Flyleaf’s Lacey Sturm has one of the more distinct voices in rock and metal, and one artist in particular inspired her to push that voice and scream.
During an interview with Rock Feed, Sturm was asked which artist made her want to make hard rock music as opposed to another style. She cited Pantera as one of her biggest inspirations, adding that her brother liked them and that they grew up in the same town that the band was from — Arlington, Texas.
“You knew where Dimebag [Darrell] lived and walked past his house. In Halloween, they had like these big claws that looked like a monster was gonna pull the house on the ground on top of the roof. It was this cool thing, legendary. And we went to this junior high that they went to. So you could look them up in the old yearbooks,” Sturm recalled.
Another artist that she cited as a big inspiration was Nirvana. The singer said that she liked pop music when she was young, naming Mariah Carey and Paula Abdul as some of her absolute favorites. But her brother went to see Nirvana play live, and listened to their tape in her room, and her love for rock music grew from there.
“And there was something about that, that was different than anything I’d heard in music, that it was like, it wasn’t just to entertain you. It was an expression of something that I didn’t realize you could express through music, because it was a mess,” Sturm explained. “And I wasn’t a musician, but I was, like, ‘This is so… There’s something about this.’ And I fell in love with Nirvana.”
Sturm then reflected back on her discovery of Pantera, and admitted that she didn’t like their music at first because of Philip Anselmo’s screaming. It wasn’t until she read the lyrics in the booklet that she gained an appreciation for what their songs were about.
“I’m, like, ‘Oh, wait. This is the only way to sing these lyrics, is to scream them.’ And I was, like, ‘I wanna scream some stuff too. The world’s a mess.’ So then me and my brother started bonding over Pantera. And I wrote one of my first songs screaming just because of my brother. And I thought there is an appropriate time for that, and it’s a good form [or] medium of, you know, art.”
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Check out the full conversation below.
Sturm has another solo album titled Kenotic Metanoia coming out, which will be available Nov. 17 and can be pre-ordered here. She’s set to perform a concert in Texas the following day. Get the details on her website.
