Daily Inspiration: Meet Emily Brimlow

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Brimlow.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

I grew up just outside Vancouver, BC, in a little town called Cloverdale.

My parents split when I was young, and my mom, who was a school teacher, raised my brother and me. Once a month, we’d spend the weekend with my dad.

My dad was a musician. He played in some fairly well-known rock bands in the ’80s and had his own solo career as well. Music was always around, but funny enough, I wasn’t the kid he originally bought a guitar for.

He wanted my brother to learn, so he got him a guitar when we were kids. My brother never really picked it up. Eventually, when I was around 10 years old, I did.

My dad started teaching me how to play, and by 16, I was writing my own songs.

After high school, I moved to Australia for a couple of years to pursue Christian missions. During that time, I played music anywhere and everywhere I could, mostly for free. Looking back, those were some of the most formative years for me as an artist. I wasn’t building a career yet. I was just learning how to play, write, connect with people, and find my own voice.

I came home around 20 years old and spent the next couple of years bouncing in and out of jobs. I’d either quit or get fired. Eventually, it became pretty clear to me that I wasn’t particularly good at doing anything else.

So at 22, with the support of my husband, I decided music was it. I was going to give it everything I had.

I’m 30 now, and I wish I could tell you that decision led to some overnight success story. It didn’t.

My career has been an incredibly slow burn.

There have been years of writing, touring, playing small rooms, long drives, uncertainty, and wondering whether any of it was actually going anywhere. But little by little, doors kept opening.

I’ve now had the opportunity to tour throughout the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe alongside artists like Teddy Swims, Ziggy Alberts, Ruby Waters, and Kim Churchill, among others.

I’ve released three albums, and I’m currently working on my fourth.

And somehow, after all these years, it feels like we’re only just getting started.

I’m incredibly grateful to now have a record deal with Ineffable Records, management with Silverback, and an amazing agent at MINT. The last two years have felt like the beginning of an entirely new era for me and my music.

There is still so much I want to create, so many places I want to play, and so much of this story that hasn’t been written yet.

My career may have been a slow burn, but I’ve learned to be grateful for that. Every little room, every song, every person who listened, and every year it took to get here has shaped the artist I am today.

And I really do feel like the best is still ahead.

Much more to come.

I hope I get to see you at one of my shows. ❤️

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have been many, many twists and turns and bumps along the way.

Like I said, I wish I could tell you success came easily for me. It hasn’t.

I’ve spent countless days and nights wondering if any of this is even worth it.

And don’t get me wrong—music is it for me. I will write songs until the day I die. I genuinely don’t think I could stop if I tried.

But loving music and having a professional music career are two very different things.

Touring, performing, constantly putting yourself out there, trying to make a living from something so personal—it can take a lot out of you.

I recently played a show where there was one table in the back that had actually come to see me and was listening. Everyone else was eating, talking, laughing and yapping through my set.

And yes, I’m grateful that I get paid to sing and play music. I know how lucky I am.

But those gigs are soul crushers for me.

There’s something incredibly vulnerable about standing in front of a room and singing songs you wrote about your actual life, pouring your heart and soul into them, while people talk over you like you’re background music.

I’d genuinely rather play my songs for my dog in my living room.

Maybe that sounds dramatic. Maybe even a little entitled. But I’m just being honest.

When I was in my early twenties, I used to play those gigs constantly. I’d play four-hour sets for $100, and sometimes by the last set my neck and back would hurt so badly I’d be holding back tears.

It’s almost like my body physically refuses to let me play cheap gigs anymore. Lol.

And I don’t just mean cheap financially. I mean the gigs where the value of what I’m bringing isn’t really being recognized or appreciated.

There’s a difference between playing covers in the corner of a restaurant and knowing you’re there to create an atmosphere, and standing onstage playing your original songs—songs you’ve spent years of your life writing—and realizing nobody is listening.

Those are the moments that make me want to quit.

And there have been many of them.

Being a full-time artist is not for the weak at heart. I’ve been discouraged, rejected, exhausted and beaten down more times than I can count. I’ve questioned whether this career is worth what it asks of me.

And now I’m 30.

I want to have kids in the next few years, and somehow my career feels like it’s only just beginning.

I think about that a lot.

It’s one thing for a man with children to leave for tour while his wife stays home with the kids. But what happens when I’m the mom? What does touring look like then? What does pursuing this dream look like when there’s a little human at home who needs me?

I don’t have those answers yet.

This career takes a lot from you. And I’ve counted the cost over and over again.

But somehow, every single time, I come back to the same thing:

**I’m in my purpose.**

This is what I’m meant to be doing.

That doesn’t mean I’m promised fame. It doesn’t mean I’m promised some massive career. And it definitely doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

It just means I know I’m supposed to keep going.

So in the darker moments, when I’m discouraged or exhausted or wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life, I remind myself that I don’t need to have the next ten years figured out.

I need enough wisdom and enough grace for today.

And I trust that God will give me that.

Writing songs is in my blood.

So until God Him—or Herself—tells me to stop, I’m going to keep writing, keep singing, keep showing up, and keep following this thing wherever it takes me.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m known for my songs such as “I Fall In Love Too Easily” and “Calling Me Home” and my performances. I’m a full-time singer-songwriter and touring artist. I write songs for a living and perform them all over the world—or wherever I’m welcome. 🙂

I don’t think I’m all that unique, really. I’m just someone who loves making music and has kept choosing it over and over again. People have told me I’m a bit of an oddball, which I think is probably true.

I’d like to think I write honest songs. Songs that feel human, that make people feel something, and maybe help them see a little bit of themselves in my stories.

What I’m most proud of is probably my perseverance. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve learned that building a life as an artist takes patience, consistency, a sense of humor, and a lot of belief in what you’re doing.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I’m sure every artist alive right now is wondering what the hell the next five or ten years are going to look like. Is AI music going to take over? Will people still care about albums? Will live music matter?

Truthfully, I have no idea.

The hopeful side of me thinks music is becoming more community-based. Maybe there will be fewer massive artists and more artists with smaller, loyal groups of people who genuinely love what they make. In that sense, there’s never been more opportunity.

The darker side of me worries that art for the sake of art—soul art—is slowly being replaced by content creation. Being an artist now also means feeding the algorithm constantly, and that’s probably my least favorite part of the job. Music can start to feel like fast food: two seconds, swipe, next song, next person.

I miss the idea of buying an album, listening to it over and over, reading the lyrics and actually living inside an artist’s world.

And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of saying all of this while literally using ChatGPT to proofread this for me. Lol. I’m not anti-AI. I just don’t want to hand over the part that makes the art.

My hope is that the more artificial everything becomes, the more hungry we’ll become for something real. Something imperfect, human and full of soul.

AI hasn’t taken over the live show yet. There’s still something sacred about people standing in a room together while another human gets onstage and sings something true.

I hope we never lose that.

Written by me. Proofread by a robot. The future is weird.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @emilybrimlow
• Facebook: @emilybrimlow
• LinkedIn: https://linktr.ee/emilybrimlow
• Youtube: @emilybrimlow