Fire on American Idol
Fire, 22, is a contestant on American Idol and is a Comanche Nation tribal member from Lawton, Oklahoma. She said she auditioned in the summer of 2022 for the show.
“I saw the ad for it on Facebook and it was like, ‘Oh come and audition online,’ and I was like ‘Why not?’ So, I…got registered to do the Zoom call,” Fire said. “And then that same day, after all the hours of waiting and going through the different steps in the process, I eventually got told that I was going to be able to perform for the celebrity judges on the actual show.”
She said she found out right away that she would get on the show, she said everyone gets different stories, so it was nice.
Fire said the best experience she had in her singing career was a talent showcase, which took place last summer.
“I went to Orlando and it was just performances in front of like different agents and like producers and different like schools and just so many people in the actual industry and you get to do workshops and stuff so they kind of get to work with you and teach you things about the singing industry,” she said. “And it was really nice because I kind of got that spark back in me and my love for music just, it just showed me that I shouldn't give up on my dreams.”
Fire said that after high school, she gave up singing.
“I became a mom so…I was like singing is not in the cards I guess so I kind of just put my dreams on the back burner but then something happened in my life,” she said. “And I was just like ‘You know I'm just gonna take every opportunity that I can and see where it takes me,’ and you know I was just gonna audition over Zoom for American Idol and I was like ‘Well, it won't hurt anything if I don't make it so I might as well try.”
Fire said she’s been singing since she was little.
“I'd just be singing in daycare and preschool and everything like that,” she said. “I just love to make noise and sing my little heart out. I would always get told to shut up but I didn't care.”
After Fire’s initial audition in New Orleans, Louisiana, Katy Perry gave her a second chance to audition in Nashville, Tennessee, which will air on Sunday, March 26.
“I mean I sing every day you know and I think it's important to kind of push my vocal limitations and learn about my voice…my instrument and teach myself new things and listen to people and listen to their advice and also just expressing my emotions and my feelings through my music as well,” she said.
Fire said that outside of singing, she loves to sleep.
“I don't think I've ever met somebody as sleepy as myself like if I can take a nap, I'll take a nap but I mean I love going shopping even if I have no money, I'll go window shopping just because I like seeing what's new and I also like dancing with my daughter,” she said. “We'll go play music in the living room and just blast music and the neighbors probably hate me but we'll just be doing our thing just being crazy.”
Fire said she was put in the foster care system in the Indian Tribal Welfare when she was born; however, she could still be a part of the tribe.
“During that time, I have vivid memories of like being a part of my tribe and you know helping out and you know interacting with parts of my family that are part of the community in the tribe,” she said.
According to Fire, that all changed when she was adopted outside of the tribe around the age of eight.
“They promised that they would keep me a part of you know the Comanche tribe and doing things with them but shortly after the adoption was finalized, they cut ties with my tribe,” she said. “I wasn't allowed to go onto the reservation anymore. I wasn't allowed to interact with them. I wasn't allowed to go to powwows anymore and they essentially like stripped every part of my culture out of me so we weren't allowed to talk about our lives before then. We weren't allowed to talk about our biological siblings so yeah, I lost connection with my tribe. I lost connection with my culture. I lost contact with my family and it had a tremendous effect on my identity and my insecurities about my culture.”
Fire said she is proud of her culture and being Native American.
“My older sister is honestly like my savior when it comes to that. She's very heavily involved in our tribe because she grew up in it,” Fire said. “She's taught me how to sew. She's taught me how to make jewelry. She made these pair actually and I learned how to make all the Native regalia and stuff like that. She teaches me the terminology. She teaches like my family tree, my family name, stuff like that and she'll always try to teach me and my daughter Comanche words and stuff like that so it's really cool and it's so much stuff to learn but I really am trying.”
She’s trying to connect back to her tribe healthily and heal past trauma.
“We're more centered around our community and we don't focus on ourselves,” Fire said. “We focus on everyone else and we work on helping others rather than expecting things for ourselves.”
Fire said it’s important for her to learn the values that Native Americans have. She said people should be proud of their culture, especially if they’re Native American.
“If I could teach like my younger self, I would tell my younger self to embrace myself being Indigenous,” she said.
She is currently staying in the UK and will be starting school in New York at New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts on a scholarship from the summer showcase.
