From Touring with Rob Thomas to Creative Reinvention — Toby Lightman

What happens when success comes fast—and you have to figure out who you are in real time?

In this episode of She Creates Noise, singer-songwriter Toby Lightman reflects on the early breakthrough that launched her career—from a record deal just one year out of college to touring with Rob Thomas—and the long, deliberate path to creative reinvention.

One year out of college, Toby Lightman had a record deal, a breakout moment, and an impressive touring schedule with multiple TV appearance. That kind of fast success sounds glamorous, but it can also be disorienting, especially when you’re still learning who you are as a songwriter, vocalist, and performer. We talk through what it felt like to be launched so young and how Toby learned to turn that pressure into skill, confidence, and a sustainable creative life.
 
From major-label releases and intimidating studio rooms to the slow, determined work of teaching herself music production, Toby shares the real mechanics of reinvention. We get into building a home studio, why she sticks with Pro Tools, and what changes when an artist can shape their own sound without waiting on anyone else. She also reflects on advice she once got from Prince that stayed with her for years: you can do more than you think, and you don’t have to outsource your power.
 
 The conversation goes deeper into songwriting as a survival tool. Toby opens up about fertility struggles, miscarriage, and the loneliness that can come with those experiences, then connects that honesty to making empowering music about resilience and motherhood. We also dig into advocacy and leadership, including her work with the Recording Academy, SONA, and She Is The Music, plus practical realities like sync licensing, composing for kids programming, and diversifying income in today’s music business.
 
 If you care about women in music, independent artists, music production, and building a sustainable creative career, this one is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review on your favorite so more listeners can find the show. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:03

She creates the mice. She creates the mice. She's love the powerful powerful voice. She creates noise. She creates. She creates noise. She creates.

Season Two Kickoff And Guest Preview

Meet Toby Lightman And Early Training

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Noise. She creates noise. I'm a songwriter, producer, manager, and happy to be here for season two. And this is Women's History Month, so it's really appropriate that you guys are here and listening. We have had a strong and inspiring first season filled with honest conversations about how real careers are built in this business, the risks, the turning points, and the stamina it takes to stay in the room. Now we're into season two, and the show is growing, and the conversations are deepening, and I'm really happy to have you here. Now, as you may know, she creates noise is about the women who shape the music industry, executives, producers, songwriters, managers, and artists, all of those who've built lasting careers in a challenging and constantly evolving landscape. This season we're expanding the format with new kinds of conversations, especially having more than one person in the room, which I really enjoyed. For example, the episode with mentor and artist pairings of AC Scott. AC began her singing career in her 60s alongside her mentor and the remarkable AR executive Kate Hyman. We'll have a thoughtful mental health episode featuring industry leader Eric Ramon, who's the manager of Fergie, as well as Kathy Olsen, who's the founder of Hollywood and Mind, as well as a Billboard journalist. We'll sit down with the extraordinary hit songwriters, including Bonnie McKee, who's known for her work with Katy Perry, Pam Shane, co-writer of Genie in a Bottle, and Grammy nominated Laura Veltz, who has worked a lot with Marin Morris, amongst many others. Please check it out. There's so many cool guests coming up. I'm excited for you to hear their stories and hear about craft and leadership and resilience. If you'd like to know more about me and my own journey, you can check out the trailer. Thanks for returning. Thanks for listening. Please share. Welcome back. Thank you. Today I welcome Toby Lyman. Toby, so nice to have you here. Thanks for having me. And and you're you've been in the snow. I have not been in the snow, but I know it's been uh a nutty winter.

SPEAKER_07 2:34

Yes, it has been very insane. And it just snowed again this morning. I know. It's like we're in the Arctic, but we're not. We're in New York.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I so I just want to talk to you a little bit about you you and I have seen each other around. I mean, I see you once in a while at the Recording Academy events, and over the years I saw you perform in the Hamptons, and um, we've been talking about doing this for a while, so it's nice to finally have you here. I was looking up your story, which is very cool. Now you were classically trained on violin and didn't even realize your vocal potential until a performance at your high school graduation. Once that revealed itself, how did you sort of figure out you wanted to do this crazy thing?

SPEAKER_07 3:14

Crazy indeed. I uh was playing violin just because I at that point I could. I was trained on Suzuki and practiced every day and didn't like it. But I'm so glad that my mom made me stick with it. And then I just started taking vocal classes in high school for extra credit. And my music teacher, who was running those sessions, said to audition for the high school graduation solo. There's always a soloist, and I ended up getting it. And that was the first time that I sang like in public, basically. I had sang in sectional lessons and things like that for recitals and always in groups, but this time it was in front of my family and my friends, and it definitely showed me that I had something there that I didn't know I had. And uh I swore never to sing in public again because it was terrifying. So you weren't a kid that like ran around the house singing songs or anything.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

That was not what you did.

