Rae Spoon

Spoon grew up as a transgender person in Calgary, Alberta. They were raised in a Pentecostal household to a paranoid-schizophrenic father. Their father's religious beliefs caused anxiety to a teenage Rae. Spoon now lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

In 2003, Spoon said they identified as a trans man.[2] In 2012, during an interview with fellow advocate for the gender-neutral pronoun and cartoonist, Elisha Lim, Spoon noted a preference for the pronoun "they",[3] and has identified as non-binary since then.[4] They explained to Now Magazine, "after years of fighting to be called 'he,' the idea of coming out again made me tired. But now I feel kind of rejuvenated, ready to fight on some more. I think the 'they' pronoun is a pretty cool thing. It's letting a lot of people not have to identify as a man or a woman. Whatever it means to them."[5]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which forced them to cancel a series of tours, Spoon was diagnosed with cervical cancer. They said they didn't know what the prognosis was at that point.[6]

Spoon started performing before they started recording. They decided they wanted to become a songwriter while performing at the age of seventeen.[8] They emerged as a country and roots singer. Their early music features country imagery to the sound of acoustic string instruments such as banjo, guitar and mandolin.[9]

Spoon has performed with such artists as Annabelle Chvostek, Ember Swift, Kinnie Starr, Melissa Ferrick, The Be Good Tanyas, Bitch & Animal, Natalie Merchant and Earl Scruggs.[10] They have performed at festivals including North Country Fair, South Country Fair, Under the Volcano Festival, and the Vancouver,[10] Regina, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Brandon Folk, Music & Art Festival and Winnipeg folk festivals.

Spoon's breakthrough album, 2008's Superioryouareinferior, was recorded in Calgary and introduced some electronic music elements into Spoon's style.[1] Superioryouareinferior includes themes previously used by Spoon like Canadian history and culture such as the commentary on colonialism in their song "Come On Forest Fire Burn The Disco Down".[11] Superioryouareinferior was a longlisted nominee for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.[12]

While touring Europe Spoon met Alexandre Decoupigny in Berlin. Decoupigny and Spoon collaborated in the album Worauf Wartest Du?[13] Decoupigny taught Spoon how to create music with a computer which inspired the musician to further experiment with electronic music.[14] The experimentation with electronic music influenced their subsequent albums and culminated in I Can't Keep All Our Secrets.[15]

They have also published First Spring Grass Fire, a book of short stories about growing up in Alberta. Arsenal Pulp Press released the book in the fall of 2012.[5] The book was a nominee for the 2013 Lambda Literary Awards in the Transgender Fiction category,[16] and Spoon was awarded an Honour of Distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT writers in 2014.[17]

Spoon has stated that First Spring Grass Fire was written to help them prepare for the production of a National Film Board of Canada documentary about their life and music, My Prairie Home, directed by Chelsea McMullan. The film was released in the fall of 2013.[18][19] My Prairie Home, the album of music that Spoon composed for the film, was a longlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize.[20]

In 2012, Spoon and Ivan Coyote collaborated on Gender Failure, a touring multimedia show in which both artists performed music and spoken word pieces about their failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary.[21] A book based on the show was published by Arsenal Pulp in 2014.[22] Gender Trouble was nominated for the ALA's Over the Rainbow Project List in 2015.[23]

In 2014, Spoon composed music for the feature film The Valley Below.[24]

Spoon began the music label Coax Records "out of a love for indie music and as an answer to under representation for many groups in the music industry."[25] The album "Armour" was released on Coax in 2016.[26]

In 2017, Spoon published a manual in the How To series, entitled How to (Hide) Be(hind) You Songs.[27]

• Honking at Minivans (2001)
• Throw Some Dirt on Me (2003)
• Your Trailer Door (2005)
• White Hearse Comes Rolling (2006)
• Trucker's Memorial (2006, with Rodney Decroo)
• superioryouareinferior (2008)
• Worauf wartest du? (2009, with Alexandre Decoupigny)
• Love Is a Hunter (2010)
• I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets (2012)
• My Prairie Home (2013)
• Armour (2016)
• Jump With Your Eyes Closed (2016)
• They with Plastik (2016)
• My Side of the Mountain with Clyde Petersen (2016)
• bodiesofwater (2018)
• Rae Spoon With Jesus and His Judgemental Father (2019)
• Mental Health (2019)

• Official website
• Rae Spoon at CBC Radio 3
• Rae Spoon at IMDb