Music as Medicine: How Firekeeper Alliance is Building Wellness Through Community, Culture, and Creativity at Fire in the Mountains

When people think about Fire in the Mountains, they often think about the music first. And for good reason. The festival brings together some of the most influential artists in heavy music from around the world. But for those of us at Firekeeper Alliance, the music has always been about something more.

Since its founding, Firekeeper Alliance has worked to reduce suicide and strengthen mental wellness among Piikuni youth and families by focusing on strengths, relationships, and connection. Through our partnership with Fire in the Mountains, we have an opportunity to bring that mission to life on a larger stage.

This year's workshop programming reflects that vision.

Rather than viewing mental health solely through the lens of illness, distress, or crisis, Firekeeper Alliance focuses on those things in life that lift us up and give us hope. We’ve constructed our approach to fostering wellness through four interconnected pillars:

• Community & Connectivity

• Cathartic Processing

• Coping Mechanisms

• Creating Opportunities

These principles also serve as the foundation for our Heavy Music Symposium course at Browning Public Schools, our counseling and prevention efforts, and now the educational programming at Fire in the Mountains.

Throughout the weekend, FITM attendees will find opportunities to engage with topics ranging from grief and healing to tribal sovereignty, creativity, leadership, cultural identity, and artistic expression. Together, these conversations tell a larger story about what helps individuals and communities heal; and thrive.

Additionally, throughout the weekend, guests will hear the Blackfoot language spoken, experience traditional songs and powwow drumming, witness traditional dancing, and learn directly from Blackfoot Confederacy elders, artists, cultural practitioners, and community leaders. These experiences reflect the living culture of the Blackfeet Nation and the community that continues to shape this landscape today.

Community & Connectivity

Research consistently shows that strong social connections are among the most powerful protective factors against suicide and emotional distress. Many of this year's workshops focus on building and strengthening those connections. We’re incredibly proud that our workshops feature a vast array of our brilliant and talented Piikuni relatives, as well as many of the exceptional artists that will be performing at FITM.

Workshops such as To Carry the Flame: Community Grief Support in the Blackfeet Nation, Embers that Remain, and The Power of Ritual explore how communities can support one another through loss, grief, and healing. Conversations surrounding Blackfeet sovereignty, Landback initiatives, cultural preservation, and the Blackfeet Buffalo Program highlight the importance of identity, belonging, and collective responsibility.

These workshops remind us that wellness is not something we achieve alone, rather it’s something we can build together.

Cathartic Processing

For many people, heavy music has always served as a vehicle for processing difficult emotions. Rather than avoiding pain, grief, anger, or uncertainty, the heavy music community has often created spaces where those experiences can be acknowledged openly and honestly.

Panels such as Music as Medicine, Riffs as Ritual, Thunder in the Blood, and Warriors and Outsiders explore how music, storytelling, and artistic expression can help individuals make meaning from life's challenges.

These conversations reinforce a core belief of Firekeeper Alliance: healing does not come from pretending difficult emotions do not exist. Healing comes from finding healthy ways to engage with them.

Coping Mechanisms

Throughout the weekend, artists, clinicians, educators, and community leaders will discuss practical strategies for navigating adversity and maintaining wellness.

Whether through music, movement, storytelling, ceremony, creative expression, cultural engagement, or supportive relationships, many of the workshops explore how individuals develop healthy coping strategies throughout their lives.

Mountain Medicine Yoga, discussions on grief and remembrance, conversations about Indigenous worldviews, and artist-led workshops all provide examples of ways people cultivate resilience and well-being.

These sessions highlight an important truth: coping skills are not merely clinical concepts. They are often found in culture, community, creativity, and everyday practices that help us stay connected to ourselves and one another.

Creating Opportunities

One of the most exciting aspects of this year's programming is the emphasis on youth leadership, creativity, and career development.

Students from Browning Public Schools and Buffalo Hide Academy will be featured throughout the weekend. Attendees will hear from the student creators of Sspommo, a mental health app that recently won the 2026 Congressional App Challenge. They will learn about the Heavy Music Symposium, explore the creation of the student-produced Expendable Youth zine, and hear all about the Neurosis/Firekeeper short film featuring several student actors (more details coming soon!). Attendees will also be able to meet many of the young people serving as interns throughout the festival.

Additional workshops featuring industry professionals from Bandcamp, Profound Lore, Vesperian, Decibel Magazine, recording engineers, producers, musicians, and visual artists will provide insight into the many pathways that exist within the creative world.

Opportunity itself can be a powerful protective factor. When young people are given meaningful roles, authentic responsibilities, and opportunities to contribute, they develop confidence, purpose, and hope for the future.

Why Heavy Music?

One of the questions we are asked most often at Firekeeper is: Why heavy music?

To us, and likely to many people reading this, the answer is simple.

