JBL Emerging Interview: Cassandra Lewis on her origin story

With a stupendous voice, real talk, and a wild storyteller’s wit, rising singer-songwriter Cassandra Lewis describes herself as a “cosmic western queer taranti-noir fever dream making fine art and songs from trash”. In this Emerging Headliner interview powered by JBL, your favourite artist’s soon-to-be favourite Americana artist unpicks her origin story.

What’s immediately evident when talking to Lewis is that this girl knows how to tell a story, and she certainly has a few to tell. Take her upbringing, for example: her childhood was one of constant motion, moving montage-like from Germany through Florida, Texas, settling in Idaho for a time among her family of “high mountain desert folk”, finally through to Nashville, where she currently resides – for now at least.

“This is my 33rd city I've lived in,” she discloses, explaining that her nomadic lifestyle started when her father served in the army. “This is the first beautiful southern place I've lived in. It's been so welcoming and sweet and a lot different than I thought it would be. After I graduated, I got out to Big Sur and started…” she pauses… “you could say, my youthful, spiritual exploration,” she lands on.

That's not to say her move to California was plain sailing. There were moments of homelessness, working in numerous restaurants to get by, sleeping in a shared tent at a refugee camp, and selling stuff out of the back of a Subaru that she lived out of with her rescue dog and cat after a wildfire burned down her farm in Mendocino. 

Even so, Lewis found community in the Bay Area and holds a deep gratitude for her hardships. “You can’t appreciate the light without living and breathing the dark,” she notes.

Lewis was a lonely child, finding escape in front of the television set where she would immerse herself in VH1, Elvis films and The Wizard of Oz. “It was lonely,” she nods. “You don't really get to make a lot of close friends and it's unsettling, but you have to learn how to make a home wherever you go. In my 20s, I was learning how to make a space, whether it's in the back of a van or a hotel room or a farm or, even when I was houseless for a while after a wildfire burned down the farm that I was living on. 

"It's an exercise of acceptance, I guess, and also just softening your eyes so that you're not living within some expectation of where you should be. That definitely bleeds through a lot of the songs that I write, in that I desire to have that home base, but I have not yet found where that's going to be.

“I watched as many music-related things as I could find,” she recalls of finding comfort in the TV set. “I watched VH1’s Behind the Music a lot, and I would think, ‘Well, they had it rough, so maybe that's my origin story,” she laughs. 

“Movies that are very cinematic and visual always pulled me out of the reality I was experiencing. It helped me to forget about what was going on and feel like I had friends and familiar people and characters in my life.”

One way Lewis did discover she could connect with people early on was through music, and she would go on to become known as the “little yodelling cowgirl” at the town’s lone Walmart and in local retirement homes.

“I've always had a really deep connection to other people's emotions, which is a blessing and a curse,” she considers. “There's a hyper vigilance there. I would find myself singing around the house and around my grandparents, and they were like, ‘That's so beautiful’. 

"It started out as a love and attention thing, and a rush from feeling accepted and seen as a little kid. Nobody wants to listen to children, really, and I'm like, ‘Hey! I've got stuff to say, and I've got all these really big feelings’.”

Her grandparents gifted her a karaoke machine and cassette tapes of artists like Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, The Righteous Brothers, Elvis, Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and later she would immerse herself in the music of Janis Joplin and Etta Woods.

“I started singing and having little concerts in the basement,” she reflects nostalgically. “LeAnn Rimes was a big one for me too – that's where the yodelling came in. It felt good for me to make other people feel good, and that became my whole mission. I would sing in retirement homes, car shows, Walmart – wherever! It became a lot more of a serious thing as I got into my early teens.”

Lewis inhaled inspiration from cut-and-dry classic country and rock ‘n’ roll, smoked-out soulful psychedelia, and exhaled a shadowy signature sound, which today can be likened to a fever dream between Marty Robbins and Joni Mitchell.

The years rolled by, and she slung her songs for anyone who would listen, only for a last shot to pay off by landing a deal with Low Country Sound/Elektra Records during the pandemic. After releasing music independently for years, and being just about ready to give up, Lewis wound up in an impromptu meeting with Elektra Records President Gregg Nadel, where she performed for him in Elektra’s parking garage. Killer acoustics aside, Nadel was immediately floored by her incredible voice, and enthralled by her story and personality.

“I basically gave up on the idea of wanting to be really mainstream when I ‘found my voice’,” she admits. “I found a great community of musicians in the bay and all over the West Coast that really supported the very weird, five o'clock in the morning around a fire pit storytelling thing that I do, and I was never one for media. 

"I didn't like people taking videos or having their phone out because it took them away from the experience. So really, I wouldn't say that I was even looking for a deal, as grateful as I am to have it now. It wasn't really the priority. I just wanted to get this music out.”

Lewis’ music came to the attention of American radio personality, Mark Collins, who rose to prominence in the early ‘90s as a DJ on an alternative rock station in Seattle alongside the rise of grunge.

“He’s an amazing and legendary radio DJ who was the first to break Nirvana and Pearl Jam,” Lewis nods, “and he fell in love with my music. He scouted me when I was playing in a tugboat in a junkyard in Portland, Oregon, and he loved it, and he just didn't stop talking about it. I had already decided I was going to be indie and I had hopes and dreams of possibly working with my favourite producer, which was Dave Cobb, but that was such an off in the distance feeling. I was not going to pursue that – then it all kind of unfolded.”

Lewis found a manager and they discussed the fact that if they couldn’t get 13 time Grammy award winning Cobb (Lady Gaga, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Take That, Rival Sons, and Zayn Malik), that Lewis would remain an independent artist. The fateful meeting with Nadal was arranged, although he didn’t know about it.

“It was a little sneaky thing,” she grins. “It was like a movie – just like I would have liked it! I told him my story and he said, ‘I suppose you're going to sing for me now’. I was like, ‘I suppose I better!’ I took them into the parking garage, because the acoustics were better and my guitar strings were dead, and sang them three songs. He said, ‘Wow; I'd love to hear the album that you have’. Two weeks later, they wanted to fly me out to meet Dave Cobb in Nashville at RCA. I sang for Dave, and he signed me on the spot.”

Headliner notices that Lewis recounts the story with an air of disbelief. “I don't like to be ageist or feel like there's a limit on anyone's creativity,” she answers, “but I definitely didn't think that at my age, that this would be something that I would have access to.”

Lewis’ Cobb-produced major label debut album Lost In A Dream was released this year, weaving together a spellbinding tapestry of country, folk, blues, soul, bluegrass, gospel and rock. Recorded in Savannah, GA alongside Cobb, Lost In A Dream chronicles her journey down her own yellow brick road as she confronts a toxic relationship, addiction, and mental health struggles. 

Pushing through an opium-like haze of deep love and emotional abuse, Lewis ultimately finds closure as she pulls back the curtain to discover her Wizard of Oz was simply another hurting human who wasn’t who she thought he was.

“This whole record was based on this one person who I was so madly and desperately in love with, and just did not reciprocate,” she discloses. “It was breadcrumbing and lying and keeping me around just enough until it drove me completely crazy and put me into a dark depression. 

"One of the aspects of being in a toxic or narcissistic codependent relationship cycle is that it might start as little cute jabs and jokes, but it chips away at you until eventually you have nothing left.”

Lewis’ powerful vocals vividly convey the disillusionment and heartbreak of realising that you’ve put someone on a pedestal they can’t stand on, which is a theme reflected throughout the album on tracks like So Bad, I Surrender and standout track, Hold The Door, although her favourite song to perform is Some Kind Of Love. 

“I wrote that while I was still in the throes of this relationship. It’s such a beautiful, heartfelt love letter to myself that I never really got from this person. Sometimes you don't get to have the closure that you want, so you have to give it to yourself, so I wrote myself the most beautiful love letter I could ever hope to get. I really love that song; it's got this classic Glen Campbell feeling to it. When it's played live, there's a lot more of a reaction than some of the other ones, emotionally, at least. I'm out here to make you guys cry,” she laughs.

She may joke, but Lewis’ evocative songwriting is the cornerstone of her appeal. Drawing inspiration from her life experiences, she writes with a rawness that calls to mind some of the greats in Americana and country. Her music feels timeless, with roots in traditional country storytelling, while her lyrics serve as a confessional for her darkest times.

“The thing is, I've had a lot of things happen,” she says of gravitating to writing about times of hardship. “I'm not sure if I'm a magnet for some extreme experiences in life, or if I'm called to be in those places for some reason to learn something. I'm hoping to cultivate a lot more of a joyful presence in my music. 

"I find humour in everything though – at some point you have to learn to laugh, or you'll just cry all the time. Half of what I do on stage is almost a comedy,” she insists. “Some of it's really heavy material, and it's a lot of deep feelings. So I'm trying to laugh on stage just as much for my own preservation, as well as the audience.”

The storytelling may be heavy, but it resonates with audiences. Lost in a Dream has cemented Lewis’ position as one of the most exciting voices in Americana and country music. Her ability to transcend genres while staying rooted in authentic storytelling is a rare gift, and her grounded, soulful approach is something the music world needs more of, especially in a time when authentic voices can feel few and far between. Lewis attributes her approach to making music to growing up on “cowboy country”, leading her to embrace classic western storytelling.

“I want it to feel raw and visceral, so it hits people the way my favourite music hits me,” she says. “I don’t think we should feel comfortable all the time. I want my music to make people feel human – laugh, cry, scream, fucking feel it all. 

"The thing about the country is, I grew up in it. There was a straight shooting, big hearted energy in the country where I grew up. The best way to describe it is, it's three chords and the truth. It doesn't have all this flourish. I have a penchant for dramatics in my songwriting sometimes, but sometimes I'm surgical with my words – and real. I like to make it something that everyone can relate to.

“It's really just about the slow pace of the country,” she elaborates. “When you slow everything down, you start to see things that matter and a lot of times that ends up being your family, your job and the good work you're putting into your own little dream. [Western storytelling] feels like it looks out there: it's high mountain desert. It feels like long roads. It feels like quiet days. It feels like birds, a river and fishing, and all of that is the absolute truth.”

Lewis has come a long way from yodelling in Walmart. These days you’ll find her touring with soulful artists like Allen Stone, or playing at iconic venues like Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. “For country people, that's the mother church,” she smiles. “So many legends have played there. You walk in and it feels like a warm blanket, or like butter on a warm muffin.”

Lewis shares that she takes a JBL EON ONE Compact Portable PA with Professional-Grade Mixer with her when she’s on the road. “I'd been looking for a good portable PA for a long time as my voice has a complexity at times and an intensity that overloads a lot of systems,” she shares. 

“The first thing that I listened to on it was through the bluetooth speaker, and it was a Nina Simone song. I had heard this song a lot, but I heard all of the song through it,” she stresses. “I was blown away by the depth, sonically. It's nice to have a portable option too, as sometimes I like to busk out of the back of a van and do little backyard shows. It fills the room. It sounds good. It looks good. It's really lightweight. I'm surprised by the level of sound that can come out of such a small package, too.”

Photographer: Ashley Obsorn