Cami Maree
Gig Seeker Pro

Cami Maree

Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2011 | SELF

Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States | SELF
Established on Jan, 2011
Solo Pop Rock

Calendar

Music

Press


"Cami Lundeen Run Free Album Review"

Cami Lundeen
Run Free
(Self-Released)

With singer songwriters a dime a dozen these days it’s pretty hard to separate yourself as one of the musicians who deserve to be noticed. Seattle songstress Cami Lundeen proves she deserves a place in this music industry for a long long time with her phenomenal debut ‘Run Free.’

The self-released 10-track album is sparse on pretentiousness and filled with hope, passion, introspection and a will to pick yourself up no matter how bad this hard world can beat you down.

On tracks “Not Who You Said You Were,” “Not Be Afraid,” and “Life Changes You” Lundeen sings of struggles in an intimate and thought provoking nature that you can relate, in fact you have probably been there. Furthermore, “Eyes of a Child,” “So Long Insecurity” and “March On” so the punkish attitude of the singer’s no-quit attitude. In both cases she sings with conviction, passion and delivers her vocals in a manner which she is singing the words to you, not at you.

The crowning jewel of ‘Run Free’ is the dark and organic track “The Rainbow.” The song is a personal story, a journey of Lundeen, who has been faced with adversity in front of her. She struggles and she’s not afraid to admit it, “even though the water rages all around me, even though the earth is shaking underneath my feet, even though I should be trembling with fear, I have hope, I have peace.” That is the beauty of Cami Lundeen.
~ Troy Michael - Troy Michael


"Illness Sets a Family on the Road Together"

Island musician Cami Lundeen and her husband Erik are preparing for a journey of a lifetime. They’ve sold all their worldly goods, bought a small pop-up trailer and this weekend will hit the highway with their four young children to launch Cami’s nationwide tour.

Sitting at a narrow Formica table under the canvas roof of her new home, Cami talked last week about a perfect storm of events that led to this radical decision. Her voice is husky, reminiscent of pop singer Adele, and her green eyes sparkled beneath a fringe of dark bangs streaked with purple.

“Now that all this has come to pass, I need to wear the T-shirt that says ‘Be the difference you want to see,’” she said with a laugh.“

Indeed, Cami is doing more than walking her talk. She is singing her way out of a nightmare that began in 2010, shortly after the birth of her fourth child. Fatigued and plagued with a chronic malaise, Cami was admitted to the hospital and learned she has a rare, incurable and progressive liver disease. A mother with four small children, Cami had not yet seen her 30th birthday.

Fast-forward to early this year when the Lundeen’s perfect storm began to build. Erik lost his job with Bethel Church, and with that went their home, also owned by Bethel. Two deaths in the family followed. Cami traveled out of state for the funerals and returned with a question that would change their lives.

“She asked me, how do we want to go out?” Erik said. “This could be us, any one of us any day, so what do we want to be doing with our lives when we die? If we don’t do anything, we’ll regret it.”

Death is a foe Cami learned to befriend in the past four years through the healing power of music. The singer/songwriter came late to music, learning guitar in college, only to put it down when she had her first child. But after her diagnosis, she found her way back to music performance with a band at Bethel Church, where her father is the pastor.

“I was dealing with the fear of dying. The music was so healing,” Cami said. “I loved it and wanted to write my own stuff. I sat down and started writing. It felt like I’d been doing it my whole life.”

Depressed and afraid of leaving her children, Cami penned “Not Be Afraid.” The lyrics are a testament to how she wrestled with her demons. “We could be here forever or be gone in the moment. Will I die a thousand deaths in the fear of the one, or will I not be afraid? Will I choose to live life? … I will not be afraid.”

Embracing her new life, Cami crafted her signature song “Run Free” in the spring of 2012. From there, the pace quickened. Cami wanted to sing for other people, so she contacted music promoter Pete Welch. In less than a month, she played her first public show at the Farmers Market. She calls the response she got at that first performance “crazy.”

“I knew nothing about the music industry, but people listened. It felt like my calling. I decided to keep going.”

Several events later — from the Strawberry Festival to The Triple Door in Seattle — Cami decided to record an album. That fall she met Ryan McAllister from Five Acres Studio in Abbotsford, British Columbia, who would produce her CD. But she needed seed money. Undaunted, Cami launched a Kickstarter campaign and to her amazement more than met her $15,000 goal.

“I didn’t have a huge fan base. I hadn’t been playing for even a year. I didn’t even know two-thirds of the donors.”

By May last year, Cami had a CD and music video filmed on Vashon, both called “Run Free.” She launched the CD in August. And then the feedback started rolling in.

“At shows people would tell her that her music, her lyrics, were the only thing that got them out of bed,” said Erik, who at 37 has an infectious grin and an armload of tattoos. “She’s got an inspirational story, and the more she can be heard the better. It’s the reason for the tour.”

The “Run Free” tour is ambitious: down the California coast, over to Colorado, up the East Coast, hitting 42 states along the way. Cami and Erik plan to homeschool the children while booking house concerts and any live music venue, pub, winery or college. Children’s hospitals also made the list, as Cami feels passionately about bringing music to sick children.

“Kids are so helpless, and my music is hopeful, encouraging. It tells them not to be afraid. And it’s something my kids can be part of.”

For his part, Erik will accompany Cami on the box drum. He’s also a photographer with ambitions to take nature photographs during the trip with an eye toward publishing the collection.

But before they wave goodbye to Vashon, the family plans to throw not just a farewell party but a musical extravaganza this Friday at the Open Space for Arts & Community.

The farewell bash is also a benefit to help get the family on the road. Joining Cami on stage will be a talented crew of musicians — V. Contreras, Danny Newcomb and Mark Pickeral. A live auction with donations from renowned artists and businesses will be held, and on display will be the Lundeens’ traveling home with a map of their proposed route on the Formica table.

