"Make a Change" is a song on the new Indigenous album, "Broken Lands," and making a change is what group leader Mato Nanji has been up to for the last couple of years.
The blues-rock band has been entirely reconstituted since the release of the 2006 disc "Chasing the Sun," with Nanji the sole remaining original member. And what makes this even more complicated is the fact that his former bandmates were his brother, sister and cousin.
"I think it was the right time to get away from each other and start pursuing different things," Nanji said last month from his home in Sioux Falls, S.D. "After all these years of touring together, I think it was definitely the right thing."
The 34-year-old Nanji, a Sioux Indian who grew up on a South Dakota reservation, has been the primary singer, songwriter and lead guitarist for Indigenous since the band first received notice in 1998 for its all-Native-American lineup. Even though some concert promoters thought they were booking an act that played pow-wow music given their name and heritage ("We'd get to a place and they'd be expecting traditional drums"), Indigenous has always trafficked in guitar-soaked blues, influenced by such artists as Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton.
"We had an old turntable and I'd put the record on and try to learn every note like that," Nanji recalled.
"Broken Lands" is the sixth album with the Indigenous moniker. With one exception, the album's 12 songs were co-written by Nanji and his wife, Leah Nanji, who also contributes backing vocals. One song, "Place I Know," is about life on a reservation, where, according to Nanji, "you just don't get as much community support from everybody ... as you should.
"Everybody doesn't stand together as much as they should. And that makes it tough."
He notes that the abundance of casinos that are now located on Indian reservations have played some role in loosening community bonds.
"They're all trying to make money ... That's what you've got to do to survive, so that's what you concentrate on. Everything else kind of gets kicked to the side."
In the meantime, Nanji is enthusiastic about the new incarnation of Indigenous, which will be at the Rex Theatre on Pittsburgh's South Side tonight. When his siblings and cousin exited Indigenous, he said he decided to keep the group's name rather than go solo because "I was basically the main songwriter and singer, and it felt right to keep going in that direction.
"We're slowly getting it together."