Music is a language, a language that connects us all. Songs bring us closer together, inspire us and open the doors of self-reflection, allowing anybody to connect to a wide range of emotions and feel heard. Every so often, a musician will come along and give a voice to the voiceless, or raise a melody that people relate to, and feel in their soul.
This kind of music is born in fire. Turmoil in the world – or in life – is an opportunity to pull harmony from chaos, and sometimes an artist can use the storm to paint a picture; a picture of comfort to those around them. This tumult doesn’t have to be overt, or really even chaotic. Melancholy, unrest, love or simply ordinary life can all serve as muses to those special artists who weave stories and music into a place of comfort.
Christian Wallowing Bull is one of these once-in-a-generation artists. A member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, the folk/blues artist hailing from the Wind River Reservation in west-central Wyoming stormed onto the music scene in 2020 with a five-song EP, titled Warrior. With a voice of thunder and low, rhythmic guitar to match, Wallowing Bull pulled poetry from his life and cemented his place as a songwriter of his people.
“Since I was a little kid, music has always just been who I am,” Wallowing Bull said. “Whether it was hip-hop, or playing guitar, singing, or whatever it was through music, I know that I feel most alive whenever I’m performing on stage. That’s where I desire to be. And recording, writing a new song, there’s just so much in it for me, it feels like medicine for me.”
Wallowing Bull had a long, hard road to travel before he became the multi-talented artist he is today. His mother was from the Wind River Reservation, but he grew up in foster care on the Crow Reservation in Montana, as such he had a choice of where he wanted ‘home’ to be. He’d always taken more after his mother, and so he chose to live on the Wind River Reservation once he could. While still in his foster home, at around ten years old, he started hanging around his cousin Christian Parrish Takes the Gun, an MTV Video Music Award recipient known professionally as Supaman, who would give Wallowing Bull hip-hop beats to freestyle rap over.
At fifteen, Wallowing Bull decided he wanted to learn to play guitar. Some of his siblings played the instrument and showed him a couple of chords. Over the next few years, Wallowing Bull played guitar every single day, constantly honing his craft.
“I was never technically trained, in singing, writing, or playing guitar,” Wallowing Bull said. “[With] guitar, I play pretty much entirely by ear still, and just have always played what I felt. It was just a really intense journey, because I didn’t have anybody to guide me, I just never quit.”
Once he hit his late teens Wallowing Bull started playing open mics– which didn’t happen on the reservation– he was traveling and getting on stage wherever he could. At eighteen, he was getting in trouble and was encouraged to get off the reservation to try to experience life. Wallowing Bull ended up hitchhiking to Alaska, and from there he would play shows, those around him and some as far away as California.
In the subsequent years, Wallowing Bull was becoming more wild. Off and on he struggled with addiction, but managed to get himself into treatment at 23-years-old. After some years of getting help, at around 26 or 27, he began writing the first iterations of what would become his debut EP, “Warrior.” The release of the EP saw a wave of support completely unprecedented for Wallowing Bull.
“I didn’t realize, but people were so impacted by [Warrior], and that’s where my name started to really get out there,” Wallowing Bull said. “I just put out Spotify and Youtube, just put it in the general area, and it started to hit people. Some of the struggle I’ve been through, and sharing it through music… I didn’t realize it would impact people in that way.”
Warrior came out in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was followed by a slew of EP’s and Singles in the subsequent years. These releases show a progression of maturing artistry, and exploration of different musical styles. 2022 saw a mellow, folky track titled Machine, recorded with ex-partner and fellow artist Fiadh. That same year Wallowing Bull also released a live recording of his song Rachel, and in 2023 he came out with a radio edit of his self titled song “Wallowing Bull,” and a single titled “Strong Heart,” which featured the beautiful string talents of violinist Aaron Wade. These releases, among the many others Wallowing Bull has put out, have documented his journey through time, but one stands out above the rest for Wallowing Bull.
“One of my favorite songs to perform, I play it at every show, is In Loving Memory,” Wallowing Bull said. “It’s just heavy. A lot of times when I’m on the road, traveling, I often miss family members or relatives, and it’s about wishing I could take them with me. There’s a lot of hardship on the reservation side of life, and when it comes to my relatives, who are Native, there’s a lot of struggle. A lot of things I went through growing up as well, like jail, institution, and treatment, and all this stuff.”
A couple of years ago, a friend of Wallowing Bull’s came to him, congratulating him on his successes and how he’d “made it.” This friend of his was going through a rough time, and things just weren’t working out for him.
“What I wanted to tell him was just that ‘I haven’t really made it unless you’re there with me, I haven’t made it unless you’re doing ok,’” Wallowing Bull said. “So that was powerful for me, [In Loving Memory] is such an emotional song, wanting to take everybody with me.”
Music was always an escape for Wallowing Bull and such intense songs allow his listeners to escape with him, if only for a moment.
January of 2024 saw the release of Wallowing Bull’s first seven-song LP. “My First Buffalo Hunt” is the culmination of who Wallowing Bull became as a songwriter, and holds a message of familial strength and pride.
“The name [for the album] came from– I was 25 years old – I went on my first buffalo hunt where I took down my first buffalo, and that’s when my grandmother gave me my Native name,” Wallowing Bull said. “It was beautiful… I’d known for a few years that I’d wanted to create some project that had that idea, that journey for me, that right of passage of becoming a man.”
