Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Debora Iyall" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Debora Iyall
Iyall in 1985
Background information
Born	Debora Kay Iyall (1954-04-29)29 April 1954 (age 71) Soap Lake, Washington, U.S.
Origin	Cowlitz
Genres	Punk rock new wave post-punk
Occupations	Singer artist art instructor
Years active	1979–present

Debora Kay Iyall (/ˈaɪ.ɑːl/;Salishan pronunciation:[ˈʌɪalwahawa];^{[citation needed]} born 29 April 1954), is aCowlitz artist and was lead singer for thenew wave bandRomeo Void.^[1] Iyall got her surname from her family adopting their ancestor Iyallwahawa's "first" name written at the time as Ayiel.^[2]

Iyall was born in 1954 inSoap Lake, Washington, but grew up inFresno, California.^[3] She is an enrolled member of theCowlitz Indian Tribe.^[4][5][6] In 1969, at age fourteen, Iyall joined theOccupation of Alcatraz and stayed for six days. She had hoped to connect with the Native American activist community there but felt "out of place".^[3]

While attending theSan Francisco Art Institute, she joined Frank Zincavage and Peter Woods to createRomeo Void in 1979.^[7] The band was notable for their modernization of thepunk sound, and for Iyall's forceful, half-spoken delivery. They reached hit status on college radio stations with the suggestive and multi-leveled song "Never Say Never" in 1982. Their song "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)" landed them in the top 40 of Billboard'sHot 100 chart, and an appearance on Dick Clark'sAmerican Bandstand in 1984.

Romeo Void parted ways in 1985, and the following year Iyall released her debut solo albumStrange Language onColumbia Records. After a lukewarm reception of the album, Iyall returned to her first love, as an artist and art instructor. Throughout the 1990s she taught art at the 29 Palms Cultural Center and for the Arts Council for San Bernardino. She also led hikes and made presentations for the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum as a paid docent, and in 1995 she started Ink Clan, a print shop dedicated to teaching screen printing and other arts to young Native artists.^[8] Ink Clan was once housed in the South of Market Cultural Center in San Francisco.^[9] She presently resides inNew Mexico. She was married toaudio engineer and instructor Patrick Haight, who died in 2025.

Since late 2009, Iyall has been performing new material written with Peter Dunne at a variety of local venues in Northern California. In 2010, Iyall's second solo album,Stay Strong, was released, and in January 2012, an EP,Singing Until Sunrise, was released. On 2 November 2019, Iyall was awarded as a Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the 19th Annual Native American Music Awards.

In 2023, Iyall appeared as the Great Cowlitz Sa'mn Spirit in the season 2 episode "Salmon, Where Are You?" of the Netflix children's showSpirit Rangers.^[5]

• Strange Language (1986)
• Stay Strong (2010)
• Singing Until Sunrise (2012)

• Iyall professional website

• 1954 births
• Living people
• 20th-century American printmakers
• 20th-century American singers
• 20th-century American women artists
• 20th-century American women singers
• 20th-century Native American artists
• 20th-century Native American women artists
• 21st-century American actresses
• 21st-century American printmakers
• 21st-century American singers
• 21st-century American women artists
• 21st-century American women singers
• 21st-century Native American artists
• 21st-century Native American women artists
• Actresses from Fresno, California
• Actresses from Washington (state)
• American new wave musicians
• American television actresses
• American voice actresses
• American women new wave singers
• American women printmakers
• American women punk rock singers
• American punk rock singers
• Artists from California
• Artists from Washington (state)
• Columbia Records artists
• Cowlitz Indian Tribe people
• Musicians from Fresno, California
• Native American actresses
• Native American printmakers
• Native American singers
• People from Soap Lake, Washington
• San Francisco Art Institute alumni
• Singers from California
• Singers from Washington (state)
• Coast Salish artists

• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list
• Use dmy dates from May 2020
• BLP articles lacking sources from May 2010
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts
• Pages with Salishan languages IPA
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2009