Building her own path

Even if it looks glamorous in Instagram posts, the life of a touring musician is not an easy one. But for Spain Park graduate Jessica Lamb, it is also one she would not trade.

“I can tell you that it’s not living the dream all the time, but I love it,” the 23-year-old artist said. “It’s always something I’ve wanted to do, so it’s kind of surreal, especially in those bigger moments.”

In the two years since she started seriously writing music and performing, Lamb has released an EP, “Songs of Travel,” and started work on a second, has opened for Ingrid Michaelson and had her song, “Let Me Be,” featured on the Freeform, formerly ABC Family, show “The Fosters.”

After graduating from Spain Park in 2011, Lamb attended Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. While she has felt nothing but support from her friends and family in Birmingham and from college, Lamb said setting out on a unique path is not always easy.

“It’s also really unconventional, I guess. I went to a tiny Christian school, so a lot of my friends have a job and are getting married,” she said. “It can be hard sometimes, just kind of having to build your own path and create your own career for yourself.”

Before she took on touring and recording, however, Lamb had to open up to sharing her music. It’s something that was once frightening, she admitted, but has become a powerful, shared experience.

“It’s not easy all the time to share your personal life with the world, but I think that makes it even more rewarding, and it makes me really thankful when I hear that people are connecting to them,” she said.

Lamb taught herself to play guitar at 13 and has been writing music for almost as long. She studied music in college, and has played everything from classical to church music, but for a while could not find something that sounded like her.

Even after she started writing her own music, she said she did not have the confidence to share it.

“I still didn’t have much faith in my music — I didn’t think it would be something I could pursue,” she said. “It was really scary for me for a really long time for me to play music I wrote in front of people.”

One of the first times Lamb said she saw people connect with her music and show their support was in April 2015, when she entered a monthlong competition to win $10,000 toward her music.

“It was the type of thing where people vote every day for an entire month, so it was the most exhausting thing in the world,” Lamb said.

She was constantly sharing the vote link on social media and asking for support, and at the end of the month, was named the winner. The accomplishment is something Lamb said she could not have done without friends’ and family’s support, as well as all the support from people who enjoyed her music.

“I think that was the experience that helped show me how willing people were to go out of their way when they didn’t have to,” she said.

That $10,000 went toward recording Lamb’s first EP, which was released in August 2015. Songwriting has always been a personal process for Lamb, and she said her music reflects a lot of her experience.

“When I started writing music and even now, it’s my way of processing my world and the things I go through,” she said. “Things that I’ve been struggling with or thinking of, that’s where I got to process those.”

Opening up through music can be intimidating, Lamb said, but it is also rewarding. As someone who personally connects to music and the messages in songs, she said it is rewarding to hear feedback from listeners about how they have been drawn to her music.

“It’s just helped me so much to get through some situations, and I think I’m starting to see that happen here or there with people,” she said. “Music is just so powerful, and it’s just kind of crazy to me to think I can be a small part of that for other people, and that’s one of the things that really motivates me.”

Lamb is now working on her second EP, which will come out in January. Even in the short time since her first EP, Lamb said she has seen herself grow and develop as an artist.

Her second EP will reflect more of her sound, she said, as she is more able to communicate what she wants to come across in her recording.

“I’ve kind of learned how to become more articulate,” Lamb said. ”I feel like it’s easier for me to communicate what I want it to sound like.”

Performing and having the opportunity to write more songs also have helped her develop, and she plans for her lyrics to be the focus of her next album, she said.

“It’s already kind of a completely different sound than my last one,” Lamb said. “For the most part, it’s really stripped down. The most important thing to me is that the lyrics get across.”

For more information, go to jessicalambmusic.com, or check out facebook.com/jlambmusic.