Shawn Mayer Official Street Team

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Inked delicately inside each wrist, Shawn Mayer’s angel wings lift her above any doubts or deterrents, helping her soar towards her boldest musical ambitions. And though the wind may now be at her back, this raven-haired, blue-eyed beauty is deeply rooted in a down-to-earth hard work ethic. Growing up in the small town of May City, Iowa (population: 42), Shawn helped work the family fields, tended to the livestock on a nearby hog farm, and got her hands dirty tinkering on classic cars alongside her mechanic father in his auto shop. An enthusiastic stock-car racer, he welcomed Shawn into his pit crew, where she came to know the dirt track circuit and decided early on that while the pit had its appeal, the stage was where she belonged.

At 15, Shawn was booked to perform the National Anthem at the world’s largest county fair in Spencer, Iowa, where she encountered that evening’s headliners, Southern Rock legends Lynyrd Skynyrd, backstage. Though the crowd of 8,000 was one thing, performing for her musical heroes pushed Shawn’s nerves sky-high. “I noticed them come out to watch me sing,” Shawn recalls. “Then afterwards, they came to speak to me and encouraged me to go for it. They told me there were no guarantees in life, but if I worked hard enough at what I wanted, I had a real shot. For me, that was my moment of truth: I knew what I was meant to do.”

Wasting no time, Shawn sat her parents down the next evening to ask for their emotional, though not financial support for her dreams. While they had to co-sign her loan for music equipment—she was, after all, still a minor—Shawn paid back every penny, performing a regular taco night gig and frequently making the 17-hour trip to Nashville to perform at the Broadway honky-tonks on weekends. She began writing songs and recorded her first album, Wings of Time, selling thousands of copies on her own. Her senior year, she signed with indie label Turner Records in Detroit, who provided her with a life-affirming trip to the Grammys before folding shortly thereafter.

Shawn refused to give up. Five years after making her first trip to Nashville, a sense of do-or-die determination led Shawn to make the move to Music City, where she lived in her car for three days before a close-knit network of musicians helped her get, slowly but surely, to her feet. Picking up shifts singing on Broadway, sometimes pulling doubles or triples, Shawn started to find her way. She began writing with esteemed songwriter Dave Gibson, who later signed her to his publishing company, Savannah Music Group, and found a mentor in country luminary Vern Gosdin, who encouraged her to embrace her smoky, soulful voice, and find her own rock-rooted modern country sound.

Ultimately, Shawn found her sound in a post-breakup 4:00AM frenzy of emotion as she poured out “I’m Not Looking Back,” the song that quickly landed her a spot on NBC’s Nashville Star and won over legions of fans following the show’s original song night. “When I got to Nashville Star,” Shawn says, “I felt a bit out of my league. I really struggled with self-consciousness, feeling that I didn’t belong. But the response to ‘Not Looking Back’—seeing the way it helped people through some very difficult, emotional times, reminded me why I wanted to do music in the first place. Every week I got voted through, I thought, ‘You may not believe in yourself, but there are people out there who do. Trust them.’”

Following a third-place finish on the show and a spot on the national tour, Shawn swore to never lose faith in herself again—and for good measure, got her angel wing tattoos as a constant reminder of her dedication to her fans and to “live life with arms outstretched, embracing what lies ahead with an open mind and open arms.” With plenty of good faith and the talent to back it up, Shawn Mayer knows that whatever lies ahead, the best is yet to come