On the Rise
Taura Lamb

“I actually had to Google it the other day,” she says as she tells me her age, “and by Google I mean I used a calculator. Like, I don’t know, I could’ve been 26 or I could be 28 – and it turns out I’m 27!” There’s a unique humour to all that Lamb says, and what could be said as a simple matter-of-fact statement often comes past her lips as a memorable moment that makes you chuckle to yourself each time you recall it.

Solihull-native Victoria Lamb was gifted a guitar at the age of 14 and immediately began writing music once she figured out how to play chords. Gigging in pubs and open mic nights across town, she found her feet performing covers for unassuming crowds. “I’d do like three Rihanna covers in a row,” she says, laughing as she looks back at her 45-minute acoustic sets, revelling in being underage in a pub. “I’d be doing Justin Bieber deluxe album track covers!”

Lamb merged her childhood nickname of Tori with her horn-headed starsign and created Taura. It wasn’t long before the moniker felt a little lonely, and her last name was added on to make things just a little more her. As she grew her local following and reputation, she made her way into the Birmingham live scene and performed at bigger venues.

“In my kitchen at home there's this poster, and it's a list of all the names of who played at the Yardbird in Birmingham in December. It was the first time my name was printed on something, and my parents were so focussed on the fact that it was my name on there, that they didn’t really zoom out to realise all the names made up a naked woman in a Santa hat,” she says, giggling away. “It was front and centre in my kitchen! I asked my mum if she knew what it looks like, and she swears to God she didn’t realise until then …it was pretty creative to be honest.”

The next chapter in her life led her to London at the age of 18 where she enrolled at Goldsmiths to study Pop Music. It was here that she met Luke, a producer that Lamb works with to this day, but she also struggled with the subjectivity of artistic evaluation – her fellow students had unconventional music tastes that she admired, and it was frustrating to see their work marked down for not fitting in.

This didn’t stop her, however, from finding some success. Lamb’s first writing session scored her a writing credit on The Magician’s “Tied Up,” and this beginner’s luck gave her some confidence. “I thought this … is so easy! It’s gonna be an easy ride!” she exclaims, but after that the stark reality of the music world hit and other opportunities weren’t as successful. The long and hard road of her career was ahead, “but I’m still very much in love with it,” she reassures me.

It was shortly after this that Taura fell ill, and was so sick that she was genuinely convinced she was on death’s door for nine months. Having just broken up with her boyfriend at the time as well, her world was falling apart around her, and things felt rather out of control. “I was so dizzy and so tired,” she says, detailing how her small joints and even her jaw were swollen, “the brain fog was nuts!” It was during this time that she decided to up her production skills, and began working on her Lucky Girls EP. Lamb is a determined individual, and she seems to manage to find some positive in any situation she’s in – even finding herself lying on her bedroom floor crying turned out to be more productive than imagined, as that’s where she found the inspiration for the song “New Normal,” that came out in her 2022 project Revisions.

Lamb then discovered she was suffering from silicone toxicity due her IUD, and as soon as this was removed her hands and joints returned to normal. This prompted her to finally record the vocals to her Lucky Girls EP and put it out into the world. “Looking back, I think it would have been nice to send a few producers!” she laughs, “but that’s growth, right?”

“I feel like that first EP was more of a personal project, and not something that I would necessarily choose to put out to the world,” she explains, “If you love all your earlier stuff as much as you love the new stuff, how will you grow?”

As 2020 rolled in, Taura was working on Revisions, and this time she wanted to work with as many musicians, producers, and other creative people as possible… but then she was shut in her home during the UK’s lockdowns. Once again, Lamb saw the positive in her situation, and as the door of her home shut, the window through her laptop opened across the world. She managed to collaborate with someone on each and every song across the record, and collaborated with people around the world in the same way she would have with musicians two doors down from her. “Everybody was up for it,” she says, “and it kinda changed the industry a little bit. Especially for new artists who didn’t have access to a network where they were.”

As there ‘was no one session’ for the project, Revisions got its name from the nature of its production, with no original demo sounding anything like its final form. While it also could’ve been the dreaded debut album for Lamb, she still sees it as a collection of work rather than a cohesive album project. As lockdowns subsided and the UK returned to ‘normal’, she began to plan her return to gigs.

As we talk about her first gig after barely singing live in a year, she laughs and says “honestly? It haunts me to this very day.” There were no in-ears, it was barely rehearsed, her singing was out of tune ­_­– or at least she thinks so, as she couldn’t actually hear herself – but again, Lamb’s ability to see the brighter side of things just reinforced her desire for more preparation time ahead of these things.

