NICKI BLUHM
Give yourself that time to be bored because that's when true creativity comes.
— NICKI BLUHM
WORDS BY IAN RANDOLPH | IMAGES BY DAVID KATZINGER
From a Costco parking lot in Tennessee, Nicki Bluhm reflects candidly on the complexities of human nature.
Much like respect, trust is something that must be earned, not simply given. But if trust is so essential, how did we end up in a place where we struggle to even trust ourselves? Truth becomes slippery when it’s defined differently from one person to the next. It’s difficult to grasp any deeper meaning when we don’t fully recognize or understand the details of our own existence. We all fall into the blame game, clinging to moral standards that may not be universally true, only personally convenient.
Nicki Bluhm doesn’t cast judgment on these contradictions. Instead, she compassionately examines them, expressing the raw imperfections of humanity without shame. She doesn’t draw a harsh line between humans and animals; rather, she sees all living things as complex beings, simply doing their best to survive. While our methods may differ, the motivation to survive is shared across species. What sets us apart is our capacity for love and how that love deepens our growth, if we let it.
In her music, Nicki suggests that to truly love, you must go beyond self-love. You must also embrace the environment, the conditions, and the imperfections that shape who you are.
Ian Randolph: Outside of the romance and breakups involved in your music, there is a certain attitude to it that doesn't victimize or antagonize your character. You own up to one's flaws. Do you believe the friction between relationships is never a one-sided thing?
Nicki Bluhm: Yeah, I definitely think that. I think that there's a lot to be said about how we all play a role in the way things play out. I think that there are people that make better decisions than others, but I think that everybody’s ethical scale is different. It's important to align ethically with people you're close to. Whether it's friends or romantic partners or parents or whatever to feel safe in a relationship. Your baseline of ethics needs to be similar, so that you're playing on the same field.
Perspective is really helpful in allowing you to see your role in things, especially if there's something that's inflamed a relationship and you're seeing red. That's not the time that you're gonna make the best decision. Space is what gives you the perspective for me anyway. The space gives me perspective to say, "I can see how I play a part in this situation".
IR: Do you try to align your experiences in nature to your writing process?
NB: I mean, I draw from nature. That is for sure and I'm not unique in that way. Being outside in nature and without headphones or distractions is an important piece to connecting with self. Whether it's being on a 12-day backpack trip, being in my barn with my horses, taking a walk, or whatever it is, it's kind of a nice pallet cleanser to just spend that time listening to your footsteps, the wind, leaves, or whatever it is. Because it's so easy to fill our heads with all this stuff all the time, especially when I just got AirPods. I was filling my head with so much stuff and then realizing, "Oh yeah. Remember when I just used to listen to nothing?". That was much more of a stimulus for my creativity than always having something going on. Give yourself that time to be bored because that's when true creativity comes.
IR: How did growing up in the San Fran/Oakland area inform you as an artist?
NB: I was born and raised in the Bay Area area. I was born in Oakland and then I was raised in a town which is just on the other side of the Berkeley / Oakland area. I grew up skiing and my big outdoor experiences were either skiing or my horses. Horses were a huge thing for me growing up.
My first trainer, I met when I was 12 and she just kind of saw my work ethic and my passion for horses. She fostered and nurtured that in me from an early age. She put a lot of trust in me and gave me a lot of responsibility in that world. She was a very important mentor for me in my life and I think a lot of my confidence in just becoming a person came from spending time with the horses out at the barn. When I became a teenager, she would leave town and give me the responsibility at the barn. At that point I was teaching adults riding lessons and then when I married my husband, who is now my ex-husband, he got me back into that lifestyle again. It really leveled me up.
Transcendence has been something very consistent in my life.
IR: As we yearn to learn more about our loved ones often we still don't know someone 100 percent of the time. We want the truth and for people to be honest with themselves, but in some cases it ends up being something we never wanted in the first place. Should we be 100 percent honest as people in our day-to-day lives?
NB: Like most things in life, moderation is a good practice. I certainly enjoy the time I spend with myself and have worked hard to enjoy my own company. I think that's a really big part of growth. In being a good companion to yourself, you also need other people. We're social creatures. I think we thrive in community and relationships, so having both is extremely important. Finding a balance that works, but that's interesting what you were saying about when you get to know too much about somebody. It can feel heavy or even scary sometimes, but it doesn't have to be your responsibility to take that on emotionally or even it's not your responsibility to bolster, support, change, and encourage. Sometimes just sitting with that knowledge is enough and you don't have to do anything with it or about it.
Coming out of relationships, especially codependent relationships, it's easy to get yourself in that role of feeling the heaviness of somebody else's burdens. In reality, you're sort of creating two victims, you know? If somebody gets caught up in an avalanche and you see that they're in the avalanche, you need to be careful about going to rescue them because you could just make yourself another victim in the avalanche. But to love someone you should love them completely, no matter what. There are pros and cons to everything.
IR: Out of all 5 senses, what's your greatest sense?
NB: I feel like it's not a sense, but nostalgia always sort of sparks interest in me and that can come from smelling something. My sense of smell is very activated. Like a cologne that a guy from high school wore that I had a crush on.
IR: Do you acknowledge your senses to help inspire your music?
NB: I'm sure, but it's not as straightforward as that. I think that would be a really interesting exercise as a songwriter to try to do. Even as I was just talking about the cologne; that would be kind of an interesting song prompt. To write from a sense, but I can't say that I have a specific example of doing it. I feel like all the senses are activated when you're writing a song. Sometimes all it takes is just something that comes to mind, but more in-depth and that's why I think that that's a cool thought. It would be cool to really examine the layers of what you're thinking. What does it feel like? What does it sound like? What does it look like? Certainly that will extract a more deep, thorough experience. I think probably more conscious than anything else I do.
