Meet Trailblazer Krystal Baker

Today we’d like to introduce you to Krystal Baker.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Sure! Well I picked up the guitar at the age  of 19. I had sang my entire life and really wanted to learn how to play it. It took a lot of practice for me. I think my mom thought I would never learn (now she is my biggest fan;).

In 1997, I met a girl in a terrible snow storm in Colorado and we soon began singing and playing together as waitresses in the same restaurant and wrote our first EP together. She and I played together for almost 10 years after moving to Phoenix and forming our full band, the Wild Angels. During that time, I met and started playing and writing music with very talented Sturgis Waters who would later end up playing different instruments in The Wild Angels, then go on to form the Waters and eventually we would go on to married. We now have two amazing kids together, ages 4 and 1, are blessed to get to play music together full time and spend a lot of family time with our kids. Sturgis also plays as a sideman with other local bands and we each have some other musical projects both together and apart from the one that we are always working on.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has definitely had its ups and downs. There will always be struggles I think and women were definitely a minority in the music industry when we (Laura Rupejko and I) were starting out in the industry. Sometimes, just walking into a music instrument shop and trying to get someone to realize you were there to make purchases and you wanted help was difficult. As cliche as it sounds, no matter what, you keep on chasing your dreams. It’s always challenging and I often times wonder how I even got here. I feel really lucky. The truth is that it’s not easy but if you work hard and don’t give up, amazing things are possible! I am proof of that it works.

We’d love to hear more about The Waters.
The Waters most often play as an indie-folk duo but other times as a trio or full band. I sing and play acoustic rhythm guitar and Sturgis does the rest (except sing). He is great at laying down subtle swells to melodic lead guitar and looping live percussion as well as carrying some occasional bass melodies to make it sound really full for only the two people as we play live!

Together, we really enjoy writing our own music but we also play our own arrangements of other artists songs with our own unique versions and we frequently change them up to keep us on our toes and inspired.

We are both self-taught musicians but played/sang most of our lives and had some musical influences in our families. It seems pretty amazing still to get the opportunity to make this our career! There is nothing like getting to do your favorite thing with your favorite person. I think people see that. There is some magic that happens there.

What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?Go out and try lots of different things, have many experiences and find what you love most and figure out how you can best serve others doing it and go and find a way to do that every day. It will be hard but don’t give up!!! If you do something you love, it will always be better than anything else… even when it’s hard.

Contact Info:

• Address: Krystal Baker
  Sturgis Waters
• Website: Thewatersmusic.com
• Phone: 623-703-9453
• Email: thewatersmusic@gmail.com
• Instagram: @Thewatersmusic
• Facebook: Facebook.com/thewatersmusic

Image Credit:
Kelly Cappelli, Marty Clark

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