Today we’d like to introduce you to Lory Lacy.
Lory, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started playing flute and saxophone in Fairbanks, Alaska. I knew right away that I wanted to be a professional musician. I eventually went to three conservatories (Oberlin, Peabody, and San Francisco), earning a master’s degree in flute performance. I lived in the Los Angeles area for 12 years where I performed and did studio work for television and recording artists. I studied singing privately and eventually fronted my own hard rock bands.
I moved to Kansas City in 2004 and played in clubs in the area for a number of years. I also studied metaphysics here with Linda Howe, Steffany Barton, and Donna Mazzoni, becoming a certified Akashic Records reader, a Reiki Master, and a tarot reader. After moving to St. Joseph, MO, I started doing psychic readings and became a medium.
I won the principal flute position in the St. Joseph Symphony in 2011 after playing piccolo with the orchestra for a couple of seasons. I joined the Kinnor Philharmonic with conductor Chris Kelts in Kansas City soon after that playing piccolo. I also tour on saxophone with The Phil Collins Experience.
I began writing erotic fiction in Kansas City and my stories were published in Leg Show Magazine and Susie Bright’s X: The Erotic Treasury under the pen name, Elle Molique. I won Desdmona’s short story contest in 2007. In the last two years, I have published a novel called The Victorian: The Past Lives of Jack the Ripper and a novella, Quarter Wars. My book on metaphysics, Extreme Clarity: Soul and Signal, will be out this winter.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has been an interesting road, if bumpy. My time in Los Angeles was fraught with all kinds of difficulty just trying to survive. I took every job I could find to break into the entertainment industry, from being a bikini girl playing my piccolo on Extreme Gong and doing an episode of Blind Date just to be seen, to sitting in with every jazz combo I could find, and eventually doing recording projects with Matt Sorum of The Cult and Guns&Roses and Kim Stone of Spyro Gyra and The Rippingtons. I got asked to do porn one by someone in the audience at The Whiskey during a show. I was like, “I’m up here playing saxophone, and that’s what you come up with?” I played with a funk band called Sounds of Ceviche in the underground club scene, studied film scoring at UCLA extension, put out a jazz CD and a couple of trippy rock singles, one of which got played on Jim Ladd’s radio show, Headsets. I loved all of it, but none of it was quite enough to gain traction out there. When I moved to the Midwest, things began to change. My rock band, Firebox, was formed out of Jerry’s Jam Night musicians. I hustled gigs all over the region and was getting to perform more. I think I have had over 40 different jobs to cover expenses during the slow times. The orchestra gig in St. Joe was a timing thing. I showed up in town just as the new conductor, Rico McNeela, came onboard. I had kind of given up on music at that point. It’s amazing how it seems to happen like that.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’’m most proud of playing the Mozart D Major Flute Concerto as a soloist in 2024. I worked really hard on that piece, writing my own cadenzas and performing it from memory. I got two standing ovations, which just knocked me in my heart. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do that since college. My beautiful friends showed up for me—fellow musicians, music students, psychic clients. It felt amazing having all of those people together in the Missouri Theater for that performance. A purely magical experience.
I’m also really proud of The Victorian. It got me started putting out my own books. I love doing book signings. I’m about halfway through recording the audiobook with Steve McBride at Allegro Recording. It just feels right.
What sets me apart, I think, is that I develop skills off of other skills. I like finding the connections. My books have a lyrical quality to them that comes from music. I have spun some of those aesthetics into painting and have sold some work. I’m also willing to look like an amateur for a while because the payoff of getting to the deeper levels of any art form is astronomical. I study Brazilian jiujitsu regularly. It helps balance the other arts.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Find jam nights if you are a musician. I get to tour the U.S. because I knew Terry Adams from the Wednesday jams at Jerry’s Bait Shop. We met in 2005. Fifteen years later he called me up and asked me to play in The Phil Collins Experience. Try things, meet people. In the age of the internet, which is amazing for marketing (I come from the posters on telephone poles era), people run together as online images. Meeting people creates a better bond. 3-D is still important. Do the thing, whatever it is. Do it well. The rest of it will eventually fall into place.
I wish I had not stressed out so much about trying to prove myself by a certain age. I’m almost 59. New opportunities pop up daily because I put in the work to gain a bunch of experience. I wish I had been easier on myself. I think we need to give ourselves time to artistically mature and not just try to prove to the world that we’re special. That kind of validation will happen automatically as you really get down to who you are as an artist and a person.
Pricing:
- •$14.99 The Victorian: The Past Lives of Jack the Ripper (Amazon)
- •$9.99 Quarter Wars (Amazon)
- •$100/hour Psychic Readings
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loryellepsychic?igsh=eTFwNzY0ejF4OTFv&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CGynsJwMy/?mibextid=wwXIfr
