“If I’m out there singing every night, I want to do something I love,” Lauren Lucas declares. “I want to share a little piece of me with people, and I don’t want that to be false."
The truth that Lauren Lucas wants to share with her audience comes filtered through a talent that has been molded in unique ways and in surprising places. Her songs and her sound emerge from the point where several deep rivers of American music meet: the rock and country hits she sang along with as a child in Columbia, S.C.; the musical theater training that led her to Tony-nominee status as a teenager; and the deeply soulful, bluesy singing style that came from … well, she’s not sure where that came from. Maybe it just comes from the heart.
Lucas first stepped onstage in Columbia when she was only 3. Tagging along to her older sister’s community theater audition, she decided she wanted to give it a try herself. She got a part in the show (as did her sister), and since then has wanted nothing more than to connect with audiences as a performer. “I caught the bug right then and there,” she recalls. “To this day, I still get such a high out of being onstage. I love it.”
Before she was even in high school, she spent several years traveling to New York exploring the city’s tradition of Broadway musicals. Simultaneously, she was living in Columbia finishing her education and fronting her own cover band.
At sixteen, she spent several months performing in an off-Broadway show, which led to another one-of-a-kind chance when she was invited to submit songs for a stage version of the 1978 John Travolta country-music movie Urban Cowboy. “Take Me for a Ride,” a tune she wrote with Sarah Light and Danny Arena, became part of the show’s Tony-nominated score. “I guess you could say that was my first cut as a writer,” she says.
Despite her unexpected Broadway success, Lucas had decided that her future lay in Nashville. She attended Belmont University and when she wasn't studying, she was playing gigs and growing a fan base at the local listening rooms and clubs. Just after graduating, she recorded a project for Warner Bros. Records. A shakeup in the label’s power structure led her to part ways with Warner Bros. in 2006, before her completed debut album could make it to stores. “I didn’t know what to do,” she remembers. “I had to reinvent myself.”
That’s just what she did. She set about developing her writing skills further and working to define herself as an artist. “I know who I want to be much more now than I did when I got off the label,” she says. “It’s been a huge growing period. I want to be as me as I can possibly be, and I have a clearer vision of who that is now.”
Lucas took her career into her own hands by independently recording a five-song EP, If I Was Your Girl. Word-of-mouth buzz and Internet exposure helped her to build a steadily growing grassroots fan base.
Whatever her future holds, Lauren Lucas is certain that she’ll always be making music and doing her best to bring it to anyone willing to listen. Amid the blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em culture of modern music, her sights are firmly fixed on the long term.
“I want to be the kind of artist whose songs people want to cover,” she says. “I want to make music with integrity, music that you can think about intellectually but that also can be fun. My role models are artists like James Taylor, and Bonnie Raitt —they’ll always put out amazing records, and people are always going to buy tickets to go see them.
“That’s the dream for me, and I’m going to shoot for it.”
For another look, visit Lauren's MySpace page.
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