Her biggest gig to date in May 2023 at The Grace was the most amazing night, “but the lead up was horrific” she mutters. Not only did she fall ill before the original date and had to postpone by a month, but her support dropped out the day before, her drummer dropped out at short notice, she had to do different rehearsals with different band members due to clashing diaries, and the whole thing was all was very stressful.

The gig itself was an entirely different story. Lamb found herself on stage with newfound confidence, and realised that the audience had come to see her, unlike at a festival or an anonymous setting. "These people actually spent their hard-earned money to come and support me," she reflects, "and they wanted me to do well." Five minutes before her performance her anxieties faded, and she found peace by living in the moment. The new music she presented was warmly received, and it fuelled her enthusiasm for her next project.

Today, Lamb is slowly releasing Moods, her latest project. It began all over the shop, and it didn’t feel like flowing work from one track to the next – “but that’s kinda what I’m like!” she admits, giggling to herself. One day she’s feeling great, the next she’s really stressed, or even hour to hour her mood can change so why can’t her music? She wants her next project to reflect this, and hence the project’s fitting name.

As she progressed, four distinct yet general moods stuck out: Tetchy, Teary, Sultry and Sunny. With these, Lamb decided to make individual mini mood EPs, which create a larger project when combined – a ‘deconstructed album’, if you will. “When I listen to albums, I want it based more on my own mood” she explains, “I skip the sad one if I’m not in that mood, and I can’t be the only one.”

“I could technically keep them going forever!” she exclaims, saying how each one is for her listeners to play when they’re in that specific mood. “I could just keep adding to them, and I’d love to do that,” she continues, but in a now classic Taura Lamb rebuttal she says “…but I don’t think I’m going to though.”

For this project, Lamb is listening to herself more and writing with a more personal perspective. Until now she’d be writing about the bigger things, taking inspiration from friends, family, and other situations, but found herself getting stuck on them. “I got stood up on a Zoom call, and I wrote an entire song about it,” she says about “Vanishing Act,” one of her recent singles. Being annoyed in the moment she managed to write a song she’s now incredibly connected to, and has since found the power in taking the tiniest and most unimportant things that make up every day and writing about those, rather than waiting for something big to happen. And yes, she still has those big moments, but there’s something about the little things that make you feel nostalgic.

Moods is Taura Lamb figuring out what she’s doing. She’s working out what she actually wants in life as she comes into her Saturn-return before she turns 30. It’s learning her own emotions, how she both reacts and comes back from things, and categorising things into these little moods to help her realise she’s feeling a certain way and how to get out of it. “If I'm feeling really anxious, it's not that I just don't know what's going on,” she continues, “I can recognise this within myself now, I can categorise it, and I can label it and therefore I can also get myself out of it. Basically, I’m in my emotional maturity era.”

The music sees Lamb being more fun than ever before, and in true Taura Lamb fashion; taking the mick out of herself. She’s less afraid of being cringe, and less scared of being shackled down by one genre – noting that her record is “even more divisive in terms of R&B and pop” – resulting in music that has far less anxiety surrounding it. “I used to be way more conscious of making things sound cool,” she says. “Whereas now if I like it, it's going in.”

Her journey in creating Moods was an emotional rollercoaster, with both high highs and low lows. She had previously labelled herself as someone who wasn't particularly anxious or emotional, but the past year challenged that. She came out the other side with a greater understanding of herself and has found a sense of inner peace, even on the bad days.

“I just want to write what I want to write and release what I want to release and not worry about whether the numbers are going to do really well,” she continues, talking about her future in music. Not wanting a record deal from the big players in the label world, she’s prepared for music to not be her career – but with this, she’s also lost her fear of releasing music into the world. “I just feel a lot more confident in in my own abilities and I don't need everybody to tell me that it's good for me to feel like it's good.”

Success to Taura Lamb is a matter of subjectivity. Yes, writing a UK number 1 hit and being synced to a widely watched TV show is up there, but as an artist she just wants to create music that people relate to – “and if I could make some money at the same time, that's the cherry on top!” Taura Lamb just wants to be the song that you play over and over again. She says she has so far to go, and has so many milestones to hit, but even if she doesn’t hit them, she explains that even the messages she gets on social media from fans make her think it’s all worth it. “So far it’s a success,” she answers, cherishing all that’s happened so far, but excited for all that’s yet to come.