Few voices in pop and country music are as instantly recognisable—and as quietly revolutionary—as Cam’s. Born Camaron Ochs in California, she first captivated audiences with her 2015 breakout hit ‘Burning House,' a haunting ballad that earned Grammy and CMA nominations and introduced her singular ability to blend emotional honesty with genre-blurring elegance. Since then, she’s continued to carve out a unique space for herself across country, pop and folk, building a discography marked by fearless experimentation and lyrical depth. Whether collaborating with global icons like Sam Smith or penning songs alongside Beyoncé for ‘Cowboy Carter,' Cam’s influence stretches well beyond Nashville, and her presence in music remains one of quiet confidence and intellectual firepower.
Her third studio album, ‘All Things Light,' out July 18, is perhaps her most personal and sonically ambitious project yet. Across its tracks, Cam traverses a rich emotional and musical landscape—moving from dreamy meditations on self-worth to funk-laced reflections on digital culture, spiritual questioning and the enduring ache of lost love. It’s a record that defies easy categorisation, weaving together classic country, Laurel Canyon folk, ethereal pop and moments of bold experimentation. In this conversation, Cam opens up about the inspirations behind ‘All Things Light,' the creative freedom she’s found in forging her own path, and why vulnerability continues to be her most powerful instrument.
Lovely to talk to you again Cam, thank you so much for your time. We haven't spoken in a little while – ‘All Things Light' is your first album in five years and so much has happened to us all since then.
I know! There's been a whole pandemic and everything else besides! (laughing)
What's been the biggest challenge to you in the last five years in terms of you getting to a place where you felt ready to release new music?
Yeah…… Honestly, it felt like divine timing. It has been a difficult time – I felt alone because of the pandemic and then I felt alone because I was a new mother – I'm definitely a communal person so it forced me to dig deep into my writing and identify what it was that I wanted to pull out of the ether and say.
By focusing on that I think I came up with this group of offerings right at the same time that the Beyonce ‘Cowboy Carter' stuff happened. I loved this season of writing and it was definitely heavy but at the same time I was raising a child for the first time too and that slows you down in an important way. It wasn't a challenging time – it was just a slow march to get there! (laughing)
You had wild success with Beyonce and the ‘Cowboy Carter' album, congratulations on that!
Thank you – I see she was just over there in the UK with you.
That album has been quite polarising and divisive – you always knew it was going to be like that, I guess?
Yes!! Oh yeah. Personally, I remember when it first came out I was nearly in tears listening to it and the magnitude of it. It was such an intentional piece of art and she put so much of herself into that album. I loved it and, for me, it doesn't get any better than that.
For anyone to love something that much there is going to be people who just don't and in Country music we are very famous for upkeeping the rules and defining the rules of belonging and what is and what isn't Country – it's an epic cultural feat however you feel about it and where you think it does or does not belong.
Can you share a little context as to why you've called the album ‘All is Light' and what that phrase means to you?
I released three songs ahead of the album coming out and one of them, ‘Turns Out I Am God,' has a lyric that says ‘I dreamt myself to the centre of all things light.' That's a reference to the first time that I ever meditated and learnt how to turn my brain off – all of a sudden I felt this warm hum of peace wash over me. It made me realise that I have a default setting of happiness inside me all the time – like a womb – and ‘all things light' is a reference to that space inside.
There are some heavy moments on the album that I get to work through alongside some of the more lighter moments so it's important that we retain that sense of warmth and light. There were a lot of unanswerable questions that happened to us all during this last season of our lives and yet my daughter was born in that time and has backyard chickens and a lot of joy in her life. Those chickens also gave her some unanswerable questions when one of them died. She was, like, ‘oh my gosh, what happened to Daisy?' She was four at the time and I had to broach what dying meant to her which I was not ready for at the time!! A lot of those heavy questions were what I was answering on this album alongside offering advice to my daughter regarding the things I've learned in my life so far.
