“I’ve been playing guitar for a long time, but Nashville has forced me to become a better player,” says Mongé, fresh off her first full-band show at Analog at Hutton Hotel in Nashville. For the 38-year-old artist, the move to Tennessee caps a stretch of constant change—from the Pacific Northwest to Arizona, then North Carolina, and now Nashville, a city she never expected to call home.

“I feel like Nashville’s always been on my radar just because of the style of music that I do, but I’ve kind of stayed away from it for years,” she says. “I am quite the rebel when it comes to the music industry, and I try to do it my way, which is sometimes not conventional. Nashville just kind of embodies so much of the industry that I haven’t really wanted to be a part of until now.” But since settling in, the city has started to win her over. “I really do think there’s a balance between being an independent artist and building a team, and mirroring other creatives,” she says. “Nashville is full of people who are not just wrapped up in fame and fortune, per se, but are all about creating. It’s pushed me to collaborate more, co-write more, and to look at ways I can tell my story better.”

Her story, of course, started long before Nashville. Mongé built her career in the Emerald City, performing as a street musician at Pike Place Market, where her soulful voice and songwriting caught the attention of passersby. “I loved cutting my teeth in Seattle,” says Mongé, who moved from Spokane to Seattle at age 20 to study audio engineering at The Art Institute of Seattle. 

“Seattle is a great incubator for artists, especially in the timeframe I was there, which was pre-smartphone and pre-social media,” she says. “I felt like I could breathe there. I miss the relaxed feeling. I miss the culture. I miss the music. I miss my friends. I miss the beauty. It’s the most beautiful city in the world. There’s so much about it that I love that I definitely miss, but I’m also not quite ready to go back and live there, if that makes sense.”

Even with that longing, Mongé says she’s finding a new rhythm in the South—one rooted in growth and hard-earned self-assurance. “I’ve really gone through a lot of stuff in the last few years,” says Mongé, who lost her mother to cancer in 2020. “Moving across the country to continue pursuing my music has been the most cathartic way to honor my mother, who has always wanted to see me rise to the top. I feel like I’m at a place where I’m open to experiencing how good life can be rather than anticipating when the next shoe is going to drop.”

These days, Mongé continues to add dates to her touring schedule and she’s exploring what it means to connect with audiences in a new city while carrying the lessons of Seattle with her. “I take pride in my performances—in the way that I know how to pull people in,” she says. “I learned that at Pike Place Market. It’s such an interesting magic trick. I feel like if I describe it, I’ll ruin it,” Mongé laughs. “How can you bring somebody to a point of presence, especially when they’re not expecting it? That’s the most magical element—when people aren’t really expecting it to happen in a space like an airport or on a street corner or in a rowdy bar. It’s those moments when no one’s paying attention—that’s where the magic actually lives. Real artistry isn’t about approval, it’s about true human expression, whatever the outcome.”

The post Whitney Mongé’s Next Verse appeared first on Seattle magazine.

What Emmy finds herself navigating now is the somewhat confusing mix of happiness, anxiety, thankfulness, and fear that comes with survivorship. “My life right now is just like any normal kid,” says Emmy, who has been in remission for the past six years. “The only difference between me and my peers is that I go to maybe one or two appointments a month, which is great, but yeah, nobody likes going to doctor’s offices.”

That truth is captured in “Hope is a Light in the Dark,” an inspiring song Emmy co-wrote with fellow Hyundai Hope on Wheels National Youth Ambassador Jackson Trinh, at The Sound Factory in Hollywood over the summer. It was part of a special songwriting session hosted by Musicians on Call. “Hope has helped me through my whole cancer journey,” says Emmy. “Cancer comes with its share of struggles. Hope is a big part of how me and my family kept going. We always prayed for another day and hope definitely got us through that journey and where I am now.”

Twelve-year-old Emmy Cole (far left) channels her cancer journey into music, using songwriting as a source of strength and hope, alongside producer Suzy Shinn on guitar.

