The first person who showed me that I could be a maker of music was one of my best friends. It's like, you can't see yourself doing something until you see somebody else doing it. Other people were encouraging me singing, but this was the first time that I could see myself writing songs and playing guitar.
— Cam
Music videos are an especially fun thing to watch - I bet from the outside, too - because you learn so much, just like in our music... It's really fun work.
Yellow's more like, I'm not trying to be this sexy vixen or anything, obviously. I'm a very friendly person, and I literally do just want to be your friend. I think all of that is wrapped up in yellow. It seems to work. I like being in it.
It's really empowering to have curly hair.
My manager and I were broke for about three years together. That was the worst time of our lives and the best time of our lives. You have nothing, and it also is this great blank canvas of how to be inspired and how to dream up your whole life out of nothing.
The tricky thing is music is supposed to be very mysterious; the way it's made is mysterious. Then people like to get upset with the music business.
My parents were the good parents that said, 'You should try and get a good job and go to college and get an education.'
My grandpa was a big cowboy in his values and the way he lived his life. For our family, the ranch represented our family time when we got to drive down through all that desert farmland and Grandpa would wake us up at 5 A.M. to feed the horses if we wanted to earn the right to ride them later. I always had so much fun.
I think Alison Krauss is one of the most amazing singers ever. As a songwriter - this is gonna sound cheesy - I love Randy Newman. And my mom passed on a love of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. At one point I was so into the Indigo Girls, just like I was so into the Dixie Chicks, those female harmonies.
My general idea of the world is that I'm not different at all because I'm a girl. So I get blindsided sometimes because I forget that that's a thing.
I've never wanted to be famous. That has never been a part of any dream. I do remember being little and thinking I might want to be a singer. But not a famous singer - just, like, a singer.
I think life gives you lemons, and the thing that I'm working on doing is not watering it down, not putting sugar in it. Just drink it straight. The more you can take life head on... it's gonna make you a better person, and then you have nothing left to be afraid of. And what an awesome way to live.
When I sing a set, people will say, 'I love 'Mayday.' People just love 'Mayday' so much. I love it too.
I have no deep-seated desire to be famous; that's not what's driving me, so if it's something I don't want to do, I don't do it. Maybe it's stubborn, but any choices, if you don't like them, yell at me, because it for sure was my bad.
The climate at country radio is very, 'Let's keep it up-tempo,' probably best if you're a guy.
It's my job to make sure that the people I'm gonna team up with for my music see everything that I'm about: Put all my cards on the table and don't make them guess.
Nobody is going to hand you a music career.
Everybody is nicer to me when I'm in yellow.
Day one through three of the radio tour, I actually went by Camaron Ochs. I went to my first set of radio remotes, and everybody was just like 'What's your last name?' It's not easy to pronounce. The first two minutes I got with people, that's what they wanted to talk about, and sometimes those two minutes is all you get.
I would like to be known for honest, relatable writing and stories that that are real. There's just this shift I think is happening in a lot of society right now where being your most real self, however embarrassing or vulnerable or weird that is, is the coolest. I feel like that's what Lena Dunham's about and Amy Schumer's about.
When I was in first grade, some psychologist told my mom if I didn't go to graduate school, she basically failed as a parent, because I had the aptitude to do it. Which is so dumb. Huge pressure!
That part, that internal dialogue that has a lot of ups and downs and darks and lights and stuff - that, I think, is where music comes from. I think the face that you put on when you're talking to people and making small talk, I don't think that's where music comes from.
Fans give me yellow things, and I think now what's really fun is, when anyone sees yellow now, they'll think of me. Now it's kind of like this self-fulfilling prophecy: Yellow things come to me.
I would much rather be on the couch all the time. But it turns out, I'm also agreeable. I'll agree to do a lot of things.
You are what you eat, and you make what you hear.
I think the thing that I really wanna bring is that I have a full world of music and imagination and ideas that I want to create as an artist, and that's my main thing that I want to do.
I was raised by a family that there was no, 'You're a girl so you have a limited number of options.' In my community, that was never anything that happened.
I decided I was going to be an artist who wrote my own songs, and turned down the publishing deal. That meant that the first few years here were really tough financially. I didn't know if I was going to have gas to get home sometimes or could put gas in the car.
Right after college, I got really into St. Vincent. She just is so cool and out there. I think that's super-inspiring. And tone and mood-wise, I just love Patsy Cline and Ray Charles.
In 2010, I was doing pretty well. I was going to go to graduate school.
My grandpa would come in with water and flick it on our faces at 6 A.M. and be like, 'If you don't get up to feed the horses, you don't get to ride them.' We'd get up.
