JANET VARNUMJUNE 11, 2017

MUSICROCK & ROLLSALIDASALIDA STEAMPLANT0 COMMENTS 0

The Patrice Pike and Wayne Sutton Tour will rock the Salida SteamPlant Theater on June 14 at 7:30 p.m. in celebration of the two headliners’ 25 years together musically.

Pike is a staple of the Austin, Texas, music scene as well as an international touring artist who brought her soul-infused rock trio (sans Sutton) to the SteamPlant a couple of years ago. (Some might remember her impressive drumstick solo up and down the SteamPlant theater handrails during the show!)

Both Pike and Sutton grew up in Dallas and met while she was attending the Booker T. Washington School of...

By David Goldberg

Photo by Theresa DiMenno

Since 1991, Patrice Pike has spoken out. Breaking out with her band, Little Sister, the Dallas-raised rock star has worked professionally since the age of 16, and has used her position to publicly advocate for homeless and LGBT Americans—long before it became a cultural norm for famous faces. On Friday, October 15, Pike’s nonprofit for survivors of homelessness, the Step Onward Foundation, celebrates its 10th anniversary with a banging gala at Warehouse Live. Before she hits Houston for the show, Pike spoke with OutSmart about her journey.

David Goldberg: What is the Step Onward Foundation, what kind of youth does it help, and what is going on with it for its 10th year?

Patrice Pike: The Step Onward Foundation was originally named the Grace Foundation after our first recipient, Eliza Grace. She was a young adult survivor of homelessness that I met out on the road. She became my pen pal, and I found out she had a serious heart condition and had survived an...

Patrice Pike had planned to spend these last two years woodshedding with her guitarist and co-writer Wayne Sutton developing new material. She had a successful go of being a touring artist traversing the United States in support of her 2013 release “The Calling”, it’s how she made her mark and paid her bills. Little did she know that life would toss her a curveball that had more to do with the real world outside of music that was undeniably life-changing.

Many of us have concrete plans that get altered. Life happens. Sometimes, Death happens. You are presented with an obstacle, or an unplanned responsibility that you rise up to, and it isn’t something you take lightly. You are given choices. Patrice Pike had choices. And she chose to answer her Calling. It was serious business. It was life and death up close and personal.

Patrice has an ongoing residency at The Saxon Pub that is well-attended by her rabid fan base and each Thursday night at 8:00, she plugs into a format that at times can have her playing solo, or with a myriad of loyal players featuring her longtime...

THE ORIGINAL TEXAS MUSIC MAGAZINE

Singing is such incredible therapy

Some of her best friends call Patrice Pike an extroverted introvert; and now back on the road.

By Tom Geddie

Being onstage is an impor­tant part of Pike's life, but not, it turns out, as important as her family.

"Performing was an incred­ible gift to me. I had very little social interaction. But I would get to perform and get to see my friends," said the diminutive Pike, who some of her best friends call an extroverted introvert. "And singing is incredible therapy. Walk into a room and take these really deep breaths and exhale while singing. It's incredibly medicinal at a whole different level."

For the last year, though, she basically stopped touring when her 15-year-old niece was diag­nosed with aplastic anemia, a rare disease caused by exposure to environmental toxins that pre­vents bone marrow from making the white blood cells that strengthen the immune...

Patrice Pike will light you on fire. With nothing more than her guitar and her musical partner in crime, Wayne Sutton seated to her side, Patrice Pike filled the stage at Poor David's Pub in Dallas on Saturday night. In a cropped black tank, colored jeans, and tall boots, Pike is one of those singers whom you simply can't take your eyes (or ears) away.

There's a little Sheryl Crow, a little Fleetwood Mac, a little Edie Brickell, and a little something fairylike that you just can't quite place in this sexy songstress who sings about love lost and found, and a world that is oft times too much with us all.

"There are two kinds of people in this world," Pike said. "People who talk to their exes and people who don't." Truer words were never spoken. It's a simple observation, perhaps, but also a painfully real one. That delineation is telling.

Throughout the evening, she sang music from her life as a solo artist as well as from her days in the band Sister Seven. She did several numbers while sitting on a Cajon, a drum that looks simply like a wooden box that...