The imagery and the branding around the album is quite retro, sepia-infused almost Victorian-esque……
My mom is, like, ‘You've obscured your beautiful face on the album cover!!!' (laughing) To me, the light inside me that I was just describing I feel when I meditate is coming out through me. The album is for my daughter and for the collective – it's not about me, it's about us so there's something about not having my face on the cover that feels important to me. You see the light in me first, rather than just seeing me.
The two songs you released upfront ‘Alchemy' and ‘Turns Out That I am God' have, to these British ears, a Kate Bush-esque feel to them. Was she an influence on you?
Love it!! I think she's amazing. I would love to spend more time with her. The Indigo Girls are, probably, more my ‘Kate Bush' but now I'm realising that I think I need to spend more time with her. She's always been intentional with her music, like Bjork too. I admire people and women who just say ‘Fuck You' and produce the music that they have inside of them.
You've talked about darkness and heavier songs and the two that jumped out to me were ‘Kill the Guru' and ‘Hallelujah.' In the latter you say that you can't hear the chord anymore – which is quite vulnerable. Is that a damning indictment of the music industry or something personal just to you?
Ohhhhh. That's interesting. It could definitely be that. For me, especially post-pandemic, things got put back together so quickly and we were all just meant to go back to how life was. After having a baby and living through the pandemic I had so much angst inside me – the whole world went through a trauma and in my own little world I became a mother and yet the rest of the world, on the surface, went back to how they were but I was not fine.
I needed some place to put those feelings and so they went into ‘Hallelujah.' I am still finding joy but it was just not the same and that channelled into my writing.
Tell me about the inspiration behind ‘Kill the Guru' – that's a heavy song.
Oh my gosh. ‘Kill the Guru' is all about me when I graduated college and went off to Nepal to try and find myself and some spiritual guidance. I had just lost my grandmother, who was a guiding light in my life. I went out to India and broke up with my boyfriend who was supposed to come out there too – that part of this story became ‘Burning House.'
The reason that I broke up with him was because I fell in love with a guru whilst out in Nepal. Big shock – he was a complete narcissist and not someone you want to be falling in love with. (laughing) At a time when I really wanted answers he was so sure of things and had lots of answers – that's the message I want to pass onto my daughter and anyone else listening to the album – anyone who tells you that they have the answers to life's big questions…… you've got to be wary of those people! False prophets.
‘Slow Down' is a quirky listen to. It's got a kind of Patsy Cline feel to it and some classic Western whistling in there as well!
That song…… There's a book I've read called ‘Rest is Resistance' by Tricia Hersey which taps into thinking about what the pace of life is really doing to us. It made me wonder about how I was living and whether I was doing it for me or whether I was just doing what society told me I should be doing. It made me think about being thoughtful and intentional about what I was doing with my time and ‘Slow Down' came super-quick out of me because of that.
I write an anti-capitalist song about a more intentional way of living but made it sound like a song from the 30s or 40s! (laughing)
‘Untamed,' your debut album, is ten years old this year. Where has that time gone?
It's so wild! I don't know where the time has gone either! (laughing) It just feels like 2019 was, like, yesterday to me. Ten years of ‘Burning House,' of ‘Untamed,' ten years of me doing this on a big stage I guess!
I'd like to suggest that the 2025 Cam is way more ‘untamed' than the 2015 you was.
I think you are so accurate. I think that's so real. It's always something I've wanted to be but it takes a lot of life lived to get there. You get knocked down, you re-adjust and you heal in different ways but I'd love to think that at 40 years old I am more untamed now than I was at 30.
I think if you'd have released ‘All is Light' in 2015 the music industry wouldn't have known what to do with it?
I agree!! (laughing) It is of these times and this version of me now is meant to be doing this right now. I take my time making these records but I think it's good to do that rather than just releasing random songs or songs that just don't reflect who I am or the times we live in.
Cam's ‘All is Light' album is out today in all the usual places.