It was toward the end of 2023 that Wallowing Bull decided to write a collection of songs that held those values, and also explored some of the struggles that he’d had to face during his life, namely growing up in and around every aspect of reservation life. The album’s opening track, aptly titled Tribal Resilience, is a powerful strain that captures the many facets of such a life.
“This album itself was such an experience for me because I’d never realized that I could war-cry on a song… this project was something brand new for me,” Wallowing Bull said. “As I was writing this music, I kept hearing war-cries and stuff. I have heavy songs, like Land of Wolves, but I’d never projected so loud on a song before.”
Everything Wallowing Bull records is DIY. Having started out recording songs on his phone, and eventually in a home studio, adding these bigger elements to his writing was something he had to learn to navigate on his own. In order to achieve these sounds, he had to think outside of the box, going so far as to use a friend’s garage to get the right tones and loudness for his war-cries–an element that brings another level of majesty to the song.
“It just felt fitting, because ‘Tribal Resilience’ is, essentially, just about being proud of who you are,” Wallowing Bull said. “That song hit me hard, and I wasn’t sure how people would receive it because it’s a heavier song, but the way I’ve always viewed my music is that there’s folk elements, there’s some western, kinda grit element to it, but there’s also a tribal, kind of primal element to it also.”
“Tribal Resilience” carries the tones and feelings of traditional pow wow music, with one driving drum, and everything is loud and heavy, emotionally and musically. The second song on the album, “Sweetgrass on My Dash,” is Wallowing Bull’s take on modern reservation life.
“The significance of that song was, imagine an older Native person… just driving an old beater truck on the reservation, [it’s] like what they’d be listening to on the radio,” Wallowing Bull said. “It’s beautiful, because there are some references in there for people that are familiar with the Wind River Reservation. I’d like to continue to capture the life of the Wind River, this is my home, these are my people.
“There’s the line, ‘Seventeen miles up ahead/ On a midnight casino run,’ it’s about the big casino on the reservation, the Wind River Casino, and that seventeen mile road is the road between here and Ethete. It’s fun to share this album and have people who are local and understand these references.”
These little references, or “easter-eggs,” in “Sweetgrass” are an example of the thought Wallowing Bull puts into the writing of each song. He knows his audience, he knows who he’s writing his songs for, and this is a way to bring his listeners closer to him. If they know the reservation, then they know a piece of Wallowing Bull’s life that he holds dear.
Moving into the rest of the album, Wallowing Bull was unsure of the direction he wanted to take. Keeping with the themes from the earlier songs, he referenced one of his first songs, “Land of Wolves,” with the song “Valley of the Wolves,” which featured a similar story of overcoming hardship. These ideas set the tone for “My First Buffalo Hunt,” an album of pride in who you are, the challenges you’ve faced, and recognizing where you come from.
The album closer, “Ancestors,” is a powerful hymn to those who have come before us. The song rises and falls like an ocean of memory, sweeping the listener away into a tale of time long past. Written overnight, on the very last day of Wallowing Bull’s recording deadline, the song carries a massive emotional weight, and brings the album to rest in a way that sits with the listener, and makes them truly appreciate everything and everyone around them.
“At the end of the album, there’s like a breath, just a minute of it being ethereal, and all I say is, ‘I know’,” Wallowing Bull said. “The reason it’s my favorite song to wrap up the album is because that ‘I know’ kind of applies to everything; everything being that journey that we’re all on as humans, things I still struggle with, things my family struggles with. Sometimes there’s nothing you can say when you’re faced with trauma or loss or grief, or anything. There’s a lot of things you can say, but a lot of times I just find myself like, ‘I know’.”
“Ancestors,” for Wallowing Bull, was an exploration of what it was like to be the listener, and not just the singer. In the writing process, “My First Buffalo Hunt” became its own being, an entity set free by Wallowing Bull to share the experiences and life that he has been through.
Throughout this intense musical journey, from 2020 through the present, Wallowing Bull has unintentionally evolved into a voice of his people, drawing the issues they face into the limelight and being somebody that those around him can relate to. He never set out to become the voice of a nation, things just happened that way for him.
“Where I am today, just being able to witness myself… I want to be seen as a friend, as someone who’s able to help,” Wallowing Bull said. “I’ve been through so much, and I’ve struggled so much, and still do with like, mental health stuff, and I want to continue to be able to be a friend, or somebody who’s able to speak out on a lot of hardships, more-so to Native communities because that’s just who I am. I just hope to be someone who can bring light to these situations.
“I feel like a warrior, but I feel just kind of tired– I feel like a tired warrior. We all have our journeys and I just want to be someone who can help along the way, as I have been helped. And some of the heavier songs, like “Land of Wolves,” reference that warrior mentality that I try to hold onto, and I try to see myself as a warrior as it’s unraveled in my own personal journey. That doesn’t mean just all grit all the time, it’s being vulnerable and remaining open to people and to the community. So I see myself as a warrior, but I haven’t always seen the warrior as being that vulnerable and open person. When I was younger I would say that it is all grit and war cries, heavy, really cool and badass, but it’s not like that anymore. It’s more like me just wanting to be a good man.”
To date, Wallowing Bull has released eight singles, two EPs, and one LP. For an artist of his caliber, one who speaks for his people and can also relate to anybody who has faced challenges in life, there is nowhere to go but up. Every day, more people discover his music and find comfort in its warmth. Wallowing Bull’s journey is not over, but, tired warrior that he is, he will keep pushing on, weaving the chaos of the world into soothing, inspiring melody.
