Coyote With Innocent Eyes: Ken Pomeroy Between Arrival and Becoming
- Josh Kitchen
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
By: Josh Kitchen / December 16, 2025
Listening to Ken Pomeroy talk about her own work, you’re struck by her humility.
She’s 23, but her music has already appeared on two major television shows — including one she also acts in alongside Ethan Hawke — she’s performed with legends like Wanda Jackson, John Craigie, and Iron & Wine, and she even sang and appeared in one of the biggest films of 2024, Twisters. Her sophomore album, Cruel Joke, released in May, earned near-universal acclaim and attention from NPR and Rolling Stone, and she’s set to make her debut at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville next February.
Pomeroy speaks about her work with a sense of disbelief and awe. “Are you sure that I moved you?” she asked me toward the end of our conversation. That posture is rooted in family and place. Raised in Moore, Oklahoma, she learned about her Cherokee heritage from her great-grandmother — her Mamaw — who gave her the name “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair (ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ).” When she was six, she heard a John Denver song that completely rewired her brain and showed her how music can make you feel something real. Her Cherokee roots and new appreciation for music, along with her father turning their garage into a makeshift concert venue set her artistic compass early.
All of this feeds directly into Cruel Joke, a record shaped as much by upbringing and lived experience as by the people — and animals — that inhabit her world. Animals often carry more wisdom than humans on the record, an intentional choice Pomeroy traces back to her reverence for them. Even joining the cast of FX’s The Lowdown, where she acts for the first time and sings her latest single, “Bound to Rain,” hasn’t displaced that humility. Standing at the edge of wider visibility, Pomeroy is still listening — a coyote with innocent eyes, learning how to grow without losing sight of where she comes from. I had a long conversation with Pomeroy where we talked about her breakout year, the idea of becoming someone who can change another person’s life the way John Denver changed hers, and how she’s learning to sit with that possibility in real time.
Cruel Joke came out this past May and was met with real critical acclaim. After spending so long living with these songs privately, what has it been like to watch them leave your hands and find their way into other people’s lives?
I wasn't sure how it was going to be received. I feel like with most people who you know release music or release art into the world, you're kind of scared of how people are going to treat it, but I've been really lucky. People have been super nice about it, and I've gotten a lot of really kind messages about how it's helping people get through hard times. And that's pretty much the reason why I do it.
As someone whose grandma was their best friend, to hear you talk about the relationship you have with your great grandmother, your Mamaw, as you call her, is really special. She taught you a lot about your Cherokee Heritage, and gave you the name, "Little Wolf with Yellow Hair (ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ.)"
She is 96 years old and still cooking. She was someone in my family that I always had a unique relationship that I don't think I had with anyone else. I had kind of a tumultuous childhood, so it was hard for me to feel safe and secure in some of the relationships that normally people would feel safe and secure in, So I'm so thankful for what she gave me and the relationship we have. She was the catalyst for me in thinking it's cool to be Native, and for it to be a part of who we are as a family. She's just so important to everything I do, and I think me becoming an adult made me realize a lot more about how many things about our relationship poke through, especially in my songwriting.
It really comes across on a song like "Coyote," which you've said is about her. It's such a reverential song to her and your family.
Absolutely. I had just turned 20 years old when I wrote that song, and it was kind of like self-realization of, “Oh, I am kind of an asshole, and I can kind of be really hard to deal with and be really hard-headed.” That can be good in some ways, so it’s okay to embrace that, but you’ve got to realize that you have to take accountability. You can’t always be blaming the reason you act a certain way on your childhood, right? This was a huge memo to give myself grace. There’s always so much time to do stuff, and her being well into her 90s always reminds me of that too. On one hand, there’s not enough time in a lifetime, but also, there’s enough time.
Nine out of the twelve songs on Cruel Joke reference an animal in some capacity. There are cicadas, horses, calves, and a the one through line is canine imagery. All across this record are dogs, foxes, wolves, coyotes. Talk to me about that.
I think that a lot of it has come through by default. I didn't write the record all at once, so that kind of just that happened naturally. All of my tattoos are animals, I think it's just kind of by default. It's such an easy way for me to explain things when I don't want to be so direct and I can also relate to a lot of these animals, specifically the Coyote. Animals are such a universal thing where everyone kind of experiences them in some way or another, whether it be good, bad, or even annoying. I think it's a really easy way to connect with people.
I think one of the things that makes your songwriting so interesting is that you can tell you think about animals in such a reverential way - it isn't flippant. This is especially true in a song like, "Wolf In Sheep's Clothing," where you frame horses as being even wiser than the people in the song - "The way I look at you is different from the glare I’d give to anybody else/Horses staring in the kitchen/Judging us harsher than we judge ourselves."
That's a huge thing, because a lot of the times I'll realize after I've finished a song, and after I've poured out all these feelings, I'm like, oh okay, I guess that's what's wrong with me. I found a very common theme in this record where the animals are super sentient, which I think comes from my high reverence of them.
That reverence is probably clearest on "Wrango," which is about your dog. "Wrango, I’ll turn off the bedroom light, ’Cause that sparkle in your eye’s bright enough to light the sky," you sing. I know "Wolf In Sheep's Clothing," is one of the only love songs you've written, but I'd add "Wrango" to that list. You take Wrango seriously, but you still challenge him and meet him where he is. I feel like I know a lot of people like Wrango after hearing that song.
Thank you so much. It was truly a song where I was slightly in a panic, because I knew that I definitely did not need a dog at all. But he just he needed to be rescued, and I needed him. I am so glad that I that I got him. (He's whining at me currently.) He's super strange, like he's just a very strange dog. I've never had any dog like it before, and he's taught me so much. He's very reactive and hates people. I've had to learn a lot and go through extensive training, so he's a full time job.
