This year’s Mission Creek Festival marked the return of Your Smith, who performed Friday night at Gabe’s Oasis. Near the bar at Gabe’s there’s a poster from a previous Mission Creek with her name on it, back when she was going by Caroline Smith. Her connections to Iowa run deep. She’s performed at the 80/35 Festival and even played a session in IPR’s studios, not long after the release of her 2013 album Half About Being A Woman.
“For a while half my band was from Iowa, so (I) actually have a lot of friends here and I've been able to maintain those friendships,” said Smith.”I was just texting with my old drummer from Washington, and we were going back and forth about all the times we had in Iowa and everybody we know. I remember that specific trip (to the IPR studios). It was so much fun! We loaded in and we did the interview. It was just such fond memories here.”
Since then, she’s started going by Your Smith (although we still get to call her Caroline). She also kept busy making music and playing live up until 2019. As was the case for so many of us, the global pandemic changed everything for her, and made her want to stop what she calls “white knuckling every achievement.”
“The pandemic really switched things up for me. It really hit me hard, flipped my boat upside down, as I'm sure it did for 99.9% of the people out there,” said Smith. “That was in the middle of my career. I’d been going hard for like 18 years. And for me, the pandemic offered just enough breathing room to step away and do the things that I never really got to do, because I was just on this never-ending ‘revolving door’ tour schedule and writing schedule, trying to make my dreams come true.”
“And so, you know, everything came to a grinding halt. And it was either I sit in my room and make TikTok videos and try to keep pushing that boulder, or give myself the grace and the permission to step back and explore other things,” said Smith.
During this period, Smith considered herself “retired” from music. She moved back to Minneapolis from Los Angeles, got married and started a family. As if all that wasn’t enough, she went back to college and earned a degree, bought a restaurant with her husband and made peace with the idea of not making music professionally.
Then, out of the blue Smith received a direct message on Instagram from Nettwerk Music Group, expressing interest in working with her. Smith had some songs she’d written years earlier, and Nettwerk wanted to make a record, which is scheduled to be released this September.
“A good portion of [the songs were] written before I walked away from music,” said Smith. “And then I just kind of laid them down and walked away, and I was like ‘maybe I'll revisit them, maybe I won't.’”
Obviously, Smith ended up revisiting the songs, and here we are now. Many of the songs were written with her friends Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker of the Twin Cities band Hippo Campus, whom we interviewed at the 2024 Hinterland Music Festival and for whom Smith has nothing but high praise.
“They’re so cool, it's not fair,” said Smith. “They're all super handsome, and they're all very talented, like conservatory talented. All of them can play any instrument very, very well. And on top of that, they're the most gracious, kind and generous, giving, passionate young men I've maybe met.”
One of the new songs on the album is “Change Of Heart.” It's Your Smith’s first single in six years, and she somewhat jokingly refers to it as her “Paul McCartney song.”
“I've always been listening to Paul McCartney as a huge inspiration,” said Smith. “When you try to write a Paul McCartney song, that's when you write a terrible song. That's like trying to be like, ‘I'm going to run a marathon as fast as Usain Bolt!’ It doesn’t work like that. So we wrote that song and I was like, ‘Oh my God. It kind of reminds me, dare I say, of a Paul McCartney song!’ I've always wanted to write a song like that, kind of like a loose, jangly, ‘arrow through me’ kind of song. So it just came out.”
For her Mission Creek set at Gabe’s, Your Smith pulled out what she calls the “Iowa City Gabe’s small venue” setup, which uses guitar, but also triggers, pads and Ableton software.
“I kind of created this solo set so I could afford to open for other bands without having to bring a band,” said Smith. “It's just kind of like my business-minded way of not taking money that I have to pay back eventually. So I kind of crafted this set where it felt like a full band, where I could dance and express myself the way I like to. And I just loved doing it! It's one of my favorite ways to perform.”
Having seen Your Smith’s solo set, it’s clear she’s having a blast, and it appears her time away from music was good for her.
“It was such a revelation to have music be something that I did for fun and not for, you know, commodification,” said Smith. “It was just a really important lesson for me to learn how to find the joy in music again. And now I feel like my career is on my terms. Like I said, I’m not ‘white knuckling’ every achievement, trying to make sure it happens when it's supposed to happen. I'm just going to let it flow and let it do its thing.”
Your Smith’s music is available on Spotify and Apple Music, among other streaming sites.
