Lambert became a Catholic at the age of 12 and briefly considered a vocation to religious life at 19. According to the singer, a visit to the Salesian Sisters ended up showing her that music was her true calling.[9]
In an interview for Asia Pop 40, Lambert told Dom Lau (host of the show and former Channel V VJ and E! News Asia) that she considered a career in private aviation in her teenage years. She started training and logged 100 hours of flight time while pursuing her pilot's license.[10]
Career
Michelle Lambert live in Oakland in 2018
While in Boston attending Berklee College of Music,[7] she was part of the Captain Wolf Band and got featured in 3 songs from their debut CD as a singer and songwriter.[11] Lambert's participation on the album was so notable that she was even featured in the cover of the CD. Despite being a self-release, the album was well received and became a "jukebox star," being featured in over 28,000 jukeboxes across North America.[12]
Lambert moved to Nashville in 2011[13] after graduating from Berklee to pursue a career as a studio and stage musician.
Michelle toured with country rapper Jessta James during 2013 and part of 2014 as a violinist and backup singer.[14]
Following 4 years in Nashville, she released her debut album Warrior in 2015 after relocating to Los Angeles, California. That album was a turning point in her career, the moment where she decided to pursue being a solo artist. Warrior has the collaboration of Grammy winners Shannon Sanders (president of the Nashville Grammy Chapter) and Billy Hume. It also features three time Grammy nominee Kief Brown as a co-author of "Rain on You" and singing a verse in "I'm Just a Girl".
On January 9, 2015, she made the front page of the Reporter-Herald in an article about her official music video Warrior, which spotlights high school football players during a game.[20]
Michelle Lambert at Union Street Festival 2023 – San Francisco, CA
In January 2016, she was elected to be the female face of SkyHigh Radio in the UK.[21] In February 2016, she gave a long interview to the Sound Profile Magazine,[22] where she explains in detail how important women empowerment (that's a recurrent theme in her songs) is for her.
The second official EP Angel was released in February 2017. The album was written, executed, recorded, and produced by Lambert.[23]
In December 2017, My California[24] was released as a single by the artist, and after the attention received from the release in Northern California,[25] she decided to relocate to the Bay Area.[26][27][28]
In early 2020, the singer released the single Girl on Fire, an autobiographical song that shows a change of tone from her 2015 release I'm Just a Girl. It starts with a girl trying to find the courage to follow her dreams to one actually fighting for it.[29]
In February 2021, the release of the love song Come to Me reached number 1 on the indie charts in New York City.[30]
Artistry
Michelle Lambert playing the Turtle Violin in 2021
Influences
Michelle grew up in a household with five older siblings, four of them studying the violin. Being the youngest child, she was exposed to all kinds of music, from classical music to punk rock. According to an interview for a radio station in the U.K., her biggest influences are Elvis Presley and Alison Krauss. When she was 12, Lambert traveled to Scotland with her sister Heidi Clare (who is a professional bluegrass violin player),[31] to study violin at the Isle of Skye under Alasdair Fraser. She also visited the Western Hebrides region where she studied Celtic music. That is still a big influence in her work.[32]