SPEAKER_07 4:12

Definitely not. I was very shy, and having made an instrument make sound was different than making my body make sound. And so I just didn't know what I actually sounded like for a long time, actually, after that. But I taught myself guitar and I said, Oh, in college, I'm gonna teach myself guitar and I'll just do this for myself, in my room, in my dorm, and one thing led to another to started writing songs, and it just started to become a thing that I really wanted to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

So, where where were you born, by the way? Where are you from?

SPEAKER_07 4:44

I was born in Philly, in Philadelphia. My family's from Philadelphia, and I grew up in a suburb in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, closest to New York, but Philly was my town.

Early Career success

SPEAKER_00 4:54

So when you finally decided to do this, you got a record deal pretty quickly. I know I I read Jason Flomp signed you to Lava, and you debut little things hit the Billboard Top 100 really quickly with appearances on Letterman, Conan, Carson Daly. You toured with Rob Thomas, Jewel, Gavin Degras. Even worked, uh, did a whatever show with Prince, which was a career-defining moment. That's that's a huge, sudden, like, wow, you suddenly stepped onto the scene. How did that feel all of a sudden for all that to happen?

SPEAKER_07 5:24

It was terrifying. I was definitely not prepared. I did not know how to write songs to the best of my ability. I didn't know myself well enough to really navigate all that. Um, but I literally got my record deal a year out of college. I had three songs written, and I was learning how to make beats. And so I was messing around with, you know, like I don't even know what I was using to make. It wasn't the 808 beck. That's too long ago or something else. Well, yeah, I mean, it just ended up becoming like these songs that I felt really good about, but I had only written those, so I didn't really even know how well I could write at the time. But yeah, I mean, I had uh the makings of what became my first single, and it was called Devils and Angels, and I wrote it. I completed the song with the producer that I ended up meeting, and he is ended up he he ended up having a showcase for me for Jason Flom, and that's how I got my deal. So it happened really quickly out of cool out of school, and then every song I wrote after that like had to go on the album because I didn't have any to choose from. So I was really trying to learn how to do that. And Peter was helping me, and I had friends helping me, and that's how the first album came to be. But it was like maybe eight months.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 6:46

And that was that, and then it just got pushed out and it and it just flew, and it was insane.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And in but in a way, you just didn't really have time to prepare for all that, did you?

SPEAKER_07 6:56

Yeah, I mean, I hadn't really pl performed live that much, let alone this material, and playing guitar and singing at the same time was definitely something that I was still figuring out. And I was going on like late night talk shows and playing on radio stations and doing all this stuff, and just had to really and I just I thought they were literally trying to like drive me into the ground. I didn't know how I was gonna stay awake going to three cities a day. It was crazy, but you know, obviously in hindsight, I was in such an amazing situation. I had such crazy opportunity and experiences, and if only I had that now, but I mean I did have it and I'm grateful for it because I think I caught the record industry like at the tail end of record labels really still having the full gamut of music business. So if if anything, I I'm thankful that I was able to do that. You you got to see all the around when when was that? It was uh the album came out in 2004. So yeah, I got signed in 2002, and then literally it came out about a year and a half later.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

And after that, did you have more albums out or was it? I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 8:05

So I toured for for I would say like a year straight, not really coming home, and then and it was a lot of radio shows, and then I ended up uh uh I had an amazing AR, his name's Andy Carp. And he I ended up moving to Atlantic Records with him because Lava Folded and Jason Flum was fired at that time and and ended up going to Virgin, I think. But um, so I was on Atlantic and I said I want to work with producers of material that I grew up idols, like Cheryl Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club and Madonna. And so I ended up do producing my second album in LA with half of it was with Patrick Leonard, who worked with Madonna and Michael Jackson and all these crazy artists. And then the other half was with Bill Vetrell, who did Cheryl Crow's Tuesday Might.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

You really got in there with all the topics. I really got in there.

SPEAKER_07 8:58

Yeah, and I didn't know what I was doing at all. And these men did, and so it was very intimidating and very like overwhelming. And unfortunately, you know, I think I I was a little skittish in the studio with them because it was so intimidating. But we produced a great album.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

That's great. Yeah, and you kept it going. I know there's a gap between then and and and things you did in between. More recently, your song Hired charted through American Idol with Brianna Nix, while you also won the 2025 Sona Emerging Songwriter Award, and you had a billboard up. I saw that, that was crazy up on uh you know Sunset. And now you're preparing for your own self-produced album. So, with this kind of hindsight that you can have now, how does this evolution, you know, what happened when you were really young and how you're taking control now, how does that feel to look back on?