For as long as the Piikuni have lived in this place, some 18,000 years or so, music has helped us process emotion, strengthen community, preserve stories, and make meaning from life's most difficult experiences. Heavy music continues that tradition in its own way. For many of us, it provides a sense of belonging and validation.

What makes heavy music especially powerful is its willingness to confront the realities that many people avoid. Rather than hiding from grief, depression, trauma, addiction, anxiety, loneliness, or suicide, heavy music - and many of the bands we love - often gives voice to those experiences. It creates space for people to acknowledge suffering openly, honestly, and without shame. For many fans and artists, simply hearing someone else articulate those struggles can be profoundly validating: I'm not the only one who feels this way.

That philosophy closely mirrors Firekeeper Alliance's clinical approach to suicide prevention. We believe that healing begins with honest conversation. Rather than avoiding difficult topics out of fear that discussing them will make things worse, we embrace strengths-based practices that encourage direct, compassionate conversations about suicide, mental health, and emotional pain. Research consistently shows that talking openly about suicide does not increase suicide risk; instead, it can reduce isolation, foster connection, and create opportunities for intervention and support.

In many ways, heavy music has been doing this for decades. Through lyrics, performance, and community, artists create space to confront painful realities while reminding listeners that they are not alone. By giving language to experiences that often carry stigma, heavy music helps transform silence into connection and shame into understanding.

At Firekeeper Alliance, we believe mental wellness grows when people feel connected to something larger than themselves. Sometimes that connection comes through family. Sometimes through culture. Sometimes through ceremony. Sometimes through a mosh pit. And sometimes it comes through a song, a creative project, a difficult conversation, or a community of people who understand what it means to struggle - and who choose to keep moving forward together.

Heavy music is not the solution to every challenge. But it is one of the many places where people discover hope, belonging, purpose, and the courage to speak honestly about what hurts. Those are exactly the kinds of protective factors we seek to cultivate in our work every day.

More Than a Music Festival

This year's workshop programming reflects a simple but powerful idea: wellness is built through relationships, culture, creativity, and opportunity.

By bringing together artists, educators, clinicians, cultural leaders, youth, and community members, Fire in the Mountains becomes more than a music festival. It becomes a gathering place where healing, learning, and connection can occur side by side.

Our programming is informed by many of the same principles that guide effective suicide postvention: creating spaces where grief is acknowledged rather than avoided, where difficult conversations are welcomed, where people can remember those they have lost, and where no one has to carry their pain alone.

If suicide, grief, trauma, or loss has touched your life, we hope you know there is a place for you here. Come remember. Come honor those you love. Come share stories. Come find community. Come sit quietly if that's what you need. Come celebrate the lives that continue to shape us and the connections that help carry us forward.

Just as importantly, Fire in the Mountains is a drug- and alcohol-free festival. We believe people deserve the opportunity to experience music, community, and healing without the pressure or influence of substances. Creating a sober environment helps ensure that everyone, especially those navigating grief, recovery, or other personal challenges, can participate in a space grounded in safety, presence, and mutual respect.

We invite everyone attending Fire in the Mountains to explore the workshops, engage in conversation, learn from one another, and help us continue building a stronger, healthier future for the Blackfeet Nation and wherever you call home.

See below for our list of scheduled workshops and presentations. We hope to see you there.

Keep the fire burning 🔥

Firekeeper Alliance Workshop Schedule

Fire in the Mountains Festival

July 24–26, 2026

Friday, July 24

BEAR WOMAN Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• To Carry the Flame: Community Grief Support in the Blackfeet Nation

  • Sienna Speicher, LCPC (Firekeeper Alliance)

9:15–10:15 AM

• Blackfeet Tribal Sovereignty

  • Sterling HolyWhiteMountain & Evan Thompson

10:30–11:30 AM

• Indigenizing the Mind: Animism and the Living World

  • Mathias Nordvig, Haley Running Crane & Robert Hall

  • Moderated by Steve Von Till

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Music as Medicine: Coping, Connection, and Catharsis

  • Dylan Running Crane, Amigo the Devil, Mike Scheidt, Aaron Turner & Rebecca Vernon

  • Moderated by Charlie Speicher

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Guided Walk (2 options)

  • Meet at Firekeeper Alliance Headquarters

    • Piikuni Lodge Health Institute

    • FAST Blackfeet

1:00–2:00 PM

• 2025 Congressional App Challenge Winners – "Sspommo"

  • Featuring Aiyahna Green, Kalani Sun-Rhodes & Sophia Guerrero-Gobert

  • Moderated by Robert Hall

WHITE EAGLE Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• Mountain Medicine Yoga: Healing Movement on Two Medicine Lake

