INTERVIEW: Kee'ahn teams up with Samuel Gaskin on new single 'Find My Way Back': "I feel safer in myself and more proud of myself for trying to navigate music my way"

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Images: Michelle Grace Hunder
Published: 9 August 2024

Naarm/Melbourne based, North Queensland raised singer-songwriter, Kee’ahn today teams up with Samuel Gaskin on their new single ‘Find My Way Back’.

Written by Gaskin, Kee'ahn and Pip Norman, and produced by Samuel Gaskin and Norman, ‘Find My Way Back’ is a divine electro-dance track with sweet synth beats, lush melodies, ethereal backing vocals and a mesmerising vocal performance from Kee’ahn.

Kee’ahn is a proud Yalanji, Jirrbal, Badu Islander artist, while Samuel Gaskin has Māori and Nigerian heritage and both explore their ancestry in the song, and the need to reconnect with your roots no matter how adrift from them you feel. ‘It’s taken me too long / I almost gave up on / But I found my way back to you’ Kee’ahn sings.

"For me 'Find My Way Back' is a love letter to the Ancestors and the parts of ourselves we may have shut down or been disconnected from,” Samuel Gaskin says, while Kee’ahn says the song is “an invitation to accept ourselves where we are at so that we can have the courage and self belief, to chase after what feels like home"

Samuel Gaskin and Kee’ahn have created something remarkably special with ‘Find My Way Back’. It is the type of song that has an undeniably infectious dance beat - and would be very much at home in a crowded nightclub - but the synths and electronica also add an emotional depth, along with the sense of yearning, melancholy and hope that the lyrics encapsulate. Some songs are for fun, and some songs have you quickly sinking into introspection, a sense of wanting to do good and leaving you just full of the feels. ‘Find My Way Back’ is definitely one of the latter, and will quickly become your new favourite song. We recently caught up with Kee’ahn and Samuel Gaskin to chat more about the creation of the song.

Hi Kee’ahn and Samuel, so lovely to meet you. ‘Find My Way Back’ is really beautiful, it's a real corker of a track. Talk to me a little bit about the track and where it came from.
Kee’ahn It just came really instinctually, it just felt so genuine writing it with Sam and Pip. It started from a place of feeling country and feeling the space and a lot of the vocal harmonies, the layers and soundscapes were just freestyling, just letting whatever came come out and we just sang together. It was really such a beautiful way to start to write a song. We spoke a lot about where we're from, reconnecting and our journeys with our connection to culture and to family and to ancestors, and it just went from there, it was really special to be a part of it.
Samuel It really felt like a nudge from the ancestors, just in terms of how easily everything came together. I was kind of obsessing over reverb at the time, because I've been watching this documentary on reverb, and just geeking out over it and hyper fixating. So I thought it would be really cool to get in the studio and just chuck a whole lot of reverb on and for Kee’ahn and I to just improvise and see what we pulled from the ancestors. That's how the base was built, and then it felt like everything just fell into place so beautifully from there.

It's a real banging track, it's really, really beautiful, but it definitely gets you moving, which is such a great space to be in. Talk to me a little bit about honoring your heritage and your ancestors. while also pushing yourself with the reverb and with creative boundaries and technology. Did you both struggle with that at all?
Samuel: I feel like Kee’ahn and I are very lucky in that we’re people who have chosen to create our own paths. We're not bound by labels or whoever else saying ‘you should do this to make it more whatever’. For me, it feels easier to connect into those parts of myself, and that's only come to me from many years of being in it and around it and figuring out that actually, the main point to being an artist and sharing my art is to continue to make my ancestors proud and centre my own communities and uplift myself, rather than try and find something that will tick the boxes or whatever the old white men at the labels call it. So for me, getting in the room with Kee’ahn and creating such a beautiful piece of work just felt easy and natural, but I think that's because of the place we come to it from.
Kee'ahn: I just resonate so much with what you said. We choose our own path, and be who we are. The song structure, soundscape and feeling really shows that.

