University of Washington lecturer-turned-DJ amplifies Indigenous music on radio show

Tory Johnston is an enrolled member of the Quinault Indian Nation and a lecturer in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. He grew up in the Quinault Indian reservation on the Washington coast with a love for music, whether it was the loud guitar riffs of Metallica or the jazz improvisation of Thelonious Monk.

In 2023, with no prior experience as a radio DJ, he applied to work on a new show Seattle radio station KEXP was launching that appealed to his academic and personal explorations of Indigenous music. He got the job and is today the co-host and DJ of “Sounds of Survivance.” Airing on Mondays, each episode exposes listeners to artists spanning musical continents and styles, from classical piano compositions by Navajo musician Connor Chee to thrash metal songs performed by New Zealand band Alien Weaponry in English and Te reo Māori. Johnston joins us to talk about the show’s eclectic catalog and what’s currently on his music playlist.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Tory Johnston is an enrolled member of the Quinault Indian Nation and a lecturer in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. He grew up with a love for music, whether it was Metallica or Thelonious Monk. Two years ago, he applied to work on a new radio show on the Seattle station KEXP. Johnston had no prior experience as a DJ, but the show appealed to his academic and personal explorations of Indigenous music. He got the job.

Tory Johnston [recording]: siokwıl gwalc̓i tamiW čınt kwıʔ kenaʔnəm KEXP. hınč DJ Tory J kwinaył słəgwəlmıš tul̕ štax̣ola čınt kwinaył kal. hınč koʔolo nuggwamći əł nis yəx̣uč čınt siokwıl noł kenaʔanəm.

Thank you for welcoming me on Duwamish land. You’re listening to KEXP. I’m DJ Tory J, Quinault Tribal member from Taholah, on the mouth of the Quinault River.

Miller: That was Tory Johnston introducing a recent in-studio performance for KEXP. He is a co-host and DJ of “Sounds of Survivance.” It airs on Mondays. It features work from Indigenous musicians from all around the world. Tory Johnston joins me now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.

Johnston: [Speaking in Quinault language] Thank you. I’m happy to speak to you today.

Miller: Why did you want to become a DJ for this show?

Johnston: It was kind of a perfect storm of cosmic serendipity. I had just moved back to Seattle in July 2023 and I had finished up advancing to candidacy in my PhD program in Native studies at UC Davis. My subdiscipline, beyond Native American studies, is Indigenous sound and music studies. But I grew up, like I say in my introductions, Quinault from Taholah, on the mouth of the Quinault River – which is in the southwest corner of the peninsula here in Washington. Seattle is kind of “the city” where we grew up, experiencing what the city was like.

It was a homecoming for sure, but my friend who’s Navajo – I lived with him in San Francisco – sent me an Instagram post that KEXP put up, that they’re hiring a global Indigenous radio DJ. So I’m right on the coattails of this four years of research in Indigenous sound and music studies. I’m highly interested in how we sound into … I guess we’ll entertain the word “contemporary” here. It’s always traditional to be contemporary, for Native peoples, and I think we sometimes get into that trap of putting Indigenous peoples into the past. That’s something that I’m sure we’ll talk about today.

But for now, just to continue the story of why I wanted to be a DJ … It just felt like a really perfect fit, because I was being exposed to all of these artists through my work. And KEXP, I was already a fan, particularly through their YouTube channel. So it felt like a really awesome opportunity to amplify Indigenous voices. I applied, and the rest is history. I’ve been there for about a year-and-a-half now.

Miller: What does ‘survivance’ mean? As I mentioned, the name of the show is “Sounds of Survivance.”

Johnston: The original term was coined by Gerald Vizenor, who’s White Earth Anishinaabe, which is actually another sort of fun look that we’re doing today, talking about Anishinaabe artists. But Gerald Vizenor is one of the most influential scholars in Native studies. He coined it, working off of  “Différance” from Jacques Derrida. It has since been taken into the context of a portmanteau between survival and resistance – survival, resistance: survivance. And his definition or ethic that follows the term is to repudiate or distance ourselves from tragedy and victimy narratives, particularly in Native literature.

But the way that the term has evolved over the years, through scholarship and everything else, it has been used discursively for different things. So when we were asked to name the show in 24 hours, me and my co-host, Kevin Sur, who’s Kānaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian … And I’d had some ideas cooking for the few days of the application process and all of that, but I just felt that survivance, and embodying this way of subverting what people think of Native sound and Native art, sounded like the most compelling thing that we’re doing with the show. So that’s how “Sounds of Survivance” came along: How do we repudiate tragedy and victimy narratives through sound?

