Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf at Welcome to Rockville 2026 - PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hi, you love one to censure? Wow for you young, this is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio, and I'm. Here with Lazy sir. Nice you're at Welcome to Rockville. Oh my god, I can't remember because they all swirl my head. Have you ever played this as you or fly Leaf before?

0:49 Yeah? Like I think it was two years ago. We're here. Is it amazing or what? Yeah? Like for a venue all the years you've been doing this, Like, is this kind of an iconic venue to have as your background? It's wild? Right, Yeah, it was so funny. I played this venue and then I went and visited my gramps and he was literally watching it on TV, the race track, lay, the races. I was like, I was just there on that spot. Probably it's wild. It's pretty cool. And I have a trivia question for you. See how the seats are colored. Do you know why that is? So it looks like lots of people are there? Yeah, exactly.

1:30 Like I was interviewing NASCAR driver yesterday and he basically said, think about if you have a basketball game, there's like twenty thousand people. If you put twenty thousand people in here, I'll look empty. Because it holds like one hundred thousand. Wow, So Welcome to Rockville is the perfect festival because it gets over one hundred thousand, so it might as well be here, right yeah? Yeah, So, going back way back, what would you tell your teenage self with the wisdom of twenty twenty six self? Oh, I don't know. I think my best friends over.

2:15 There saying come and say it on the mic. She's like, be friends with mill sooner. You know, we've actually been friends, we have we're friends when I was nineteen when I met you actually so close. Yeah, I'm forty four now, so that's like long friendship. But you don't even look like much more than nineteen. Still, Like, what's your secret? Oh my gosh, I don't know. And you have like three kids? Right yeah? I like, how do you even look like that? After free kids? Funny? You're mean funny. I don't know. I feel like the thing is like too. I maybe if you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I'd have been like, well, don't do this and don't do this. But now I'm like thinking about so many things that I wouldn't do again.

3:01 But also I don't there's been so many things that have come out of those things that you that are beautiful. You know, I think it was all God's plan. Like maybe you wouldn't be here right now absolutely without doing well not. Talking to you for sure, because for sure because some of the things that made the worst decisions in my life or what made the music what it is, made the songs, like the response to the social commentary, like artistic response to those dramas that I put myself through were you know, yeah. Self through. Well, what's the best therapy? Sometimes, right? I mean they say that, I mean rock therapy is the thing.

3:41 But it's like can you can you be honest enough to respond, like with your whole soul to the situation? And then once you've done it, you feel like there's some kind of like justifying like like I'm okay, well, I'm good now I just screamed about that and I said what I meant, and like I feel interested and like by that guy screaming with men. You know, I'm good, I'm all right, I can get over it, I can walk through it. Maybe I'll get get through. This, you know. Yeah, And you know the thing is, and sometimes you have to go through those things to get to the other side. Yeah, I have a lot of high school friends that like committed suicide or odd on heroin in their forties and fifties because probably that reason, because they never got past that teenage feeling, you know, and didn't have an outlet for it. And maybe they didn't find God in that time either. And you know, I think I think it was like maybe divine intervention for you both in both ways, Like maybe it was divine intervention that you did all that stupid stuff or felt the way you did, yeah, to get you to the point that made you feel better.

4:59 Yeah, it is definitely something that I feel like I can't. I couldn't have written this story like I couldn't. I couldn't have made it up. I couldn't have predicted where it would go. I never thought I'd be in fly Leaf again. I never I didn't have any judgments about the future, but I didn't. I definitely wasn't planning that and being here talking about this specifically, like just what you said, just it just hit me like. An arrow in my heart. Is so many people, maybe this is gonna inspire them, you know, the people that are in that spot. You know, we don't we can't. We can't do anything. We can't stop all evil, but we can overcome it. And to be able to be somebody who sees that and is impacted by the death of your friends and know, you know, I might not be able to talk to them another day, but I have somebody right in front of me I can talk to no doubt.

5:52 And then also, like like you did, some people find that one person that could change their life. Some don't, you know, And like I'll even get deep in the interview. A couple years ago, I got a call at Louder than Life. It was when Slayer was first coming back, and it was my fifteen year old grandson died. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. He had a lot of pain, a lot of pain, and he used heroine and everything else for that pain. Maybe if he had somebody right what's his name, Well, his name originally was Anthony, but he changed to Ash because to him, Ash meant he was trying to get rid of his childhood issues. And like this, this always stays on me because that's guy's name, mind, and it's about him. But I will also say on the other side of it, I left the festival obviously.