You've both been creating for a long time, how do you come together with two very unique styles and navigate into one solid, almost like a ‘dream band’ sounding track?
Samuel: That’s a really nice question! I feel like working with someone like Pip Norman, who's the producer on this, is really integral, because Pip is very much in service of the song and is an energetic match to Kee’ahn and I. He's really good at just facilitating the space and letting everyone come into the mix as equals. That's kind of a rarity, and something really special to find out there in the world of producers. I also just feel like Kee’ahn and I are pretty chill and happy to listen to each other and to everyone else in the mix and to the ancestors and to the nudges that we're getting from them.
Kee’ahn: It just came really naturally, it feels like such a perfect fusion of all our kind of styles. I really wanted my vocals to be me, and writing the lyrics was just such a nice mix of all of us, and didn't feel forced. Now being able to analyse it, I can see that's a bit of you, that's a bit of me, and it’s so sweet.

Image: Michelle Grace Hunder

That sounds lovely. You both mentioned how beautiful it was working, not just with each other, but also with Pip Norman on this, and having someone that genuinely works for and listens to the song. How have you both navigated this very heavy boomer white man business that we have in Australia and still be able to not just turn out your very integrity focused bangers, but just remain grounded in yourselves?
Samuel: How long do you have? It's taken me a long time, to be really real with you. For me it's been about working on myself and my personal growth as a human and as a soul who's here for this experience at the moment and learning to stay true to who I am and not being swept up in the business, so to speak. And just remembering that the reason I do it is because I love it. Honestly, my favourite part to the day is just being in that room with Kee’ahn and that song coming to us so easily, and the ideas flying in. Just that beautiful feeling of flow that you have in that moment. All the businessy stuff that you have to do to get the song out there has its place, but for me, remembering my favourite bit and how special that is, helps me somehow navigate all the other stuff that comes with it.

Kee’ahn It’s really centering the intention of why we are creatives, and why we have these gifts. It's a lot of work on self really honing into the intention of why we're doing this. And it feels like the gatekeepers, or certain ways of doing things, don't matter after you have that grounding and that understanding of why you're doing things the way you want to do it. I feel safer in myself and more proud of myself for trying to navigate it my way. Also, it's brought in people that are similar, like Sam and Pip, and then that’s the way you find community. You don't end up really needing this white boomer space. You can carve out your own lane, and it brings the people who resonate with that. It's just so ideal and natural and safe, and being able to see other people do that, it gives you the confidence to do that too.

On that point, and leading with what you want to listen to is the thing that you're creating, have you noticed a shift with the audience and the listeners and the kind of shows that are getting put on in Australia? Or do you think think it's still a big, tough climb to get anything that isn't dude rock on the radio?
Samuel: For artists like Kee’ahn and I we're just so proactive in building our own world and making things happen ourselves, and this really interesting thing happens when you do that. Those tastemakers. and the outside eyes are like ‘Oh, what are they doing? Oh, I want to get in on that’. It just feels nice to be someone who is carving out their own space and if other people want to come and get involved, that’s awesome. But also, we don't actually need that. I think we've still got a long way to go in terms of the music industry over here and around the world, and how heavily cis male rock dominated it is. But I think it just feels really nice to be someone who is happy creating their own world that everyone else can get involved with if they want.

You've both had some beautiful, beautiful songs out, and I just feel ‘Find My Way Back’ is such a great next step while still sounding very much like you as individuals. Can I ask, is this the start of a possible long-term project?
Kee'ahn: Yeah, I feel like the song and this whole journey, has been staying in that flow and I love Sam so let’s see what happens, I guess! This whole process just felt so natural and needed, it felt healing in ways. So if that's what the future brings, I'm keen to continue that.
Samuel: Oh my god, I would literally write songs with Kee’ahn every single week, if I could. They are so unbelievably brilliant as a human first, I genuinely enjoy just sharing space with them, all talent aside. I'm really in a space where that's who I want to work with. I've really come to learn over the last however long, that our time here is actually quite short. So it doesn't matter how talented somebody is, if they're a great person as well, then that's what I want to be around. And I've absolutely loved working with Kee’ahn, and would love to do it as much as possible.

‘Find My Way Back’ is out now. You can buy and stream here.
Follow Kee’ahn on Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok.
Follow Samuel Gaskin on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok