We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Lightman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Every song I write, I do my best to create from a place of depth and meaning. The one that stands out the most currently is my song Silence. I wrote this when I was about to hit the one of lowest points in my life. I had just gotten word from the doctor that I had to go on vocal rest due to an injury that formed. It was up in the air about the way I would heal and if I would need surgery. I felt so helpless and scared not knowing what the outcome would be. I decided to write a song about the experience of being silent and what that means to me. The song itself in the whole realm of production went through a lot of adversity. I originally recorded it right before I had the surgery on my vocal cords in 2020. I had a producer who wanted to control the whole master, and I was misadvised at the time to agree to those terms. It was heartbreaking and frustrating to say the least. I learned so much and went through so much emotional stress and adversity throughout the last 3 years. My patience was tested and I felt like the universe was asking me, are you sure you really want to be an artist?

Much later, I realized with the help of a lawyer and industry friends that it would be better to re-record the master with a different team. Even though I already shot the music video and had the album artwork ready, I realized despite the expensive lesson in time and peace, the best foot moving forward would be to remake the song. This song has so much baggage, but I feel like little by little as I’m breathing life back into it, and it’s giving my soul a sense of closure and rehabilitation. I’m hoping this song helps others find a sense of strength as well. Silence will be releasing this Fall 2023, so look out for it.

Sarah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Sarah Lightman, soulful pop Recording artist and singer-songwriter always loved to sing, but it took me a minute to find my path as an artist. I quit and tried a few different careers in the arts. I grew up with an artistic family, and at least a handful have pursued a professional career in the arts. My dad though, most notably had the biggest influence on the family, including myself. He passed away when I was barely 14, and it made it difficult to find my direction creatively in addition to just being a kid. It wasn’t till after college pushing theater, film acting, and moving out to Los Angeles and weathering a few hefty storms did I find my voice and way back to music.

After I had been through some things and learned that I wanted to share it with the world to benefit others, that’s when I knew in my gut that I found my purpose and nothing was going to hold me back. After 8 years of building relationships and a fanbase in Los Angeles, I realized it was time for me to move on to Nashville and continue my journey. My brand of music is to dive into the crevices and corners of the human experience and share my mental health journey to help others feel a better sense of belonging and connection. In the moments of turmoil where I felt incredibly alone or suffered, I wished that I had that support, and so I feel like by helping others I get to validate that girl in some way. It always feels incredible when people tell me I was able to provide some sense of compassion and understanding through my songs. It’s a really powerful way to connect and be of service.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I feel like the social media fanbase is always a work in progress. I’m definitely still learning how to scale it, and find my audience everyday. It’s thrilling, exciting, sometimes exhausting, and scary but always a pleasure to meet new fans and build relationships with them. The more organic and authentic you are to yourself, the more you can provide something valuable to others. When you act from a place of self worth and go towards those who appreciate all that you already have inside of you and all that you are, people are going to resonate with you. You’re way more likely to connect with your fans that haven’t discovered you yet.

I remember when I had less than 3,000 followers I would personally message fans and let them be part of the process from voting in contests, talking to them about where we met, personally thanking them for their support, inviting them to shows. I tried to be as considerate as possible about their common welfare too, so they knew that they weren’t just a number but a human appreciated for their support. People can smell it when you’re purely transactional, and they don’t like it when you just send them links to listen to your music, fail to address them by their name, ask them to follow you when you haven’t developed any common ground. They can tell when you don’t see them. Do the opposite of that always, no matter how big you get, and you’ll have fans for life. You gotta be pursuing the dream from a place of love even if you’re not the best with social media, or don’t care for it. It’s all a part of the picture and the branding.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Resource wise, I feel like I wish I had tapped into my sense of community and had the support from those in the arts pursuing it, that had a passion for providing the knowledge. Where I grew up the artistic encouragement and knowledge was pretty scarce. There was choir, drama club, band, etc in school but there wasn’t an incredible amount of academic support to help provide direction and success to those throughout school, and most importantly upon graduation. There were always politics and cliques, and I’m not about that. That is the opposite of thriving creativity in my opinion. If I don’t know the answer to something, but it would help, I will make it my top priority to find out and be better. I didn’t feel like there was a big enough drive or interest resource wise at school to really nourish that kind of environment for me. I wish that would have been there.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sarah-lightman.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/sarahlightman
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/sarahlightmansings
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahlightman
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@sarahlightman
• Other: Listen to my music + Find me on other socials (Patreon, Twitch, Discord): https://linktr.ee/sarahlightman www.tiktok.com/@sarahlightman

Image Credits
Photographer Credits include: Mellie J Photography – Luna Guitar Photo Shoot Stefan Heuer – Casual Lifestyle Photo @ Vanderbilt University, TN Sean Harris – Street performing photo @ CityWalk, Los Angeles, CA