A few years ago, singer-songwriter Lara James asked herself a simple but bold question: Why wouldn’t I? She was on the couch watching a reality show on singers and reflecting on her unlived life as a musician. She was asking herself why she didn’t pursue being an artist. In private moments during her high school years, Lara wrote songs that lived inside her heart and mind as blissful catharsis from the complexities of adolescence. They sounded good to her, but she never shared these secret and sacred little gems. Years went by and life blessed her with a healthy, happy, and wonderful family. She was overjoyed, but there was always songs singing softly within her. And then one day she couldn’t ignore them any longer. “I had this moment where I believed if I sang, doors would open. I just felt this fate,” the Spokane, Washington-based singer-songwriter confides. Appropriately, she calls her smoldering debut EP Why Wouldn’t I? (EUS Records/A division of Emphatic Artists Association). “The title is about the process of making the EP, the idea of ‘Why wouldn’t I got out and do this?,’” she affirms.