7:00 Went to a funeral. But then I after it was all over, I went back to a festival and I went to Slayer Pitt and that's where I got my grief out. So talking about music therapy, it's like instead of like living in it, I just like took every bit of emotion I had and put it into that pit. You know what's wild is. That when you said Anthony, that's the name of like I've just now we've within the five years five years we've been part baptized into the Orthodox Christian Church and learned about saints, which I never I never doesn't know any stories about saints. But Saint Anthony is a demon slayer. Wow. I literally fought demons and like went and faced them. So maybe he's doing that now.

7:41 He used to come with me at festivals, like he's interviewed, like when it was nine to ten, he interviewed I've then from five Finger, he interviewed with Winston from Parkway. I'ven't actually interviewed him too funny, and then he interviewed Treymonni because he was really into this music when he and so he loved coming at the festival. And like again, if you had somebody like somebody objective. Like I think that's the difference too, Like, yeah, sometimes you can't go to your family, even if. They are supportive. You need that outside voice that may penetrate and it could be anywhere. Yeah, you know, and what do you think brought that person into your life?

8:25 I think my. Grandmother was praying for me. Yeah, like she was. She had been through so much and you know, she had her own struggle with suicide and mental health stuff. She saw it in me. She fought for me. Wow. I just feel like she fought in the spirit, Like she screamed at me until I went to and I like did it. And you know that can be like trauma too, Like you go to church and there's trauma that can happen to you there because it's like there's supposed to be the place to help and you guys are the ones doing abuse, abusing and damaging, you know whatever. But was so amazing that in that experience I actually did walk in and have this encounter with this god I didn't believe in, and that I didn't think cared or like I didn't believe, but if he did, if he was real, I didn't think he would.

9:13 Care, especially about me. Who hated the idea anyway and was so hateful towards people who talked about God, you know, like to me, I felt like if I was in trouble, if there was a God, like he would look at me like like I did so many bad things and I was so hateful. But when I had this encounter, there was like none of the things I expected it. It was the most beautiful, pure, it was scary kind of love because that doesn't exist outside of that, Like it's like the creator of the cosmos, who makes that kind of beauty that makes human beings and even your soul, like the beauty that comes out of human beings, like the programmed it in there, you know, like r it's like wild that the source of that was like perfect holy love and gave me another chance to like try again because with my life I was like I didn't do I just hated with my life to get another day to be like Okay, well, I'm sorry.

10:12 I didn't realize this was a gift. I thought this was like an accident. Wow, hearing like no, you get another life, I mean you get another chance, you get another day, like even just the moment right now, like we have one moment. I so love what you're saying too, because to me, you know, that's the ultimate unconditional love. Yeah right, it was, yeah, and. And I think it does matter that and who knows what happens when we get out the time and the mercy and the grace and the attentiveness. I just know that it's real. I know that he loves the people that are in front of me way more than I ever could. And I know that when I'm like if I, I think there's something that is important that we get in our souls that we know that he loves, because we want to shrink back when we encounter that love.

11:03 You know, somebody does something nice for you and you're like no, no, no, no, no, don't do that for me. But it's like it's like this is like the perfect love and you're like, oh no, no, no, I can't be but he's like come, you know, like I'll make a way for you to come, like I'll do whatever, I'll meet. You there, and you wonder why and you think you don't deserve it, and it's like, you know, so that's the most amazing part about it too, you know, because it helps you to realize. That you know, no matter what you are important. Yes, you know, extremely significantly important. Like if it's the uniqueness of our DNA is no one ever and the earth has ever had it, no one ever will. Your uniqueness is powerful and important, so important. And you say something like about who God is and there's something there that's His fingerprints there.

11:58 You know, that is powerful. And I also believe like there's some people that believe that artists shouldn't have a voice and things going on in the world or whatever their beliefs are, and I think it's the exact opposite, you know, like what better way to get your voice out there but through a song, because as an artist, isn't so much easier to write a song than to talk about it. Yeah, and to sing it opposed to talking about it. Well, I got to remember that too, you know. I'm on this journey with the Orthodox Christianity. They're all about mystery and like nuance, and they don't spell it out for you, you know, like it's almost like messing up the sacredness to give a straight flat answer. Yeah, it's like, how do I tell you I love my husband or my kids? I can tell you I love them, you don't know what I'm talking about. You got to be with me and you know what I mean, and it's like, there's this this cool thing that art does that takes you into it in a different way than you could say it totally.

13:01 So how do you think that also led back to you getting back with fly Leaf? And you know, how was the not necessarily what happened, but how do you feel the influence of God brought you to that point because you probably never imagine that ever would happened again? Right? No, No, I didn't. I didn't. But part of the not imagining it was that I'm very present generally, and I don't have expectations generally of what's coming next. Not in a negative way. I just I just impresent, like accepting, trying to what's in front of me. No kind of nice. And I've seen things be I think it's because I've seen things be so crazy, you know, things change, like you know, we can't control the weather, we can't control our heartbeat, you know, like I n know, so like to be accepting of what is given at the time and go on that adventure whatever that is, you know, and roll with it. It's kind of the way I think about things so whenever stuff came up with fly Leaf, I still didn't know. And even somebody would ask me, like, are you excited about the show? Like even right now you are you shy of the show? Like I'm happy to talk to you right the show.

