Twenty-year-old West Tennessee singer-songwriter Lakelin Lemmings has arrived on the country music scene with her debut single “Get Around Boy” and a self-titled album already generating buzz from the people closest to her creative process.
Lemmings released her debut album — on which she co-wrote 15 of the 16 tracks — through Quartz Hill Records on July 24. The project was produced by award-winning songwriter and producer Ash Bowers, who has known Lemmings her entire life and previously played in a band with her father, a touring country guitarist who first inspired her love of music. Lemmings began performing at age six and was making the trip to Nashville to work on original material by the time she was twelve, when she first started collaborating with Bowers.
The Story Behind “Get Around Boy”
The lead single was co-written by Lemmings, Bowers, and Mike Mobley — only the second time that particular trio had written together. The idea originated with Mobley, who brought the title and the seed of the chorus melody to the session. Lemmings, who was sixteen at the time of the writing session, helped shape the lyrics and melody, drawing on a storyline about two high school sweethearts drifting apart as one pursues her dreams. She acknowledges the narrative carries some personal resonance — “inspired a little bit by myself and my career,” she says — though she declines to identify any specific person behind it.
The finished recording pairs a mid-tempo beat with bright pop-country guitars and a sweeping, cinematic chorus. Bowers describes the collaboration as unusually natural given Lemmings’ maturity as a writer, noting that most of their sessions together begin with her concept or title. “She brings so much from a songwriting standpoint,” he says. Lemmings, for her part, calls Bowers “like a second dad” and credits his long personal knowledge of her as central to his ability to translate her artistic vision to record.
A Record Deal and a Road Ahead
“Get Around Boy” was among the songs that persuaded Quartz Hill label head Benny Brown to sign Lemmings to a deal, coming after she had already secured a publishing agreement. Bowers has served in an unusually close mentorship role, guiding her into rooms with established hit songwriters from an early age. He points to the fact that Lemmings closes every show with “How Great Thou Art” as evidence of an artist who already knows exactly who she is — something he attributes in part to her upbringing as one of five siblings, two of whom are under two years old, a responsibility she describes by calling herself a “bonus mom.”
Lemmings has since signed with the Kinkead Entertainment Agency and is scheduled to head out on her first U.K. tour in August, with “Get Around Boy” available now across digital platforms.