If Wrango wrote a song called "Ken," I mean, what would he say in his song?
He probably has a lot to say about me. He has me trained. I just recently realized at around 11pm he knows that he gets a snack now, and that was never established in any sort of proper way. He runs the house. I think he does everything but but pay rent.
You open the record with "Pareidolia," which is a word for seeing things that aren't really there - a face in a cliffside, a hand in the clouds. The album closes with "Innocent Eyes," where you sing about your mind hiding things from you. Was that an intentional idea to bookend the album in that way?
No, but this record happened so organically that I think it just kind of made its own decisions, you know? We went through hell and back to make it, and then we had this record, you know. And I think that it just shows what it needed.
Talk to me about "Bound To Rain," which is a single you released after the record came out.
So that song came way after everything was turned in, because I would have squeezed her on there. We actually did that with "Days Getting Darker." But, "Bound To Rain." I normally get tired of myself probably in the first three or four times I play my songs, even to myself. But I think "Bound To Rain" feels like someone else wrote it. I don't know really how to explain it, but I I feel like I can appreciate it in a different way. And maybe that's just me growing, growing in general. But I really, really am proud of that song.
You just debuted a brand new song called "Pocket Knives," live on World Cafe. Is that a preview of what's coming next?
Yes, and that has been something that honestly, I've been really scared of. I posted on social media a few weeks ago about just feeling unsure about new music, because I wrote most of the songs for Cruel Joke three, four, or even ten years ago. These songs have existed a very long time. We recorded most of those, most of those songs almost three years ago. There's been a lot of growth since then between Dakota [Dakota McDaniel, Ken's musical and real life partner] and my writing. I feel better after seeing everyone's responses to those worries, but I'm just going to stick true to whatever comes out of me, and I'm going to try my best to not fret if things sound different or not. "Pocket Knives" is the direction my songwriting has been telling me to go.
On top of releasing Cruel Joke, you were were in Sterlin Harjo's new series, The Lowdown, where you played Pearl, and like Harjo's Reservation Dogs, your music is featured in this too. I'm interested to hear what it was like acting for the first time on this show with legends like Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Would you want to act again?
It is so much different than the music business. I was truly in my most uncomfortable zone, but also I was so grateful. I knew Sterlin and the whole team, and most of his team are native. They made me so comfortable in this new and uncomfortable position so I was very thankful for that. It's so insane to watch people like Kyle [MacLachlan], Ethan [Hawke], and Jeanne [Tripplehorn] just do their thing. I truly I did not understand how much went into becoming someone else. Everyone was so kind, which I feel like I got lucky with. Specifically Jeanne, because I was so nervous, and worried I was going to mess something up. On the first day, she automatically just kind of took me under her wing and was like, "I'll go easy on you." As far as doing it again, if it was the exact same scenario with Sterlin and his team, I think yes, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I'm definitely not looking for acting work.
You've been playing music for a long time - since you were about ten years old, and playing shows starting in your early teens, even opening for legends like Wanda Jackson. Talk to me about that.
Throwback! So she was playing at the Oklahoma Rodeo Opry and I got asked to open for her - obviously I said yes. And then I got asked to sing backup vocals with her, and again, obviously I said yes. I think that was 14 or 15 at the time. After the set as I'm walking off stage, she slaps my butt. I don't think she I don't think she meant to, but she's very tiny, so I think she made meant to pat me on the back.
I imagine that's something you share with Elvis now.
Right? She was so sweet and she was just telling me all these crazy stories. She actually signed the back of my first guitar that I bought myself, and it's to this day it's the only signature on it.
You've been influenced by all these legends, like Wanda, Gillian Welch, and fellow Oklahoman Woody Guthrie, but John Denver changed your whole life. I read that when you were a kid you heard "Leaving On A Jet Plane," and it just rewired your brain, you had your mom burn you a CD of just that song 18 times. if you could say something to John Denver, what would you say?
I probably would want to ask him a bunch of questions, but the first thing I'd say is probably thank you, because he truly was the first person that showed me as a very young kid that music can make you feel all kinds of different ways. He was the catalyst for me being like, all right, I guess I want to make people feel this way, or at least try to make people feel something, because that's what he did for me at a very young age. Discovering John Denver for me was just this moment when you're a kid and you automatically just like gain consciousness everywhere. That was that moment for me.
You're doing something very cool right now where people can buy handwritten lyrics to your songs, all written and signed by you.
It's so surreal. Because I'm like, are you sure you want to pay me to write lyrics down? Like, are you sure? I feel like I'm ripping people off, but, I genuinely cannot thank everyone enough, because it just means so much.
I think it's very exciting and a cool way to engage with people who like your art, especially if it's a piece of art that moves someone, you know?
It just It cracks me up, because it's really hard for me to see what I do in that way - if that makes sense. I almost am like, are you sure that I moved you? You know what I mean?
I think so. While you've been playing music for most of your life, you're still relatively new to this part of the music industry, and I think that making sense out of your your place in it, I think is going to make more sense to you as you keep doing this, and you're in that phase where it's happening.
Totally. I always want to ground myself. I really try to keep my ego in check, because I know how much having crazy egos around me can really suck. I’m just really thankful that people actually enjoy what we’re doing. The other day, this girl messaged me, and I pretty much respond to all the DMs I get, just because—why not? She sent a really nice message, I told her thank you, and sent one back. She was like, “Oh my God, no way you responded. I have a poster of you on my wall.” Like, that’s crazy, that’s so cool. And also..."I’m just a girl!"
So you're probably not ready to grapple with the idea of being somebody else's John Denver?
No, I don't think I'll ever be able to grapple with that. And I think maybe that's what keeps me sane.
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