14:11 I mean maybe I don't know. I get that though, because my youngest daughter, who's here at the festival, she's like, every festival I do because I do want like pretty much every weekend or whatever all over and she's like, are you excited? And I'm like, I don't know if excited it is the right word. I love doing it, but whether you do it every weekend, is it really exciting? So and your way just makes so much sense. It's like, be excited at the time, not in the anticipation you No, I don't have that. I don't know if that's a gift or a curse because gets some people's nerves sometimes. I think it's a gift. I got that too. I got you. Why are you excited? Well, I'm not a good planner either because of it.

14:52 Right, But it's a gift because you don't get nervous either, because I think nervous goes along. With excitement, right, True, you know it is true, and so. How much does it blow your mind that you're now going to do a tour that's it starts right here at Welcome to Rockville twenty years. Like yeah, oh does that blow your mind? Like, especially again going back to teenage years, you probably could never imagine a year, much less twenty years later, you know. Yeah, well, I mean I'm forty four and to think that, you know, there's things that I regret in my life, like things that I wish I could have been more present for, more aware.

15:42 Of the gift, Like definitely flyly fears. There's so many flyly fears where I was exhausted, Like we really didn't come home for more than two weeks at a time for so many years, and I. Didn't enjoy you know, like things with my kids too, even my oldest is fifteen down. I'm like, I I feel like there were times I miss you know, but like to me to look at those twenty years and realize, but there was a lot that we did, we did experience, and there's some beauty in realizing. Hopefully this inspires some people when they're younger than me, in realizing that we we lived that you know, we did go on those adventures, you know that, and there's there's wisdom and like my husband came out with us for a lot of the fly Leaf stuff right before I left, like that whole Momentumarry album and right before that, and he always wanted to be like his dream was to play music. He got to play on stage with us a few times, and he plays with Shinedown sometimes every now and then he fills in for Zach when he you know stuff and Eric he did the base. But when you get to that place where you get your dream and it isn't exactly what you thought, and then it's done and you step off stage and there's like that crash of like.

17:01 Well what now you know? Then you realize it's the little things that are most important, and like the little interactions, the things we're doing right now, like the things with your kids, that home cooked meal and the people bringing you brownies at the show, like you. Made this, like it's so delicious you can't. Buy it anywhere, you know, Like that kind of stuff that seemed like so mundane to people who aren't in a rock aren't doing a rock star life, right, they're like so precious when you hit it and you come down and it's like, now what you know? You enjoy the relationships around you that you've been put in front of you and those things. Like, to me, it's like those twenty years, I feel like we did live, but also we learned to live.

17:44 Well, it's funny you used adventures and my shows, the Adventures of pipe Man, because I look at all my trauma. We were just talking about this on the way here today, like all my trauma from childhood, which I had massive trauma, like all of. Yeah, I view it. I always viewed it as adventures. Yeah, I never viewed it as trauma. It wasn't until I became in my twenties and people are like, oh, I'm surprised you didn't end up in mental hospital with all that. Yeah, And I'm like, what are you talking about? And sometimes that's not good too, because like I almost thought my life was normal, you know, and the things crazy shit that happened to.

18:26 Me, Yeah, was normal. Yeah doo. I thought nor yeah you think that's Somebody's like that's not good. I'm like what. Well, for some people, I'm like, what are you talking about? We just we're just different. We just overcame it and here we are see life different somehow. That's it. That's it. Last thing I want to say to you isn't even a question. It's just a kudos. During COVID, I hated the idea of the live stream concerts and stuff like that. I liked it because it gave something, but it wasn't the same as being there. I watched your stuff all the time because it was the most entertaining streaming of any of the artists out there.

19:14 That's wild. Here did you not? And listen? I only say it the way it is, you know, and like seriously, it was so entertaining and the interaction. What I loved most of all is people were requesting into a song and you just did it. Yeah, Like they write lyrics and we'd sing it. Oh my god. That was who else would do that? Not everybody would be able to do that, nor do it, and nobody else did except you. So kudos to you because that was great. It was good for me. I feel like we were hanging out, you know, with friends, and like we were encouraging each other, you know, exactly, so cool. That's a great attitude. And now here we are welcome to Rockville.

19:58 You're gonna kill it here and I'm I'm so excited and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe. You it was awesome. I like that adventures good see. I love hearing that too. Hey, this is. Lacy Stern from fly Leaf and you're listening to the Pipemin on W four CUY Radio. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on W for CUI Radio.