VIDEO: Friendship Commanders Share 'Stonechild' Video

Nashville's Friendship Commanders are pleased to present the official video for their new single "Stonechild." The melodic heavy duo, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Buick Audra and drummer/bassist Jerry Roe, released their new singles, "Stonechild" & "Your Reign Is Over" earlier this month on Indigenous Peoples' Day. The video for "Stonechild," which was filmed in part at Nashville's Exit/In, premiered today at Brooklyn Vegan and can also be shared at YouTube. The song honors the life of a Stonechild Chiefstick, a 39 year-old Chippewa Cree man, who was part of a Suquamish Tribal community in Washington state and was in killed on July 3, 2019. With this release, the band is doing their part to bring awareness and show solidarity for indigenous communities. Brooklyn Vegan says, "The two-song single was produced and recorded by the duo themselves, mixed by Converge's Kurt Ballou, and mastered by From Ashes Rise's Brad Boatright. The messages in the songs are matched by an appealing fusion of sounds; Buick Audra's riffs carry the weight of doom and sludge metal, but her crystal-clear, melodic singing is as approachable as anything on '90s alt-rock radio."

Watch the video!

On the video Friendship Commanders's Jerry Roe says:

"Buick wrote such a great song in that, if you didn't know the specifics of the story or Stonechild's murder, you would still get the correct set of feelings, melancholy, and grandness that her words and thoughts about Stonechild intended to create. We wanted the "narrative" part of the video to get the same feelings across too. I feel like there's a lot of confusion and displacement in his death, and his life was stolen from him by the colonizers much in the same way the land was stolen from his ancestors; with ego, malice, bigotry and a mindset of supremacy. I don't subscribe to the belief that you're in a better place when you die, or that there even is an afterlife, so I wanted to depict a sort of inbetween. An otherworldly place where he acknowledges that his mortality has been taken from him and he can peacefully let go.

"Stonechild" & "Your Reign Is Over" are available to share now on Soundcloud or all streaming services. They can also be purchased with corresponding merch via Bandcamp.

The new singles follow their Spring 2020 EP, Hold On To Yourself∫, and were mixed and mastered by the same team of Kurt Ballou and Brad Boatright. While there is a sonic through-line, "Stonechild" and "Your Reign Is Over" cover new territory for the band. The music still occupies a heavy space, but the vocal presentations and energies vary, as do the subjects.


Buick Audra says, "Through a friend of mine who lives on the Port Madison Reservation, I connected to articles in local publications about his death, all of which I read with horror. My brain kept going back to facts of the story: He was murdered by a white police officer . . . At the location where the community was gathered to enjoy the 3rd of July fireworks, at a waterfront park . . . Families with kids were everywhere and witnessed his death . . . And they still held the fireworks after he died. The song was written to acknowledge a life, question a death, and stand in solidarity with a community that has lost someone. We, alongside the people who knew him, demand justice for Stonechild. With this song, I am also asking questions to all of us about how we're actually moving through this world, injustice all around us, systemic racism normalized and ignored. Are we helping, or are we hurting?" 

Cassy Fowler, who speaks in Lushootseed on the track, does so on behalf of Stonechild's family. The txʷəlšucid (Lushootseed) lyrics were written by txʷəlšucid Cassy Fowler (Suquamish), Zalmai Zahir ʔəswəli (Puyallup), and Chris Duenas (Puyallup). 


"Your Reign Is Over" was written in a fit of frustration. During a year that has held a pandemic, a revolution for racial justice, economic uncertainty for so many, devastating environmental emergencies, and what is likely the most important presidential election of many of our lifetimes, the song was written to shout-down people who use immense privilege and platform to cause further harm. Do we have any more room for this? For racism, misogyny, misinformation, apathy, or carelessness? Friendship Commanders don't think so. In this song, the band calls for all who are hell-bent on selfishness as their primary modality to step down and make room for new leadership, new systems, and new voices.


On June 19, 2020, the Tennessee legislature voted to pass the most restrictive abortion ban in the country. They did it in the middle of the night, without the public knowing. Buick was actually in the building for it. She says, "As an activist who advocates for bodily autonomy, the fact that our largely white and male Republican super-majority legislature took the extra steps to hinder the rights of so many - the middle of such a vulnerable time - really blew my last fuse. There's no way to dress that action up as anything but deliberately harmful. Such action is rooted in racism, classism, and sexism There's some junk science in there, too. I haven't written much this year, but I have written this work to say that this chapter is over. We can no longer allow any of the above to go on. This election needs to flip the state of Tennessee, and also the presidency."

Photo Credit: Jamie Goodsell