Photo by Dusty Barker

Jackson and Emmy recording with musician Lou Lou Safron. 

Photo by Dusty Barker

Writing such an emotional song wasn’t easy. “The most challenging parts were probably fitting all the words into the song,” says Emmy. “Finding the words and making sure every word had a meaning was the hardest part. I want every other kid who listens to these songs to know that you are going to get through this.”

That honesty made a deep impression on the producers who guided the session. “It was evident from the start that she wanted to write about the anxiety that she still feels as a cancer survivor,” says producer and songwriter Suzy Shinn, who—alongside fellow producer Sam Hollander and musician Lou Lou Safron—partnered with Hyundai Hope on Wheels and Musicians on Call to help the youth ambassadors in the songwriting process. “I didn’t expect those words to come out of her mouth and how well she could articulate herself and the big, very human, very thoughtful, very deep emotions that she could say. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, and I was blown away by it.”

Authenticity is what makes the Musicians on Call songwriting program so special. “It’s all about allowing people to share their story through song,” explains Pete Griffin, president and CEO of Musicians on Call, an organization that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients, families, and caregivers in healthcare environments. “When these young people share the words of what they’ve been going through or what they’ve been through, you really see their energy grow and they start to light up because it’s giving them power over something that maybe they felt powerless with.”

And if you ask Griffin, Emmy is a star in the making. “She is just a fantastic young person,” he says. “I mean, we joke around—having done two songwriting sessions with her now—that someday we’ll be working for her because she’s just such a smart and talented kid with such a big personality. She’s wise beyond her years.”

These days, Emmy is living a fulfilling life on the cusp of her teenage years. She loves horseback riding, hanging out with her friends, and listening to music from favorite artists such as Tate McRae, Morgan Wallen, and Russell Dickerson. “I feel stronger than ever,” says Emmy. “Right now, I’m in the survivorship part of my era, so we aren’t as worried about the cancer as we were before. I’m very proud of myself.”

The post Finding Hope in Music appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“I host trivia at Hemlock State Brewing Company in Mountlake Terrace,” laughs McBride of her unusual weekly gig. “Being a writer is a weird job. It’s very stressful in many ways. So, I love my trivia on Tuesday nights.” 

She also loves Seattle—the city she moved to when she was 21 years old and snagged a job at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. “I already had a book out, but I needed a day job,” says McBride, who now lives just north of Seattle. “I was originally hired at the attached café Honey Bear Bakery, but eventually I transferred into the bookstore. It was actually a pay cut because I wouldn’t get tips. But I figured the book discount kind of made up for it.” She left the bookshop in early 2019, after about seven years.

Her job at Third Place Books gave her a front row seat to the publishing world, an experience she would draw on throughout her career. “Learning publishing from that end was invaluable,” says McBride, who refers to herself as a hybrid writer, utilizing both traditional publishing and self-publishing. “I have a perspective on books on the shelf––what readers actually say about books, what covers work, and what publishing houses are better at getting these books to the bookstore. And because I worked events (at Third Place Books) for so long, I got really good at public speaking too.”

McBride’s love of creativity began when she was growing up in the small town of Silverdale, Washington. “I started reading really young,” she says. “As soon as I figured out someone made books, I realized that was what I wanted to do. I was lucky that I had a mom and a stepmom who were very supportive of reading and writing and would always run me to the library.” 

Despite her love for words, McBride says she struggled personally and academically in high school—something her 10th grade English teacher picked up on. “She told me, ‘there are people that are really good at writing and there are people that can do it for a living, and I think you can do it for a living,’” recalls McBride. Even with the reassurance, McBride ended up dropping out of high school—but years later, she tracked the teacher down on Facebook to share the news that she had, in fact, become an author. “Basically, I wanted to let her know that I didn’t die in a ditch,” laughs McBride. “I’m perfectly fine.”

