Despite countless musical releases, written work, and a lively touring schedule, not everyone knows who Calgary-born artist Rae Spoon is; even in Canada, where their fan base is arguably their biggest. But they like it that way.

"I’m pretty happy with how things are," they say. "I also really like having a lot of control over what’s happening in my career and I can control my own schedule. It’s also nice not being super famous actually. I think that would really suck."

Their status as an indie artist does mean, after all, that they can do whatever they want without having to adhere to a singular, marketable product. They started with country, and also pushed very firmly into folk. "I think folk is evolving all the time now – since I started doing it. It’s a pretty interesting genre. I think country music is based in songwriting, but folk music is based even more into it."

With a musical style that’s constantly evolving, it’s not surprise that Rae is often found teaming up and collaborating with other artists. It seems that if there’s a chance to make music and to do something new, Rae jumps for it – and the musical landscape is all the happier. "I have a friend from Germany that I do a lot of computer music with; he came on tour with me for two weeks. Then we did a collaboration with Carole Pope, and Carole brought a guitar player in from L.A. I like to do different stuff; I think it’s more engaging.

"I think most artists – if you’re on a label – you’re not allowed to go from being a country singer to playing indie rock. It doesn’t make sense business-wise, for building a career, to change genres every three years. It’s not a good idea. But for me it’s fun though," Rae laughs. "I have a label too. For artists on my label I’m just like yeah, that’s totally fine."

A couple of years ago we reviewed Rae’s autobiographical musical-documentary, My Prairie Home. Directed by Chelsea McMullen, the film is a surreal reflection of Rae’s childhood, especially their struggle with sexuality and gender identity in a religious household. Unintentionally, though, there is a universality to it – at least when it comes to anyone else who has grown up in the prairies and felt like an outsider. It is strange how a shared landscape can affect who we are.

"It was really interesting to me that it ended up that way: a kind of shared history," Rae says. "I definitely have a lot of people telling me they are also from the prairies, and they saw it and it made them homesick. It resonated with them. [McMullen’s] capturing of the landscape was really cool, and the history of it is so interesting."

The team-up occurred when McMullen had an idea for a documentary, but the two had met before then. "She found me for one of her films before: she was looking for a subversive country artist, and I was doing country music at the time," Rae laughs. "She was kind of looking for country music that wasn’t too precious about traditional country music values. That’s how we met, and kind of got to know each other through that. She asked me if I wanted to make a documentary musical, and I was living in Montreal at the time, and I didn’t know she wanted to go to the prairies. I was like, Sure! Where are we gonna film in Montreal? Well, we’re going to Alberta. Oh."

"It was this very surprising – well, it took us five or six years to finish the project." And the effort shows.

The project helped to set off some other creative outlets for Rae, like those culminating in published work. Since Rae was a little shy on camera, they ended up writing a collection of stories for McMullen to work with in preparation for My Prairie Home; the result was the book First Grass Spring Fire. Gender Failure, the second book, is an offshoot of a live touring show they did in collaboration with Ivan Coyote. "Ivan and I wrote personal life stories about how we feel like we had been treated like we failed at the gender binary, but maybe there’s some sort of inherent failure in the binary itself. Both of those [books] were really fun to write and totally unexpected too."

While interested in writing more, and perhaps branching into fiction, Rae had a good laugh at themselves at their ability – or lack of – to pay attention. "I am really interested in that... writing requires such discipline. Music doesn’t require a lot of discipline for me.

"Sitting at a computer and writing is a lot harder for me than playing guitar. I’m just like Ooh, guitar is fun!"

How long does it take them to do a song? "Not long actually; I have been doing it for so long. Writing a song can take 20 minutes. It’s, uh, more conducive to my attention span."

While with no Edmonton tour dates booked just yet, you can expect a visit to Calgary on September 2nd. Rae confirmed that in October they would be venturing further north to Camrose, so they might hit up Edmonton while they’re in the area.

"I have a lot of support from Canada and the indie scene. It’s kinda cool; I feel like I could sustain this forever. I decided awhile ago that if you know, I’m playing [for] 200 to 100 people in a town for the rest of my life, that’s totally fine with me. I don’t know if that sounds unambitious, but I think that’s actually pretty nice."