Rebuilding Career Through Self-Production

SPEAKER_07 9:52

Well, I think it's a it was a journey. I mean, the second album was 2006, and now we're 20 years later. So obviously I've learned a lot, I've written a lot, I've I've taken chances, and and when I left Atlantic Records, I experimented more with singing on different genres and just having fun making music. And I think that made me a better writer, a more confident singer, and um just kind of learning my own gift that I was so fortunate to have and didn't really have the time to like figure it out. And so I took those years to just kind of write for film and TV, and I wrote so many different kinds of songs and had a lot of success with getting music in different movies and TV shows, and that showed me there's other ways to make music and there's other ways to participate in the industry if you're not signed to a major label. And so now this album that I'm working on now is actually my second self-produced album back during before COVID, actually. It was like 2017. I had my first son and 2017. 2017. 2017, okay. Yeah, he's eight years old now. Um, but I was when I was trying to get pregnant, I was having a hard time, and I realized I had to stop traveling so much and going to producers and going to people's studios, and I w I had to be home. And so I taught myself how to produce, and it was about a four-year process. And I put out an album called After All in 2023, and that was my first produced, self-produced album, and it felt like a full circle moment because I had produced those first three songs when I got signed, but now I just knew so much more about how to make how to support myself as a singer, and so now this album is kind of the follow-up to that.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Having kids is so rewarding, but so time consuming, right?

SPEAKER_07 11:41

Yes, and now I have a second one too. So I have a four-year-old and an eight-year-old, and it's just really amazing to be able to like create music and have them listen, and they see mommy, you know, in her studio, and I'm doing the things that I love and and being able to accomplish projects by myself. It's it's really cool to be able to show them that.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, that that is that's a great thing. And you did talk a bit about the fact you taught yourself to produce, obviously, for lots of reasons, but one of them was you felt it was better, uh, you know, things are not as easy for women in the studio, and you kind of wanted to talk, if you want to talk a little bit about that, not only that there's a steep learning curve, but also what needs to change for women so that women can be more comfortable in the studio and also have more authority, I guess, in the studio.

SPEAKER_07 12:35

Yeah, I think that for some reason, and I can't speak necessarily for the generations now, because I do know there's a lot more women learning how to produce and use the software and get more involved in like controlling their own sound. But when I was coming up, nobody was doing that. And there were no female artists that I knew that were producing their own albums. And I always wondered about that. And that one show that I did have with Prince, while it was like the most amazing night of my life as a musician, um, and to be honored by like him asking me to do that show was really mind-blowing. But when we had a chance to talk after the performance, he said to me, You don't need anybody else, you don't need all these guys. You can produce your own stuff. And I that stuck with me. Like, well, he has maybe he knows something, and he knew so much more than he let on. He was always so ahead of his time.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And that's a long time ago, also.

SPEAKER_07 13:33

And that was a long time ago, but it did hold true in the sense that I said, Well, well, how does maybe he knows something I don't know? And I got to give myself a chance to learn and see if I can do it. And so now I'm doing it, I'm playing all the instruments. I'm I'm using amazingly talented friends to play instruments I can't play. I'm knowing more, and I feel so grateful that I had that bit of advice to kind of, and so I'm trying to pay that forward with other women. I participate in she is the music and women in music, and we're moving the needle. I'm trying to get more involved in these organizations to try and help younger generations do that for themselves.

Home Studio Tools And Women Producers

SPEAKER_00 14:08

So, are you doing this at home? Is it is that your studio that you're in right now?

SPEAKER_07 14:11

Yeah, this is my studio at home, and my computer is unfortunately facing me. So it's hard to kind of show you, but I I have my little sign and my my vibes behind me. But I have a great mic, I have an interface, I have uh compressor limiter that I go I sing everything through, and I have a setup for my guitar. And for the techies out there, you can tell them what you're using. Good. I use Pro Tools. I'm I'm old school. I know Logic is really popular, and so is Ableton. But for me, Pro Tools was how I started to watch studios record my vocals and how to edit comping my vocals. And so I just I became really comfortable doing that on Pro Tools. So that's the software that I use.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

That's and I have done some music software. Um I'm a logic person, but it to me, Pro Tools was always just super complicated to even figure out. So, congratulations. Thank you. You know how to use that. Uh yeah, I mean, we've had some engineers, we just had Ebony Smith, she'll be coming up in a few weeks. Uh I interviewed her, but she's very knowledgeable, obviously. She was actually encouraging, telling me that there's a lot more women producers out there than we realize. There are.

SPEAKER_07 15:21

That's why I think, you know, when I do these writing camps for she is the music, I'm like the producer in the acoustic kind of room. And then there's these pop rooms where these girls are just making crazy tracks. It's really cool to see and and know that they can do that. And I'm envious because I can't do that myself. I'm more of like an organic live vibe. Um, but just watching them go is is really cool.

