Meet Jamie Lammers

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jamie Lammers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jamie below.

Jamie, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

To be honest… I still don’t think I have. I pride myself on my ability to learn music quickly, and I love sharing music with an audience, either music I love or music I created. Performing allows me to take on a different side of myself and focus on how that other side feels. Inside, though, I still worry that people won’t see me as good enough. For years, I kicked myself for stumbling on a single note onstage or in video, and when I think about people learning about the mistakes I’ve made in my personal life, I wonder if anyone will see me as worthy of appreciation once they know. Still, I keep performing and I keep creating. It’s the only thing I feel truly great at, it gives me personal and social fulfillment, and it allows me to explore parts of myself I didn’t even realize I had. Imposter syndrome always lingers in the background, whether I’m performing or not. I still perform. I want the show to go on.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

From The Mountain-Ear:

Jamie Lammers was born in a hospital in Denver, Colorado, on December 30, 2001. He has lived in Coal Creek his entire life, growing up surrounded by loving parents and adoring cats. Originally, his parents sent him to Coal Creek Elementary School, but quickly decided that it was not the right environment for him, so they sent him to Nederland Elementary School instead. He spent the rest of his school years in Nederland, spending pre-K through fifth grade at the elementary school and transferring to Nederland Middle-Senior High School until his graduation in 2020. He currently studies at the University of Colorado Boulder with a major in English (specifically in creative writing) and two minors in music and film.

Lammers has been creatively inclined for as long as he can remember. He took voice and piano lessons in middle school and started participating in choir at the same time. He briefly tried trumpet and violin in fifth grade, but ultimately decided neither instrument was for him. Various teachers and peers realized he had perfect pitch before he did, and he finally realized in late high school that he had the ability to recall pitches without needing a starting tone. He learns songs aurally and has a hard time sight reading, although he is getting better at doing so. He has been seriously playing ukulele since his sophomore year of high school and guitar since his senior year.

He has been singing and performing for as long as he can remember, and in middle school, he decided to try theater. He acted in his first fall play, The Bully Pulpit, in seventh grade, but decided not to try out for the school musicals in either sixth or seventh grade. He almost avoided trying out for his eighth-grade school musical, Shrek Jr., but ultimately decided it was worth trying out. He tried out for the titular character, Scottish accent and all, and ended up getting the part, permanently cementing his love of theater.

In high school, he starred in various musicals and one-act plays and even directed multiple plays. Throughout his theater career in middle and high school, he ultimately took home Best Actor in a Play for his role in A Game (which he also directed) and Best Actor in a Musical for Shrek Jr., The Addams Family, Once Upon a Mattress, and Urinetown (which was unfortunately canceled due to COVID). He has continued acting in college, starring in the immersive experience ShakesFear at CU Boulder, multiple plays for the college’s New Play Festival, and in the first annual New Musical Project at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder.

Lammers really only became interested in writing in his junior year of high school after taking a creative writing class and an English class that inspired him to be more creative. He has been writing frequently for The Mountain-Ear since April 2019, writing about school events, local businesses, and especially music performances throughout the Peak to Peak area. In early 2022, he was published in the CU Boulder creative nonfiction journal Hindsight, and he has continued pursuing his passion for writing short stories, plays, songs, and journalistic articles since.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

For me, three qualities stand out that have developed my creative journey: analysis, dedication, and instinct. As I’ve continued absorbing art, I’ve learned to analyze deeply into how each piece is created. For some people, analysis can be as complex as finding every detail of a film’s cinematography or direction, a book’s word choice or style, etc., while for others, it can be as simple as determining your tastes by figuring out what you like and don’t like in art. If you want to continue finding inspiration in art and continue creating it, then you have to dedicate time and energy to creating the things you want to create. You don’t have to spend every waking moment trying to come up with the perfect idea, but you should always take notes of ideas, find time to create what you’re most interested in at the moment, and find ways to comfortably expand your knowledge base. Finally, in all of your creation and analysis, trust your instincts. Trust what you think feels right in the art you’re creating, and listen to the feedback you get with the intention to improve what you want to communicate. To me, all of these qualities are the most essential to my own creative process.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

My biggest area of improvement is how much I’m putting myself out there in terms of performances. I’ve been posting a performance of mine every weekday since October of 2024, and it’s felt great to dedicate time to performing and share my singing with whoever wants to listen. I didn’t realize how much I missed performing until I stopped doing it for a long time and finally restarted, and knowing now how much joy and catharsis performing gives me is incredibly motivating to me.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Piano and stage photo by Don Lammers
Headshot by Sally Lammers
Group photo by Saige Curro

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