Lara Ruggles

Lara Ruggles grew up listening to Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris, Cat Stevens, Joan Baez, and the Judds. She sang her first concert in three-part harmony and won her first poetry slam. With the attention to lyricism of Conor Oberst, the intensity of Florence and the Machine and the ear for infectious melodies of Ingrid Michaelson, Lara’s piano and guitar-driven melodies invite the listener on a journey through soaring hooks, battle scenes and postcards written from well-loved and desolate desert landscapes. Her music is unafraid to acknowledge the dark places within the range of the human emotional experience, and she engages with her audiences in an unabashedly genuine way, telling raw stories and allowing her own vulnerability to be a point of connection and empowerment. In 2011, Lara released Out of an Eggshell, an EP. In 2013 she ran a successful kickstarter campaign, raising almost $9000 for her debut full-length album. In the last year, Lara’s played at South by Southwest; toured the Southeast, the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the West Coast; overcome theft; been featured on billboards, buses and spotify ads for Lyft; supported Nina Storey, Ben Ottewell of Gomez, and Seryn; won the Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Award; been nominated for the 2015 Denver Westword Music Awards; and started the Give:Voice Project, giving 10% of her on-tour sales to organizations that empower youth through the arts. Lara will release her debut full-length album, Cynics & Saints, on Immersive Records in 2015.