Both parents are clear that the children’s needs will come first on this adventure they’re calling the Lundeen Roadshow. Erik says the kids — who are ages 4 to 11 — will be their barometers. If it doesn’t work for them and they don’t make it past Bellingham, he said, then at least they’ll know they tried.

Still, Cami says she has a burning desire to share her message of hope and inspiration for others to follow their dreams.

“As terrible as the diagnosis was, music came out of it, and I am thankful,” she said. “I’ve found out what I was made to be by overcoming fear, taking risks, getting out there. I have to share it. I believe it is a God-given gift, and it’s about people as a whole in the world. That is what we are trying to do, to get out there and make a difference.”

Cami Lundeen’s Run Free tour launch and benefit will be at 7 p.m. Friday at the Open Space for Arts & Community. Admission is by donation. Cami will release her latest single “How Do We Want To Go Out” on iTunes after her Friday night show. - Vashon Beachcomber


"Traveling Musician Shares Zest for Life"

The Lundeen Roadshow stopped in Rochester to play a show on August 20th, 2014. The journey it took for the family to get there was almost more impressive than the music itself. Cami Lundeen, a woman from Vashon Island, Washington, left the Northwest in June 2014 to go on the tour of a lifetime.

Cami Lundeen is a singer-songwriter, she also plays the acoustic guitar. She described her music as similar to Adelle, "it's indie pop rock is my genre, it's kind of blues pop-y, if that makes sense."

In 2014 she decided to make a change and go on tour. "We sold just about all of our stuff in May of this year, and we left Vashon Island, Washington in mid-June in our mini van and pop up camper behind us and we're just touring the country playing music for an indefinite amount of time right now," said Cami.

Her husband, Erik Lundeen, was on board with the plan. "What's the thing that we want to do? I mean really, why sit here and keep going through the motion - it's just this cycle where you wake up, you do the same thing, you go to bed, you wake up again and do it all over again, and just kind of feeling like there was not a lot of meaning to it," said Erik. He helped plot out a loop around the United States staying just with people the couple knew and playing shows in those cities.

Despite the close proximity on the road, Cami and Erik agree the tour has been a great experience for their four children. "There's so much that they're learning while they're on the road that there's not a lot you have to supplement with, we'll have a math curriculum, and they'll have books that they'll be reading but then we kind of try to make everywhere we go a lesson, learn about the place that we're going and anything we can teach them about where we are," said Cami.

The tour has been made possible by the generosity and support of others. Cami's debut album, Run Free, was crowd-funded by Kickstarter, a website in which strangers can send donations to a project they would like to see completed. On the road, the Lundeens have stayed with friends and people they knew. Some of the money they make has been given to the project by inspired show-goers. "Everything we have right now is from the shows and donations that we get along the way. So we are living just off of that," said Cami, "We're still going, so it's working somehow. People have been really generous and a lot of times when they hear my story, people give more."

It's not surprising that some people have donated generously when they heard Cami's story. "In 2010, I was diagnosed with a rare incurable liver disease. I have an autoimmune disorder as well called ulcerative colitis, and this was a complication of that. So in 2010, that spring, I was diagnosed with this. It's called primary sclerosing cholangitis and it was just after that that I had the opportunity to pick up my guitar after I hadn't played probably for six years, and I'd only played a few years before that. And then I just started writing songs...I went through depression, just facing a lot of fear and anger, about death and things that I hadn't faced before. So one day I just sat down and wrote this song called Not be afraid and it was kind of my for myself at first it was kind of my reminder that I need to live life while I'm here," said Cami.
Cami doesn't know how much time she has, or how long they'll be able to make this tour last, but she said she's thankful that she's out sharing her music, "I want to be out in the world making a difference, I want to be out there giving other people hope and inspiration as well as just, you know, good fun entertainment."

The Lundeen Roadshow is still on tour across the united states. For more information on Cami and her family's journey visit www.lundeenroadshow.com or www.camilundeen.com. - FOX 47 TV Rochester


Discography

Run Free

Released: August 20, 2013
Type: Full Length Studio Recording
Format: CD
Label: Independent
Writer: Cami Lundeen
Producer: Ryan McAllister
Tracks: Ten
Singles: "Run Free"

Photos

Bio

After being diagnosed with a rare, incurable liver disease in the spring of 2010, Cami Maree turned to songwriting as an outlet for coping with her daunting reality. With the youngest of her four children a newborn, this news of her diagnosis weighed heavily on her heart. Songwriting became the glue that held her together through this heartbreaking time.  

Cami Maree’s music career began with leading worship at her church on Vashon Island, WA. After some time of leading worship, and building up her originals, she played her first public show at a local farmer’s market in the spring of 2012. She quickly amassed a large local following by playing numerous shows and festivals around the Seattle area including Seattle’s famed venues The Crocodile, The Hard Rock Café, and The Triple Door.   

Less than a year after her first show, raising over $15,000, Cami Maree crowd-funded, recorded, and released Her debut album Run Free. Released in August 2013, Run Free is an intimate weaving of her story – a journey of life’s struggles and a tale of overcoming fear and choosing to live life to its fullest. 

On the heels of Cami Maree's album release, in effort to share an inspirational message of hope and encourage others to follow their dreams, She and her family sold most of their possessions and hit the road to tour the United States in a minivan with tent trailer in tow. 

Leaving Washington state in June 2014, Cami Maree toured the country for five months, and settled in the Gainesville, Florida area. She continued to travel throughout Florida performing at a variety of venues for several years before relocating to the Colorado Springs area in late 2019. Cami Maree is now working on the highly anticipated follow up to her debut album Run Free. 

Band Members