Miller: I want to play part of a song that you featured recently on the show. It’s called “Guidance.” It’s by the band Alliance. What should we know about this band before we hear an excerpt?

Johnston: You should know that I adore them.

Miller: Is that true of most of the bands that you play?

Johnston: Oh yeah, for sure. And that’s always something like my boss is always telling me – “Everyone knows that you love the artists.” I’m just like, “I have to say it anyways.” [Laughter] But, Alliance, they’re San Carlos Apache from New Mexico, Arizona, Southwest area. And they are a part of this extremely vibrant scene of Rez Metal, and that’s like its own thing. Survivance has this whole discursive thing going on with it, where people are talking about it and defining what it means. So does Rez Metal. It really is something that’s the most potent in the Southwest, and Alliance is a part of that

That has become one of my greatest joys in the show, to highlight the Native metal scene, because I think people have a specific idea of what Native American music is before they are exposed to something like a global Indigenous radio show. A lot of drums, a lot of flute, a lot of vocable singing, which of course is Native music. But we also make some pretty heavy bangers, like this song by Alliance.

Miller: All right, let’s have a listen. This is “Guidance” by the band Alliance.

[“Guidance” by Alliance playing]

Breathe

Don’t worry, relax, just wait and see

Breathe

Controlling the future won’t bring you peace

Breathe

Blend with the motions of positivity

Breathe

Break from the path and become what you need

I don’t want to feel like this no more

I don’t want to feel like this no more

I don’t want to feel like this no more

I don’t want to feel like this no more

[Songs fades out]

Miller: I mentioned in my intro that you had a pretty diverse taste listening to music growing up, including metal, Metallica, jazz as well. How many Native artists did you listen to as you were growing up?

Johnston: This is actually a really interesting question, because I think one of the opportunities that we have for the show is to have our own perspective of what constitutes a Native artist.  Kevin and I are well aware of the sort of politics that go into the history of music, especially for Native people. It sort of follows the same logic or the same process of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous histories, whereby mainstream histories necessitate our erasure.

One of the things that I like to do with the show, and Kevin likes to do with the show, is uncover the fact that we have had hidden contributions to almost every genre. For some specific examples, I’m talking about jazz artists who might have been obscured and are just now being recognized, like Mildred Bailey or Jim Pepper, or even some of the greats in certain genres. Having Indigenous blood or Indigenous descendancy but having to obscure it in some sort of way, which is a completely different thing than actually relating to a community. And I’m well aware of that complexity as well.

But to bring things back to your question, I listen to a lot, actually. And just like with any other community of musicians and artists, I didn’t love all of it. I was always one of those people that … I mean, I adore Hip-Hop now, actually, but I was really mad that people from the Rez, like me, that was the only music that people were creating. I think that’s why I have such an affinity for the Rez Metal scene because I’ve loved heavy music my whole life. And to see that there are tons and tons of Native people now making it, it’s the intervention that I’ve always wanted.

But yeah, I did listen to a lot of Native music growing up. However, I listened to probably five-fold more, just in preparation for this job. Also witnessing this … well, it’s a term that’s been thrown around lately: “Native American Renaissance.” And that’s not just for music but for film productions. The TV show “Reservation Dogs” is a big, prominent example, [and] the documentary “Sugarcane,” which was scored by one of the artists we’re gonna talk about today. These are all ways that Indigenous arts is just absolutely exploding in the 21st century.

Miller: I want to hear another song. Maybe we’ll hear part of it first and we can talk about it. This is “Bounty” by Deerlady.

[“Bounty” by Deerlady playing]

Do you seek a body tender in your company

A sympathetic set of ears to fill with a confectionary story

The kind of enemy you can hold on to

A ceremony you can belong to

[Song fades out]

Miller: What can you tell us about Deerlady?

Johnston: Well, I can tell you that the Deerlady live, in-studio session by KEXP just hit YouTube last week and it was hosted by me. So if listeners are interested in that, go check out KEXP’s YouTube channel. Deerlady is a duo of Mali Obomsawin and Magdalena Abrego. Mali Obomsawin is from the Odanak First Nation in Vermont but grew up and is based in Maine. And she’s one of the more prolific Native artists working right now. She has a debut solo album that came out in 2022 that’s like this Wabanaki free jazz thing.