McBride is more than fine. She’s gone on to write a total of ten novels, including her debut Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, her first adult book A Little Too Familiar, and her newest young adult novel Red in Tooth and Claw. “I write romance, and I credit that almost entirely to the fact that I grew up in a very dude-heavy household,” says McBride, who was raised with three brothers and multiple male cousins. “Plus, basically the books I really loved were the ones that had romance in them.” 

That realization snuck up on her. “I wasn’t against writing romance,” McBride recalls. “But the more I read it, I just kind of fell more in love with it. I realized it was something I did want to do.” 

She’s hardly alone. Romance sales have more than doubled in the past four years, and Seattle even welcomed its first romance-only bookstore, Lovestruck in Seattle, this summer.

“It’s been the most fun,” says McBride. “I love how responsive the readership is and how voracious they are. It’s been nothing but good.” Her love for the genre has only grown—especially as readers increasingly search for an escape from the real world. “Romance brings joy, and it brings connection and as a reader, it brings with it an amazing community,” explains McBride. “And those are all things that we kind of desperately need right now.”

Her next young adult book, Most Likely To Murder, is set for release in March. She’s drafting a new adult fantasy romance for her agent. And she’s been meaning to get back to work on a book she’s writing on Patreon. Her most recent release, The Suitcase Swap, came out in August, a later-in-life love story about two strangers whose luggage gets mixed up at JFK. “I am a little over the place,” laughs McBride. 

McBride admits the industry can be daunting, but she still urges writers to keep going. “You have to be a little hopeful, and you have to have some fight in you because it’s an industry that’s really hard to get into,” McBride says. “It’s really hard to stay in, and it’s not always very nice to you. But the thing that keeps me going on the days where I want to chuck my laptop into the ocean is those moments where a kid comes up and says, ‘this book mattered to me.’”

McBride shrugs off the uncertainty with a laugh. “Writers don’t usually retire, you know?”

See Lish McBride at The Grimm Market in Monroe on Oct. 11, 5-8 p.m.

The post The Many Lives of Lish McBride appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“Our favorite camping spot was up in Washington at Lake Merwin,” recalls the rising country music star during an interview with Seattle magazine. “We would pack the car to the brim, fill it with all of my siblings and my parents, and we would meet a bunch of cousins there.” And then, the fun would ensue. “We would go fishing on the docks where the campsite was, and we’d swim. When I was young, we had a boat, so we’d go tubing and wake boarding,” remembers McNown, a West Linn, Oregon native who also loved hiking at Multnomah Falls. “I was very blessed to be raised in the outdoors and within the forests of the Northwest.”

The 24-year-old hitmaker of songs such as the Platinum-certified single “A Lot More Free” and Gold-certified “Better Me For You (Brown Eyes)” already misses those good times. “If I could go back and experience all of that again, I would do it in a heartbeat,” he says quietly. “Those experiences are part of who I am. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

It’s memories like these that fill McNown as he navigates the chaotic life of a star on the rise. He released his deluxe album Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up) in July and is now on an almost sold-out run of shows as part of his Forever Ain’t Long Enough Tour, including an Oct. 17 stop at The Showbox in Seattle. “We’re playing 150 shows in 2025, so counting off days, that’s roughly two-thirds of the year that I’m not even in Nashville, let alone my home in the Northwest,” he says.

And while McNown may love living in Nashville, his obvious adoration for the Pacific Northwest can not only be heard in his voice, but in every lyric and note. “I try my very best to channel my upbringing into my music,” says McNown of the creative infusion that can be heard in songs such as “St. Helens Alpenglow,” “A Lot More Free” and “Azalea Place.” “It has heavily affected my music.”

McNown was just 21 when he moved from Oregon to California in the hopes of building a music career. “I had lived there for 21 years, and one of the downsides of the Pacific Northwest is the nine months of rain and clouds,” laughs McNown, who had long looked up to Oregon-based artist Matt Kearney. “So, when I moved to Southern California, I was just looking for something different.” He spent about eight months there and found some success busking on the pier in San Clemente. But life in California was expensive, so he moved back to Bend before he ultimately landed in Nashville at 23.