  • Ashley Sherburne

9:15–10:15 AM

• Indigenous Landback Panel

  • Dylan DesRosier, Brad Hall & Termaine Edmo

10:30–11:30 AM

• Blackfeet Nation Buffalo Program: Restoration, Responsibility, and Renewal

  • Ervin Carlson, Chazz Racine & the Blackfeet Buffalo Program Crew

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• The Architecture of an Album: Crafting Heavy Records

  • Arthur Rizk & Ivar Bjørnson

1:00–2:00 PM

• When Ancestral Songs from Across the World Meet: Shared Ground, Shared Music

  • Ivar Bjørnson & Kevin Kicking Woman

  • Moderated by Nicholas Rink

Saturday, July 25

BEAR WOMAN Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• Embers that Remain: Supporting and Honoring Survivors of Suicide Loss

  • w/ Andrew Heavy Runner, Firekeeper Alliance LCPC

  • Odell Davis

  • Santos Montano

9:15–10:15 AM

• The Heavy Music Symposium: A Safe Space for Metalheads and Punks in Browning Public Schools

  • Jesse Hall, Aurelia Kennedy, Alexis Marso & Colin Sibbernsen

10:30–11:30 AM

• Storytelling, Healing, and the Making of the Firekeeper Alliance x Neurosis Short Film

  • Jason Nix, Bobby Cochran, Sim Schildt, Haley Running Crane, Paul Medicine Horse, Dylan Fast Buffalo Horse, and Reb Pollock

  • Moderated by Charlie Speicher

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Napi Stories

  • w/ Shirlee Crowshoe

  • Moderated by Jill Ironshirt

  • In partnership with Piikani Child and Family Services

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Guided Walk (2 options)

  • Meet at Firekeeper Alliance Headquarters in Concert Bowl

    • Piikuni Lodge Health Institute

    • FAST Blackfeet

1:00–2:00 PM

• Claiming Space: Leadership and Creative Authority in Heavy Music

  • Kelly Schilling, Shannon Void & Madeline Johnston

  • Moderated by Dylan Running Crane

WHITE EAGLE Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• Mountain Medicine Yoga: Healing Movement on Two Medicine Lake

  • Ashley Sherburne

9:15–10:15 AM

• Blackfeet Tribal Historic Preservation Office

  • John Murray & Gheri Hall

10:30–11:30 AM

• Blackfeet Lodge Demonstration: Significance, Symbolism, and History

  • Steven Davis

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Crazy Dog Headdress Transfer Ceremony

  • Larry Ground & Lee LittleMustache

1:00–2:00 PM

• Thunder in the Blood: Indigenous Voices in Heavy Metal

  • Carlin Black Rabbit, Raven Chacon & Rene Gomez

  • Moderated by Jake ArrowTop

Sunday, July 26

BEAR WOMAN Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• The Power of Ritual: Pathways Through Grief and Healing

  • Rick Stern

  • Tamarack Grief Resource Center

9:15–10:15 AM

• Riffs as Ritual: Mental Health and Guitar

  • Gina Gleason, Joey Truscelli & Mike Scheidt

  • Moderated by Robert Hall

10:30–11:30 AM

• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons: Rematriation and Cultural Healing

  • Haley Omeasoo & Rhonda Grant-Connelly

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Warriors and Outsiders: Punk Rock, Rebellion, and the Piikuni Worldview

  • Dave Bland, Joey Running Crane, Nate Newton & Curtis Running Rabbit

  • Moderated by Steve Von Till

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• Guided Walk (2 options)

  • Meet at Firekeeper Alliance Headquarters

    • Piikuni Lodge Health Institute

    • FAST Blackfeet

1:00–2:00 PM

• Extreme Metal Vocals and Lyrics Workshop & Demonstration

  • Jacqui Powell, Mike Paparo, Dylan Walker & Brenden Radigan

  • Moderated by Charlie Speicher

WHITE EAGLE Workshop Site

8:00–9:00 AM

• Mountain Medicine Yoga: Healing Movement on Two Medicine Lake

  • Ashley Sherburne

9:15–10:15 AM

• Land, Place, and Sound

  • Shane McCarthy, Mirai Kawashima, Joey Running Crane & Øystein G. Brun

10:30–11:30 AM

• Voices of the Fire: Building the Heavy Music Symposium Zine

  • Michelle Dillon, Chris Lewis & Heavy Music Symposium Students

  • Moderated by Jake ArrowTop

11:45 AM–12:45 PM

• The Heavy Music Landscape: Creative Spaces Behind the Music

  • Andy Osborn (Bandcamp)

  • Philipp Schulte (Vesperian)

  • Chris Bruni (Profound Lore)

  • Moderated by Tim Mudd (Decibel Magazine)

1:00–2:00 PM

• Making the Noise Visible: Ledger Art, Tattooing, and Physical Media as Survival and Self-Expression

  • Adam Gersh, Thomas Hooper, Meghan Berthelson, Valentina LaPier & John Baizley

  • Moderated by Nicholas Rink