is one of many that Ghostkeeper says draws inspiration from the pair's experiences as a family and as Indigenous people. They've been a couple for 23 years, with Houle acting as the driving force behind Ghostkeeper's pursuit of songwriting. Four albums and two kids later, they've continued working in tandem. 

Ghostkeeper is part of a long history of Indigenous music groups who have formed successful bands with their family members: husband and wife Raven Kanatakta and ShoShona Kish make up the Juno-winning rock/blues duo Digging Roots; the Grammy-nominated powwow group Northern Cree includes brothers Steve, Randy, Charlie and Earle Wood; the Juno-nominated Manitou Mkwa Singers group is made up of Valarie King and her daughters; and the Bearhead Sisters, who won their first Juno Award in March, are comprised of Allie, Trina and Carly.

For Kanatakta, Digging Roots' family makeup is central to their artistry. A question he asks himself, of his work with Kish: "How do I make my ancestors proud who have raised me?" Adds Kish: "Our families are the reason we started making music."

Making art in any fashion, in particular music, has been driven by our romance together from the start.- Shane Ghostkeeper

Being part of a band can be an elevated experience when your bandmate is also your spouse or sibling, parent or child. Creating music with someone you already share a close bond with is enriching — and often informed by that connection, according to Ghostkeeper. 

"Making art in any fashion, in particular music, has been driven by our romance together from the start," he says. 

"In Dene families, [family] is connected with how you view the world and how you exist in community, right? So that kind of forms the basis of your worldview," says Leela Gilday, one-half of brother-sister duo Sechile Sedare. "So for me, family is right up there amongst the most important things in life."

Leela and her brother Jay are both award-winning solo artists, and it wasn't until the pandemic that they united to create songs tied to their shared identities. The two had not lived together in many years, but lockdown offered them the opportunity to get creative and write music. 

"We have common history. So in the [songs] we're talking about our family, about our land and our people," Leela says, of their forthcoming album.

The Gildays' song "Ehtseo Kenny" was written as a heartfelt tribute to their grandfather, Joe Kenny, an important community figure who had medicine power. "We wrote this song and Jay came up with this wicked riff and then we added a traditional hand game song [at] the end," Leela says.

Whether it's fleshing out lyrics or performing together, the close nature of working creatively with a family member means feelings can sometimes run deep. "I think I had a chip on my shoulder a little bit, you know, Leela went off and was pursuing music very, very early, and I didn't really try to do that professionally until much later," Jay says. "And I kind of needed to prove myself a little bit. But then after all those years of [living] apart, when we finally did get together … we started spouting songs and it was kind of fantastic."

I feel like family incorporates all of our traditional knowledge and our value systems all in real time.​​​​​​- Raven Kanatakta

Although Houle and Ghostkeeper are "pretty much always on the same page," the occasional blip can happen during rehearsals. "I don't think there's any getting around a way around that, especially since we're always with each other," Ghostkeeper says, noting that it's not necessarily bad if they don't see eye to eye. "Our frustrations can manifest in ways that we're comfortable enough with to share, because we love each other."

A musical foundation built on love is something that Kish and Kanatakta of Digging Roots know well. The married couple have been together for 24 years and they have two sons, who are also involved in the band's musical process. Their youngest child, nicknamed Waas, collaborated with them while Kish and Kanatakta were making loops on acoustic guitar in their living room for "We Are," the title track from the band's 2009 album.

"He might have been five years old or seven years old, but he was super young and you know, he had a songwriting credit on it," Kanatakta says, laughing. "And we go from that to our latest album where our son, our oldest, Skye, was playing drums and he just brought a real road map in terms of the groove."

"As they grow and as they continue to develop their gifts, it informs the creative process in new ways all the time," Kish adds. 

"I feel like family incorporates all of our traditional knowledge and our value systems all in real time. And so for us, I feel like family is, you know, food. It's music in the house, it's dancing, it's good conversation," Kanatakta says. "And I think that under Digging Roots, we try to incorporate all those things together."

With mutual trust, love and respect, each of these artists say their relationships flourish, and by extension, so does the music.

"I always feel supported onstage by Jay and I hope he always feels supported by me as well," Leela says. "You know, [Sechile Sedare is] a joyful exploration for both of us. But also the cool thing is offstage, Jay has my back as well. And that's huge."

"I've learned so much from [Raven] and my own creative journey has been so informed by his brilliance and his commitment to his craft," Kish says. "And that's been a really incredible thing, to have this place of trust to really push one another."