When the Ware Comes, a new EP by Mother Coyote (aka Andriana Lehr) is a lens looking at when community, political and personal turmoil converge. It sounds beautiful, it sounds chaotic, there are notes that pull your soul into your own vortex, especially for those who lived in the epicenter of chaos in the Twin Cities in 2020. It’s gorgeous and you can listen to it live at the Bryant Lake Bowl on May 29.
Please tell us about Mother Coyote. What does the new Moniker mean to you and what doors does it open?
Mother Coyote is a moniker that dropped into my consciousness over 10 years ago, and at the time I didn’t really know what it was supposed to be (a band name/side project, etc). I forgot about it for a few years as I was doing my singer-songwriter thing, still performing under my government name, but then after my first son was born in 2017, it came back to me with an entirely new relevance in terms of the shift into motherhood I had experienced (with much trepidation and some reluctance). During those early years of motherhood, all of the warnings I’d gotten from (to be brutally honest) *men* in the music industry, about how motherhood kills a woman’s music career had really been ingrained in my head, so I had a really hard time integrating and reconciling the roles of musician and mother into my embodiment. Now, several years and another son later, the coyote element (the archetypal trickster) is so clear in its role in my personal and musical evolution – I had to become the mother in order to create and become a conduit for the most potent music I was capable of creating and sharing. The meanings of Mother Coyote continue to reveal themselves to me more and more as time goes on, but this is where it is landing for me right now.
Your new album, When the War Comes, tells a story of falling (The Tower and Great Unknown) and the phoenix rising (When the War Comes). Will you tell us about the inspiration or the message of the album as a whole?
All the songs on the EP ‘When the War Comes’ are actually a subset of a collection of songs yet to be recorded, a full-length that tells the story of my personal experience with the archetypal hero’s journey. I didn’t know it at the time these songs were written, but as all of the songs came together, I realized they were a potent story of my individuation within the collective evolution/destruction that we’ve all experienced over the last few years. The four songs featured on ‘When the War Comes’ were some of the first written in this collection, and for me, were the most important to share first. The song ‘When the War Comes’ came through very quickly for me, just a couple days before the 2020 election. I was living in Saint Paul at the time, and between the chaos of the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots and local destruction, as well as the intensity of the pandemic lockdowns, the energy was so thick and palpable at the time. This song is an expression of both the very real, tangible experience of watching our cities burn, while still maintaining hope and trust that we could collectively come together and rise from the ashes and create something better from what had been destroyed – the chorus, being a prayer for collective liberation from that which has oppressed us all. ‘The Tower’ speaks to the symbolism of the tower card in the Tarot – a card that when pulled, many see as a bad omen. However there is such freedom in these ‘tower moments’ in our lives when things we thought we knew/could rely on/etc. dissolve and go away. It’s a signifier of change. When we can no longer delude ourselves and we must look at the situation exactly how it is, for what it is, it is in these moments that we can find true empowerment and access the clarity required to *actually* change. This is a song that was both incredibly personal for me in what I was experiencing in my own life at the time it was written, but I also knew it had incredible collective relevance in what had been and would be experienced in coming years, as our systems continue to crumble or get intentionally dismantled. It’s a song about shaking off our victim-mentality and stepping into our power. ‘Great Unknown’ is the sigh of relief at the end of the EP. It’s admitting that to feel the feelings we’ve been ignoring and pushing away for so long can finally bring the healing we’ve always been chasing. There’s an element of surrender and gentleness that I really credit my producer, Andy Thompson, with helping to bring forward. When I wrote this it felt big and bold and intense and like a victory ballad, and while there’s some bold victoriousness at the end, his vision for the song so beautifully help embody the softness that wanted to come through, that to relax into trusting the process and the Unknown/Universe/God will allow greater peace than any we could have fought for and sought after on our own.
Between the horns and spoken word parts of Eden, there is a cacophony that wakes up the listener while the music takes over and brings the beauty and art and maybe order. How did you decide to balance the contrasting musical styles (genres?) to such thematic and sonic success?
‘Eden’ really came together so well, and I’m so grateful for this question. This song came about after a really dark period I had experienced in early 2022. It wrestles with the big question of ‘what happens after we die?’ and is a contemplation of the Judeo-Christian stories of heaven and the afterlife that I grew up with, the Hindu/Buddhist concepts of reincarnation that I had been steeped in through my yoga studies, and the atheist perspective I held when I was deep into my scientific-materialist phase during college, where I was convinced that life and consciousness was an accident and that we just disappear when we die – consciousness, body, and all. So everything about this song was chaotic in my mind and in my heart, and I took a lot of inspiration from one of my favorite artists who had walked me though many, many hard periods of my life, Bright Eyes. The production of some of their songs utilize spoken word and horns, and just general cacophony to create a sonic landscape that mirrors psychic, existential confusion that felt required to nod to in this song, and there’s definitely inspiration borrowed from tracks like ‘Cassadaga’ and ‘Road to Joy’ integrated into the mix. The spoken word pieces came a bit later in the process of mixing the song, as it just felt like something was missing – the light at the end of the tunnel, the drive to keep going that was inherently at the bottom of it all. I had spent the better part of 3 years (from 2020-2023) in a small group doing deep study on esoteric and indigenous wisdom teachings, and I had hours of recording of lectures from my dear teacher and friend, Nielle Arnold Sovell Song Salt of the Earth. The very first lecture (of hundreds) that I pulled up, had the excerpts that are in the song, and with her permission I cut them up into potent pieces of wisdom that helped to speak to that element of connection to something we cannot explain that helped to pull me through that dark time about which ‘Eden’ was written.
I love the video for The Tower. I love the snow. I love what seems like two sides (maybe of the world, maybe of a single person) living in tandem. The fire dancing and the burning Tarot cards all paint a picture. How did the video come to you?
The idea for the video for ‘The Tower’ was again dropped in by the divine muse, I think before I had even been in the studio to record the EP. The main idea that came to me was the house of cards burning down, really symbolizing, again, all of the structures and systems our current world is built on finally being destroyed, crashing in on themselves in flames. I decided to tap on Kelly from Starseed Studios in Saint Paul after seeing some of her work and, again, just trusting the feeling that she was the right one to work with on this project (so much of this whole project has been about trusting my intuition and not overthinking the process). As soon as I brought the song and idea of the burning tower of tarot cards to her, she really took it the rest of the way, bringing in the fire dancer, and suggesting that I stand on the pedestal and put on/take off the crown – all symbolism of The Tower card. She knocked it out of the park and I’m so grateful for her work on this video.
How, when and where will you be celebrating the new release?
I am so excited I’ll be performing these songs at Bryant Lake Bowl on May 29th, 2025! Dan Lawonn, who was featured on guitar and cello on the EP will be joining me on the songs from the EP and hopefully a few other, yet-to-be-released songs, as well as opening the show. This show is gonna be, not just for the people that have really connected with these songs, but for anyone that’s really into being *the first* to hear new music. After having my kids and relocating back to my hometown in South Dakota in 2022, I’ve been out of the live-scene in the Twin Cities more than I’d wish. However, it still feels like home, and it feels very exciting to share an absolute wealth of new music I’ve been working on for the last few years with my musical home-scene. The EP is just the tip of the iceberg, so I encourage anyone that wants to hear what’s coming next to get your tickets and come be the first to hear.
Mostly Minnesota 