Usually when I'm writing, I try to unburden myself of something that's been ruminating in my head. I need to get it out so that the ruminating can stop. Especially in songs that are related to real experiences of pain and suffering.
My mental health is feeling good and strong. I'm in a good relationship, so the topics of my songs are not a reaction to pain or discomfort. There's sort of more a reaction to joy, life, appreciation, and acceptance of what I have, so my songs are always sort of a reflection of where I'm at in my life now.
IR: What helps you escape from the pressures of your life or environment?
NB: I mean for years I've lived in Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I would just walk the beach every day and that was a huge source of just calm zen ritual for me. I do miss that a lot and now living in Tennessee for around 9 years, I miss the ocean. It's a little bit like out of sight out of mind, but every time I go back, I realize how much I miss the ocean and how healing it is. It's vast, consistent, and calming. Now I can find calmness anywhere. I'm sitting in a parking lot at Costco right now and thank you for taking the time by the way.
IR: But of course.
NB: I'm looking at the beautiful greenery around me, and I'm like "Those cat tails are so beautiful and oh, that maple is changing color!". There is nature everywhere, so I'm not trying to get away. I don’t need to go somewhere else to get into nature. I can just appreciate the nature that I'm in. Whether it's in a Costco parking lot or at the beach, a huge refuge for me now is my home in Tennessee, my barn, and horses. I am so grateful for that space and I would say that that's like my number one spot. For some people, they need to be in a certain environment to get some kind of emotion or feeling or a sense of peace, but sometimes it's not about where you are, it's just about where your mind's at. You often hear about people saying they want the simple life or to move out somewhere to have simplicity, but sometimes it's just in you.
IR: What's your favorite animal and why?
NB: Oh, I mean, that's so hard to pick. I love so many of them for different reasons. I love the horses because they are just these massive animals with incredible power and the fact that they allow us to be around them, they can express this sensitive and delicate gentleness while having all this power. It's a really beautiful, delicate balance. I just so appreciate being in their presence and they teach me so much. I have my dog Birdie who I'm obsessed with. She is pure love all the time. Never going to be mad at you, always going to accept you, and always gonna be excited to go do stuff with you. I mean, dogs are great for that. They're amazing and then I've got a bunch of cats who I adore. They're always deciphering when they want to spend time with you and for how long. There's this love that you sort of have to maybe not earn, but you have to take it when they give it out to you. When you get it, it feels special.
IR: Horses are very sensitive animals to the point of knowing exactly what kind of rider they have based on how they hold their reins. Do you feel like you can read people well? If so, how?
NB: Yeah, I think for a long time —
I sort of assumed that everyone saw the world in the same lens. I'm still learning that lesson. Unfortunately it took having some pretty rough experiences to realize that, but I feel like when I was younger, I always sort of assumed the best in people and kind of thought that everyone's intentions were good, pure, and similar to mine.
Through life and experiencing, good or bad, the lessons that I learned were really important. You can hear a million cautionary tales, but you're never really going to listen to them until you've experienced it yourself. I feel like I'm an empathic person so I can feel when somebody is hurting. I feel deeply for suffering and beyond people, animals, environment, and the state of the world. I'm very empathetic in that way, which I think is a good thing and it also can be a painful thing. I need to spend more time getting to know people at this point in my life before I can trust because when your trust has been broken over some time, you just develop those skills of being a little bit more cautious and deciphering who's safe, who's worth your time, and who's not.
IR: As humans, we're driven more by our needs than by morality. Like animals, we're born with the instinct to survive, but unlike them, we're taught morals based on the society we grow up in. Are we really that different from animals?
NB: I think that we have some pretty basic instincts that are animalistic. We've created a civilization amongst us as humans, there's a certain code of conduct. I think that we've done a crazy job of protecting our natural resources and I think that that's something animals would never do. I mean, I think animals are much more intelligent in the ways of honoring and respecting natural resources. That's sort of a crazy thing. As smart as we are as humans, we seem to just continue to destroy our planet, which is baffling because there's no amount of money you could pay for clean water once it's gone.
IR: Are humans essentially selfish and is that a bad thing?
NB: I sort of wish we'd followed more with the mindset of Native Americans. Living in stride with the seasons, the earth, and the animals feels like we are in a much better place. We need clean air to breathe. We need fresh water to drink. These are basic things that shouldn't be hot or divisive topics. We know that we all need to survive and those are our natural resources.
I don't know if being selfish is ever a good thing, only focusing on your own needs. We can't exist without one another.
Look at our food intake. We need animals, we need farmland, we need grass to grow, we need water, and it's a holistic picture. People are getting more and more isolated, more and more in themselves, and kind of forgetting this big picture that we all depend on the cycle of life in every way.
Whether she's reflecting from the saddle of a horse, the quiet of a Tennessee barn, or a Costco parking lot, Nicki Bluhm’s voice is rooted in empathy and unflinching honesty.
With Rancho Deluxe, out October 3rd, Bluhm continues that exploration, offering listeners a vivid and deeply personal collection of songs shaped by solitude, nature, and the hard-won clarity that comes with time. It's an album that doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but invites you to sit with the questions and maybe even find peace in the asking.
ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE
Nicki Bluhm performs her song “Cumberland Banks” with her band mates Cameron Neal, Kai Welch, and dog Birdie.
Video - David Katzinger | Editing - Kathleen Howes