“My Pacific Northwest brand was already being established as the foundation before I moved to Nashville,” says McNown, who made his debut at Lollapalooza this past summer. “Because I think if you don’t have a foundation, whatever you build might not be the truest version of yourself. There’s so much influence and temptation in Nashville to fit into what everyone else is doing.” But he’s far from falling for that. “The Pacific Northwest is in my soul—it has made me who I am,” he says. “I want to keep that with me in my personal life, and in my music.”

And while the future only looks to get busier, McNown has a plan to eventually return home to the Pacific Northwest for more than a tour stop. “I have a very intentional plan to reconnect with the Northwest as soon as things slow down a little bit,” he says. “Once I can start to slow down the construction of the snowball we’re trying to build, I really want to reconnect, whether that’s moving back, or having a home for the summer in Oregon. I’m not sure.”

Luckily, the Pacific Northwest isn’t going anywhere. “Not much makes me more excited than to think about taking my kids there someday. I really want to be intentional about giving that to my family, just like it was given to me.”

Max McNown plays The Showbox in Seattle on Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. Tickets are available here. 

The post From the Northwest to Nashville appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“It was a chance to shine a light on Black culture in the Pacific Northwest that has traditionally been underrepresented or ignored,” Watson tells Seattle magazine from an airport lounge in Dallas. 

That impulse led to Songs of Black Folk, the 26-minute documentary she co-directed with Justin Emeka — and which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.

“The Pacific Northwest is not necessarily a place where you think of Black culture, but here were these two people taking on the task of wanting to create tradition around America’s newest holiday.”

Watson admits she was somewhat naïve to the full cultural weight of the holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. She was moved by Rev. Braxton and his nephew’s efforts to create Seattle’s first official Juneteenth celebration in 2021 — but knew she needed help telling the story.

Ramón Bryant Braxton (left) and Rev. Dr. Leslie Braxton (right), creators of the Seattle Juneteenth concert that inspired the short film Songs of Black Folk.

That’s where award-winning filmmaker Justin Emeka comes in.

“I wanted to make sure to have someone like Justin who is not only Black, but who also has history with the area,” says Watson, who had previously collaborated with Emeka on the short film Biological. “I wanted to make sure that the story was told in a way that was going to feel authentic to the community that I don’t necessarily represent.”

In 2022, Watson and Emeka began filming the second annual Songs of Black Folk concert in Seattle, A Juneteenth Celebration: Music of Resistance and Hope, determined to tell the story with the depth and care it deserved. 

And while footage of the annual music program — featuring the largest gathering of Black musical talent on a single stage in the Pacific Northwest — could easily carry the film, it’s the grainy old videotape footage that delivers some of Songs of Black Folk’s most beautiful moments.

“Aunties and grandmas are a great place to start for archival footage because they always want to show off,” chuckles Emeka. “The opening footage is actually from Claudette Nash, who is Ramón’s paternal grandmother. We also highlight his maternal grandmother, Eileen Ton, in the film.”

In fact, it’s the story of Braxton’s maternal grandmother that gave the filmmakers a storyline they didn’t see coming.

“Going into a documentary early on, we didn’t know what we had exactly — all we knew was that we felt there was something really exciting and rich and profound happening, and we wanted to capture it,” says Emeka. “But then, we really landed on the heart of the piece.”

That heart is the relationship between Braxton and his grandmother, who was fighting for her life in a nearby hospital on the same night he took the stage to honor Juneteenth in song. 

“For me as an artist, I’m drawn towards projects that are rooted in love,” says Emeka. “When I’m directing a play or a film, I’m always trying to find the love that ties the people here, that inspire us to sing, dance or do whatever. And then when she was gone, we knew we wanted to pay tribute to her. The grandmother’s spirit was the foundation. That’s the love that drove all of this from my standpoint.”

