SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations

A career retrospective with recording artist Rain Phoenix. Moderated by James Patrick Herman. Music chooses its vessels early on. At three-years-old, Rain Phoenix first uncovered her voice. Standing next to late big brother River, she belted along as he strummed “a guitar way too big for his five-year-old body.” Her story as an artist started there. “My first music memory was singing along to my brother at three,” she recalls. “The rest was history. From that day on, I sang with him. We maintained the same connectivity until I was twenty. Music has always been me next to him. All of the other incarnations of me playing in bands was just trying to understand how to make music without him. Through the process of making my solo record, I realized that instead of trying to understand music without him, I needed to include him, because he never really left.” These intimate moments set the stage for a fascinating musical journey. At the age of sixteen, she joined River in his band Aleka’s Attic, developing a devote