Cam on ‘Untamed’ Years Before Record Deal: The Ram Report
Cam credits the unique sound that’s made her one of country music’s most promising new faces to something pretty simple: oblivion. The California native wrote and recorded most of her debut LP, Untamed before she had a record deal.
“I got to make this whole album with my friends who started out with nothing to their names either, and I’m really proud of that,” she tells Rolling Stone Country. “We all grew up together and got to create this music together over the past five years. It’s been a lot of lessons in how to make music that I want to make but also just how to be the person I wanna be. You can live in the world that they’ve created, or you can create your own — and that’s what we did. We weren’t being rebels on purpose. . . we just didn’t know how things were done!”
Being so green worked in her favor. Cam’s infectious debut single, “My Mistake” helped land her on a lot of critics’ “artists to watch” lists (including Rolling Stone‘s), and its follow-up, the haunting “Burning House” has already been certified gold. Those songs, along with all of Untamed‘s 11 tracks are musical snapshots of her life.
“I didn’t write these songs really hoping everyone would ‘get’ them, I wrote them because they’re my stories and I was being true to those experiences,” she says. “So it’s a big relief that people understand me!”
While Cam names Eric Church and Zac Brown Band as huge influences — both musically and in the way both artists treat their respective teams and fans — she has made it a point to develop a sound that’s all her own.
“The tricky thing is making sure you don’t feel pressured or insecure enough that you should be doing something else. And the fact that I got to create this music before I was fully in the system, I think that helped me. . . there was nothing else I could’ve leaned on. And I also think it’s really important not to tread on other people’s stuff. Be yourself, and don’t accidentally get in someone else’s lane!”
Untamed will be released December 11th.