There’s also the love both filmmakers share for the Pacific Northwest — a love portrayed beautifully, critically, and intentionally throughout Songs of Black Folk. 

“I wanted the audience to fall in love with the area,” says Emeka, who also collaborated on the documentary with executive producer and Seattle native Michael Bartley. “It’s such a beautiful area. And then getting specific with Tacoma, because Tacoma is different from Seattle. They have similar history, but they also have very unique histories. And so, from very early on, we knew we really wanted to do justice visually to those images.”

The film itself could easily have run longer.

“What’s important to me as an artist is to leave people with that feeling of not only wanting more but also wanting to go see the show because it’s a three-hour epic long orchestra performance that is truly amazing to see in person,” says Emeka. “We hope we’ve encapsulated it in a way that people will feel and believe this is something that needs to be supported, and also be an inspiration for how people think about celebrating Juneteenth.”

Next up for Songs of Black Folk is a July 24 screening at the Indy Shorts International Film Festival in Indianapolis, part of a six-day lineup of more than 250 short films. Streaming details are here.

“I’m personally really looking forward to when it can play in the Pacific Northwest,” says Watson. “We are very excited to bring the film to a home audience.”

For the latest updates on the film, follow @songsofblackfolkdoc on Instagram. 

The post After Tribeca, ‘Songs of Black Folk’ Heads to Indy Shorts appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“I just became such a perfectionist,” the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and Washington state native tells Seattle magazine from her current home in western Massachusetts. “(‘The Tempest’) feels like one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written, so I just wanted it to be perfect. The crazy thing is it only took two days to write.”

Lambert lets out a laugh, but her quest for perfection is undeniable — and it certainly comes with its own set of challenges, many of which she’s encountered and learned from in the studio.

“It is such a double-edged sword because it gives you almost unlimited creative possibility and, well, unlimited creative possibility,” laughs Lambert, who taught herself audio engineering and production during the pandemic. “You can just tweak and change everything.”

But this knowledge has also allowed her to fully take charge of her sound. “I feel like this next record that I’ve been working on has allowed me the ability to be more exploratory in the studio because it’s just me,” says Lambert, whose career took off in 2013 with her breakout feature on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ hit “Same Love.” “I’m able to tie these emotions and these feelings and this writing with sound in a way that I haven’t been able to before.”

“I wrote ‘The Tempest’ right after Roe v. Wade was overturned,” says Lambert. “Around the same time, I took a casual YouTube course on Shakespeare and fell in love with The Tempest in particular.”

Even so, she says she intuitively knows when to step back. “There’s a song on the new record that there’s no production on,” she says of the record, whose release date is still to be determined. “I mean, we just tracked it in the studio. It’s guitar, piano, mandolin –– that’s it. It was a one take, and it was perfect.”

Pushing herself in new directions continues to fuel Lambert — both professionally and personally. And when those two worlds intersect, magic happens.

“I wrote ‘The Tempest’ right after Roe v. Wade was overturned,” says Lambert. “Around the same time, I took a casual YouTube course on Shakespeare and fell in love with The Tempest in particular. There were just so many parallels — powerful men trying to control others and the earth itself, acting as if they’re above it all,” she continues of her first major single in nearly a decade. “I’m really proud of the lyrics. It’s the first time I’ve been able to incorporate my poetry in a way that truly works.”

Still, there’s a moment in “The Tempest” where the lyrics seem to cut especially deep — and Lambert delivers them as if pulled from somewhere raw and personal. “I didn’t even recognize my own voice some of the time,” she says. “It really came from that emotional place where I was like — ‘how dare you do this to women. How dare you do this to trans people and continue to treat us like we’re second-class citizens that have no control over our body.’”

Her upcoming album has been a way to process all of it. “It just gives me a compass with which to put all of the anger and the sadness and the grief that comes with being of this world at this particular time,” says Lambert, who regularly leads empowerment workshops to help others navigate those same emotions.

