Some people are really scared, and rightfully so. We’re now seeing innocent people who are just trying to protect other citizens in our country, who are using their voice and their body, and we’ve now seen multiple murders. So I understand being afraid. Some people don’t want to just go onto the street with a protest sign, but they would be willing to go to a church with a friend who says, ‘Just come sing songs of hope with me.’
Heather Mae, in conversation with Stuart Stotts on
WDRT’s ‘How Can I Keep from Singing?’ On Sprouts (Viroqua, Wisconsin)
March 4, 2026
This is an excerpt from a radio transcript that has been edited for print.
Stuart Stotts
Heather Mae is a genre-defying artist and activist whose music blends the storytelling intimacy of folk with the grit of alternative rock and the hooks of indie pop. She writes anthems about mental health, queer liberation, survivor empowerment and social justice, inviting listeners into a space of radical
honesty. Her double album project, ‘What They Hid From Me,’ has helped to build a devoted community of like seekers and good troublemakers. Her concerts feel less like passive performances and more like participatory gatherings that remind audiences they are worthy, not alone and very much still here.
I would add that Heather Mae has recently been spending time in Minneapolis and brings a unique perspective on what’s happening in the streets and in the shared voices of a resisting community.
Stuart Stotts
So why Minneapolis? You live in Nashville. Why did you come up to Minneapolis?
Heather Mae
I was in New Orleans three weeks ago at the National Folk Alliance International Conference attendinga peer-to-peer support group for activists and change-makers. The moment I found out that Alex Pretti had died…a friend texted me saying, ‘Have you heard there’s been another murder by ICE?’…, I texted my partner Crys Matthews, who is also a social justice song-writer, and said, ‘I’m going to Minneapolis,’ and her response was, ‘Yeah, I figured this might happen.’
You know, there’s something really beautiful in the videos of musicians and singers, activists, who are
just absolutely taking to the street to protect their fellow Minneapolitans, which I’ve now learned is what they’re called, and St. Paulites. It is a form of community care I have never seen before. And as a long- time activist, I remember watching, before New Orleans, the videos and seeing there’s something different there.
So many just normal people who wouldn’t identify as activists are taking to the streets. There’s no
conversation about political affiliation or voting. They are just humans who are enraged, doing what
they can.
And so, when I saw the video of Alex protecting that woman and learning that he was a nurse, I knew I had to go there. I have to meet them. I have to work with them, I have to understand the ethos of why.
What did you do to get people to wake up and support in all these various different ways? And I’m so glad I did because what I’ve learned on a personal front to be able to bring back to Nashville is going to be very important.
Stuart Stotts
Let’s turn our attention to music in Minneapolis. There are videos that circulate that many of us have seen of people singing in the streets, pieces of music that are somewhere between song and chant and that spontaneously bring people together. Tell me about what it’s like to be in that situation.
Heather Mae
There’s really nothing like it, to be surrounded by thousands of people who are all singing the same
words that they just learned. There’s no sheet music. There’s no lyrics anywhere. It’s just by ear, ears connected, voices connected.
I teach song chants. I teach teachers how to lead and teach other people how to have a chant and how to go from singing in your church to singing in a street at a protest, how to create these kind of singing circles. I’ve been doing that for years. And then I went to Minneapolis, and this level, this number of humans, many who do not sing, I can’t even really explain how it feels.
It is an energy. It’s a type of hope that I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m finding myself stumbling over words. I don’t often stumble over my words, but it’s a feeling that I haven’t felt in a very long time.
Listen to the full interview here.
Photo of Heather Mae used with her permission.