I really love that record a lot and, fun fact, wrote about it for my qualifying exams. So it was like a real full circle moment to be able to meet her in person and to, one, interview her for Indigenous Peoples’ Day on KEXP; and then, two, have her rock band, Deerlady, come in to do a live, in-studio session. So that’s a really special thing. Like I mentioned earlier, she also scored the documentary “Sugarcane,” which is created by Julian Brave NoiseCat. And for listeners who are curious, make sure to go in with an open heart for that documentary, cause it’s incredibly heavy. But the score is beautiful and I’m really happy to have worked with somebody who had a part in that.

Miller: What do you hear, broadly, from the bands that you feature? I’m curious what it means to them to have a platform on KEXP. Obviously, Deerlady, as you’re saying, has some international prominence already. That’s less true, I think, of some of the bands you feature that are maybe less well-known. What does it mean to them to be on one of the more famous and early arrivals on the internet radio scene, and terrestrial radio as well, in KEXP?

Johnston: One of my favorite things to do is, one, to bring Native artists into the studio when they happen to be visiting Seattle; and then, two, to show them the room where we film the live, in-studio sessions. I’m sure you or other people listening have probably seen KEXP’s videos before. You see the iconic lights, and our video production team is just so professional and awesome. Shout out to Jim and the team.

Being able to take these artists, who might have grown up just like me – which is basically with not much in the middle of nowhere Washington, or the middle of nowhere New Mexico, for instance – and then just showing them that room, and treating their sound and their art as something not just worthy of being played for KEXP and through the airwaves globally around the world, but as something that’s an expression of their relationship to their ancestors and their homelands … that’s something that is why I do all of this work. So it means just as much for me as I think it does for them.

Miller: You don’t just play music. And what you’re saying there gets to what I want to play next. It’s a short excerpt of you talking in between songs. Let’s have a listen to what it sounds like.

Johnston [recording]: For those who don’t know, the suffix, “ish” – like Duwamish, Suquamish, Snohomish, etc., etc. – denotes a body of water. So shout out to that. kʷínayɬ, also known as Quinault, also known as the Quinault River. We are so connected to water as Native peoples.

Miller: What do you most hope that listeners, wherever they are, will take away from your show?

Johnston: Yeah, like I was saying about how I get a lot from amplifying and supporting Native artists, I hope that they’ll take away that we are sounding those lands, that we are sounding those bodies of water and we’re using the same tools that our ancestors did. The media and aesthetics of that matters less than the fact that we’re expressing and continuing an Indigenous life-way. That’s why I like to say stuff like explaining the suffix “-ish” in my show.

And you can tell my shows from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., because I definitely sounded tired in that clip. [Laughter]

Miller: You’re doing that live? I assumed it was recorded. You’re doing it live, at three in the morning on a Monday?

Johnston: Yup!  Every other Monday.

Miller: Wow! All right, because you can record it, but you choose to be live?

Johnston: Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Miller: More power to you. I’m surprised by that. I just assumed it was recorded.

Johnston: No, it’s not. I take the bus every Sunday. I live in the Southend, and people probably don’t know what this means. But I live in the Southend and I take the 8 [bus] from the Southend where I live, Mount Baker Transit Center, to Uptown where KEXP is, right by Climate Pledge Arena. And then I stay up from Sunday into Monday to host the show.

But just to put a cap on what I want people to take away from it, I do those little lesson things, not because I’m a lecturer. I do it because it’s the way that I find myself in place here and anywhere else, really. Even when I was in California, I spent a lot of time – intellectual, emotional, spiritual work –  thinking about the First Peoples of where I was at, which for UC Davis’s case in particular is Patwin territory. These sorts of relationships to land, and our relationships to people who have relationships to land, exist everywhere. So, if I can help people think about that, that’s my guiding work in life. And I think, too, that I want that work to be really funky, and that’s why I love music so much.

Miller: Tory, thanks so much.

Johnston: Yeah, thank you so much. Sioqwil.

Miller: Tory Johnston is a DJ and co-host of “Sounds of Survivance,” a global Indigenous music show you can hear on KEXP in Seattle. He’s also a lecturer in the University of Washington’s American Indian Studies Department.

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