Black Belt Eagle Scout is the solo project of Portland-based artist Katherine Paul, whose music draws from alt-rock and Native American traditions. As a multi-instrumentalist, Paul quickly delved into the city's pervasive indie scene as part of a couple of notable bands in the 2010s before branching out on her own with 2017’s Mother of My Children. A deeply personal effort, it ruminated on losses she had experienced while coming to grips with her identity as an indigenous queer woman. The more self-accepting At the Party with My Brown Friends followed in 2019, with 2023’s The Land, The Water, The Sky finding a balance of darkness and light inspired by returning to her childhood reservation during the 2020 pandemic outbreak.

Paul was raised in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and from an early age she sang and danced at Pow Wows. Her entry into music came in the form of her family's native musical traditions and a few old Nirvana and Hole VHS tapes, from which she learned to play guitar and drums in her teenage years. In 2007, she moved from Washington State to Portland, Oregon to go to college. There, she became involved with the Rock & Roll Camp for Girls, later cutting her teeth in Portland bands Genders and Forest Park. In 2014, Paul's first solo release under the Black Belt Eagle Scout moniker appeared in the form of a self-titled EP, but it would be her debut full-length record just a few years later that really resonated beyond the city's vibrant scene.

Paul returned to Northwest Washington to record Mother of My Children with Nich Wilber at Anacortes Unknown recording studio. The album was originally put out by the Portland independent label Good Cheer in 2017, and later picked up by Saddle Creek, which brought Black Belt Eagle Scout's unique sound to a broader audience in mid-2018 with the distinctive slant of "Soft Stud," a song that paired cycling motifs with grimy riffs and an elegant vocal. The LP reissue followed that September. Paul delivered her sophomore album, At the Party with My Brown Friends, in 2019, once again on Saddle Creek. Reigning in the squalling guitars of her debut, the album saw her in a more refined mood, comfortable with her identity and this time looking to love, friendship, and desire for inspiration.

With the international spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, she returned to the ancestral lands of her childhood and was deeply inspired by both the area’s nature – the Skagit River, tall cedar trees, tide flats, and mountain views -- and the sense of community she found during what was a time of collective trauma. Both the darkness and the feeling of support she received were reflected on 2023’s The Land, The Water, The Sky. It included "Salmon Stinta," a duet with Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum. ~ Bekki Bemrose & Marcy Donelson