Co-founder and former vocalist of Flyleaf, Lacey Sturm, decided to leave the band, and would later launch a solo career, releasing a book, writing new music, and going on to play shows, tour, with so much more in the works. So much so that she would go on to release her solo debut album "Life Screams" with further plans underway for other projects and activities to keep herself busy nowadays. Lacey Sturm herself, took some time to discuss her past, present, and future plans.
1. Can you introduce yourself to those who may not know who you are and what you do?
Lacey: I am Lacey Strum, and I sung for Flyleaf for 10 years, then they got another singer, as I left the band. Then here we are 4 years later, as my solo project, starting a tour at the end of this month, just put our album out and it's called "Life Screams".
2. In 2014, you released your autobiography "The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living", will there be another book in the making, or is that all we are getting in the book department?
Lacey: Yeah I actually just finished writing for my second book. The first book, was really about how I was growing up, talked about my struggles with depression and suicide, self hatred, showing an angry hateful person. How my perspective changed with God as an Atheist, that I tried to commit suicide that turning to God saved my life. I talk about that experience and my perspective of before and after. Then I talked about the band Flyleaf, which I talked about as well. In this next book that I wrote, it turned out to be about romance. I meant to write about romance because it's the first real thing to enter your life, after coming through something like depression, could be something like romance. So that's how it was for me. So I wanted to write about that, in case something I had written could help someone else, with not having to go through that. It talks about how I came to a healthier place in the end. Me being married to my husband for the past 7 years, makes the relationship healthier, than the previous relationships.
3. In that same year, you announced that you would be flying solo as yourself Lacey, why did you think that then would be the right time to do the solo thing?
Lacey: Well we have always done music, since I was little, music has always been a creative outlet for us as a family and as a lifestyle, it's our response to life itself. But putting it out for the public, putting a record out and going on tour, that was a little scary to me because, I really felt like I had gotten out of, being owned by the music industry. I needed to find an identity as a mother, about 4 years ago after having my first boy, my first baby, that moment and time was so important, that my husband and I, took some time off from music. I actually had opportunities to speak and talk about my story, about the suicide, then went on a mini tour, speaking about all of that. During that tour, I didn't have a house to clean or meals to fix, there was catering, I got so much more time to spend with my kid, even when I was home. So I remember talking to my husband one night, realizing that as long as do things on a smaller scale, as a solo project, you don't have to take as many dates, to pay as many people. We can just do it for fun. As it fits in for our family and what we do. If we do that, we realized that we can do this and realized that after that tour. So just decided to go for it, just making sure we had our things worked out, and the dates that fit in best, and knew what our goals were out of it.
Lacey: They had reached out to me, to see if I wanted to collaborate with writing a song. I was really excited because they were going to let me write the lyrics, vocal melody, actually Geno had a melody. He had one he wanted to use and had wanted me to write the lyrics. I tried really hard to find out about the movie and I really wanted to see the movie, but they wouldn't let me see it because it wasn't out yet. So I looked everywhere so I could write something, that would go along with the story, I actually found a site, where something had wrote about it and was so thankful. Because I had loved the concept so much, because of this person who doesn't know who they are. A lot of who they are, is tied to who their parents are and who her mother was. So coming from the perspective of someone that knows your powerful, telling your child that you don't know who you are. But I mean you are someone who is so powerful, you are so much more than you think you are. I just think that, that is the message for the kids who listen to our music, or anyone that listens to our music. They don't know how valuable they are, how much they are worth. So it was so cool, to have that content and to write music for it. Then I got to do the video, which was so fun, and I did it right after I had my son. It was so cool to be flying first class to California, having my baby there, doing the video, I didn't think I would do much of that. They called me and it worked out and I was so thankful. And I was nursing in between shots.
5. You played a show at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, was this a one off show? What are your current show and tour plans, if any?
Lacey: Well we did that with our friends the Whosoevers, an organization that reaches out to at risk use. They put on events, going to schools to talk about, drug addictions etc. We had a member of POD and Brian Head Welch of Korn, telling stories about their lifestyles. So when putting on this event, they were just excited about the album coming out, and wanted to throw me a CD Release Party, so this show was put on, kind of like a family party. So I was happy to be there and be there with the people I love. It was such a fun night, I loved hearing each of them singing at the top of their lungs. Making it all possible made it more awesome.6. During that show's setlist you threw in some Flyleaf songs, will those be rotating at future events or just a once in a while type of thing?
Lacey: There are a couple that we do. there's "Chasm", that we do as a full song, that my husband I wrote. We also do "All Around Me", because a lot of people always want to hear that song and it means a lot to a lot of people, so we of course do that song. Then we have a melody of Flyleaf songs, that are just a bunch of songs pushed together. We will probably do those it depends on how much time we have in the setting we are playing and what we feel the audience wants to hear. So we might sometimes. It is important to us if Flyleaf is out touring or playing shows that we aren't competing with one another. We want to be sure that if you want to hear Flyleaf's songs then you have to go to one of their shows.
7. Will we ever see you return to Flyleaf or is that time dead and gone?
Lacey: There is not talking about that. Ummm I am a very present person. I don't like to predict the future unless I am really sure about it. Don't have any plans of that in the future. I don't know what it holds but definitely not in my brain.
Lacey: Well the new album is filled with very real content. It is very real. It's very raw, personal, and has heavy moments. There's uplifting moments, peaceful moments and then there's some physical abuse moments in relationships, being trapped in them. There's songs about someone passing away, just a lot of heavy hitting material. But there is always hope in a message. That's the main deal, we want people and want to be real with them. We want to say that there is hope in all of this.
9. Did you get the album that you wanted or were there things that were just impossible to pull off?
Lacey: No, like this was us having fun really and truly. Having fun with people with the people we love family and friends. When the album finally came out, I remember holding it, looking over it and realizing that this was a labor of love, and this is was so much fun to do. There was no pressure associated with it, there was no trying to become something, to make a name for ourselves, pressuring ourselves on the record, it was all about doing something that we love. If the people love it that's great, if you don't love it, at least you still love it. That's the thing there was no specific intention, except to do what we love and that goal is met.
10. Do you have any last comments for our readers?Lacey: We will definitely be touring, I have my second book that's coming out this Fall in October. We are also thinking of launching a merchandise line, based around messages from people that we love. You can find out about all of this on our website http://laceysturm.com/ and social media.
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