Samantha Smith woke up one morning last month to a house full of smoke instead of sunshine.
“The smoke was so strong that we just had to get out of there,” she said.
Smith, who was raised in Salt Lake City, had been living in Los Angeles for the past few years. Her home was 15 minutes away from the Eaton Fire — one of two blazes that tore through Los Angeles County last month.
She and her family, including her 1-year-old, were already preparing to move back to Utah, but the fire expedited those plans.
When Smith was sitting in her mom’s house in Salt Lake City, she felt helpless because she couldn’t volunteer or donate money to any online fundraisers. While scrolling through social media, she came across a graphic designer in New York, Chris Cristiano, who worked with his girlfriend, Jesse James, to create “New York loves Los Angeles” shirts. She immediately became inspired to create her own and cleared the idea with Cristiano and James.
She then reached out to her friend Sydney DeLaCruz, who works as a talent buyer for Live Nation, and found out DeLaCruz was planning a Salt Lake City-area benefit concert. Smith and DeLaCruz, the duo behind the Mind the Gap festival, are now teaming up again to put on a show that will benefit musicians affected by the Southern California fires.
The concert will be held Thursday at The Depot in Salt Lake City and feature several Utah bands, including 26Fix, Cardinal Bloom, Dad Bod, Deeper Sleeper (a solo project from Joshua Harmon, the lead singer of The Backseat Lovers) and Riff Wood. Funds from the concert go to MusiCares, Smith said. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online through Live Nation.
The show will also feature a raffle with prizes, including concert tickets and four passes to this summer’s Kilby Block Party.
Funds raised from the sales of Smith’s shirts will go directly to Mutual Aid Los Angeles.
“There’s actually a huge Salt Lake community that lives in LA, and they say ‘small lake city,’ but it’s kind of the same in LA,” Smith said. “People that move from Salt Lake to Los Angeles have a little community out there where everyone knows everyone. There’s been a lot of bands that that make the move out there, so it’s really close to home.”
At the beginning of February, both the Eaton and Palisades fires were reported to have been 100% contained. Both fires incinerated structures and land in Los Angeles County, with estimates of over $250 billion in economic loss.
The Grammys, meanwhile, have put together a list of resources for musicians impacted by the wildfires.