And make no mistake –– she still finds beauty in the world. “I moved in with my partner recently, and we have three animals and it’s so beautiful out here,” she says. “Plus, I constantly feel so in awe of the beauty of my community and how people stick together and how they take care of each other, and the resilience that it takes to not be hopeless, because there’s a lot that we can feel hopeless about.”

But Lambert made a promise to herself a long time ago not to let that hopelessness win. “Doing what we can in our little corners of the world to change it and to make it better? That’s where the beauty lies.”

There is also the beauty she will forever find in Seattle. “I feel like I’m still there, all the time,” she says. “My family’s out there, and some of my best friends are out there, and I love it. And of course I am a diehard Mariners fan. I take them wherever I go.”

The post Finding Her Way Back appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“And that room is still pink,” Forde said from her home in Los Angeles about her childhood room back in Seattle. “It’s now my dad’s office. He’s taking Zoom meetings in my pink room.”

The Seattle-born singer/songwriter — who grew up in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood — lets out a laugh as she reminisces of the sacred space she grew up in, a space once filled with gnomes and fairies and memorabilia from her all-time favorite band. “I had these Beatles posters all over the place,” Forde remembers. “It could have been 1964 in there, but really, it was the 2000s in Seattle.”

Frankly, Forde grew up at a time when the Seattle music scene was so very grunge and so very loud — so blaring, in fact, that Forde’s somewhat understated voice could have easily been drowned out. And for a time, it was.

“I had this sort of traumatic choir director guy who really wanted me to sing really belty and loud and he was always telling me my voice was weak,” Forde remembers. “I got to college, and I got the same sort of feedback from another teacher who said that my voice was too weak. And I was like, what the fu**?”

But just as the confusion began to settle in her already delicate soul, Forde says she received the best advice of her life. “One of my other professors said, ‘the thing that everybody has told you is your biggest weakness is actually your biggest strength,’” Forde recalls. “He put everything down a fifth and in a key that was way lower, and all of a sudden this voice that I feel is so me came out. The whole world opened up for me after that.”

It was this breathy, folky, soulful voice that fans of Season 24 of The Voice couldn’t get enough of. It was this voice that her The Voice coach John Legend adored — so much so that she finished in fifth place on the famed singing competition show. It was also this unique voice that delivered the national anthem at a Seattle Seahawks game in December 2024.

But it’s this voice that has now evolved to new heights on her debut album VESSEL, a sonic journey in the art of figuring life out minute by minute and song by song.

“You can hear me coming into my own voice and just presenting it,” says Forde of the album that leads off with the soulful single “Temptation,” which Legend supported by a landslide as the single to come out of the gate with. “This whole album basically says, ‘this is me and you can take it or leave it.’”

Spirituality also runs through the entirety of the alluring album.

“Spirituality flavored the water I was drinking from the start, and it’s played a really special role in my life, to which I’m very grateful,” says Forde, who initially crowdfunded VESSEL through a grassroots Kickstarter campaign long before her stardom from The Voice took over. “It has given me this sort of belief in myself that is very steadfast. If you want to build something that’s going to last, you got to build it brick by brick.”

This idea can not only be heard on the captivating Americana infused track “Brick by Brick,” but especially throughout the beauty that is the captivating song “Vessel.” “I wanted it to be sort of reverent and for people to feel it in their hearts and to know that this is something that’s deep and something I want to make you feel,” Forde says. “This song needed to be here.”

And while Forde still admits to still be finding her footing within the ever-changing music industry, it’s her own spirituality that she finds herself clinging to these days.

“In this world and in this environment where everybody’s going viral,” she says, letting her voice trail off a bit before she picks up her thought again. “Even with The Voice, it was like a flash in the pan but if you don’t do anything with that momentum, it’s going to fade away into the distance. You have to build something with the foundation. And I just feel like I have this ultimate faith in myself and in my gift that I was just put on this earth to do this, and I know it’s going to take me to the highest places.”

The post Finding One’s Voice appeared first on Seattle magazine.