Writing Through Fertility Loss And Joy

SPEAKER_00 15:48

There is a lot more of that going on. Now I know you talk about in your songs more about your personal struggles. I'm not sure exactly which songs those were, but how have those, you know, like your fertility issues and loss and such.

SPEAKER_07 16:03

Yeah, I mean, my last album that I produced, After All, that came out of me just kind of needing a diary of sorts while I was going through fertility and miscarriages and things like that, that are really lonely things to go through. And a lot of women at the time weren't really talking about it. And so I wrote this song called Breathe In, which it was the single from After All, um, and another song called Spaces. And I basically produced them completely and on my own, programming the drums and everything. And so uh that to me was like my step in. And then every song after that, when I had a success and I had a little boy, I wrote a song called Cloud Nine. I mean, you just kind of like have these things that happen, and and in my life is inspiration. I'm I'm sure every writer can agree that you go through these feelings and you just want to be able to get them out. And so the songs now to me are more about like empowering yourself to be your best self and and how can I be the best mom? And some days are hard and some days are are easier. And so higher was kind of this song that I wrote actually at that time in 2017, after I just had Leo and and he was a little baby sitting in a little seat, and my friends Shane Stevens and Nash Overstreet came to visit me because I couldn't, I couldn't figure out how to express myself yet. I was so emotionally and physically exhausted from having this journey and then finally having this baby, and he was so cute, and I was so tired. And and then I was 40. And then we were like, whoa, how am I gonna be 40 and be in this music business? And so that's what we wrote higher about. You know, we're never done. Nobody's ever done. And and women, especially, you know, we're always like, oh, she's still doing it. Oh, she's so resilient, but they don't say that about men. They don't, they don't, yeah. Yeah, and it's like, well, yeah, we are, but we're also like fully capable to participate, you know, in everything, and especially now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

With children and at any age. I'm interviewing, uh, it's the newest episode, um, AC Scott, who at 60, having had a full career as a radio DJ and a TV personality, discovered that she liked writing songs and she got picked up by a AR woman, Kate Hyman, and a record deal. And I mean, she's making amazing songs at 60.

SPEAKER_07 18:26

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

For the first time, which I I just love the story because it's really you that's her her main song for the record is it's never too late. And I think that's such a a great message, you know.

SPEAKER_07 18:36

Yeah, I mean, it's it's so imperative, especially now with so much discussion about women and women's rights and all the things that are being talked about us and and trying to be a part of that conversation is challenging. And so I think we just have to keep going on the same journey and keep fighting to say we're all the same and we're all fully capable of being ourselves and and and being in an industry with 20-year-olds and guys and girls. It's all well, everyone's welcome, you know. That's my opinion. If you have something authentic to say, yeah, you nobody can be you. That's it. You know, it doesn't happen more than once, the same way, and it never will. And that's because we're all individual and we're all unique. And that's what these new songs kind of are about for me is like taking control of your own destiny. Who do you want to be and how do you want to feel? I don't want to listen to sad, sad songs all the time. Like I want to be empowered, I want somebody to reach down and pull me up. And so that's kind of what these songs are doing for me.

Advocacy Work With SONA And Grammys

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, higher. Now, I we talked a little a little bit about Sona. She is in music and your role as a recording academy governor.

unknown 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So advocacy is very important to you, uh, very central to your work. Has that feeling of responsibility grown naturally? Did it come from wanting to improve the world around you, or are you you just sort of naturally fell into these things?

SPEAKER_07 20:02

I think, you know, it actually happened during COVID when I joined the recording academy and they nominated me right away to run for the board. And I had no idea what that even meant, honestly. I didn't know how to solicit votes and do that whole thing. I didn't even know what a governor meant. And so I lost and I was bummed, but I also wasn't surprised. And so when they asked me to run again, I had already said I said at that first nomination, I think I need to be in committees and I need to meet people and I need to start understanding where I fit. And so that's what I started doing in 2021. And I spent like four years being on the songwriters committee and going to advocacy meetings and just starting to learn, like, wow, there's this whole community in New York, and we're all fighting for the same thing, and we all want to be respected in the same way, and to be a part of that conversation is pretty cool. And so now to be elected into this governor position as the songwriter governor is almost like again, this full circle moment for me to share that says, like, I am at a place as a songwriter where I am representing songwriters. And how cool is that to be able to, you know, be on the board and and have the recording academy's ear and then Sona. I'm an um an advisor for Sona and just watching what they're doing every day, and it's all run by songwriters. It's just very cool to be a part of an organization and watch women and starting like Sona with like Michelle Lewis and Shelly Piken and uh Diana LaPole. It's like it's really cool. So I'm just happy to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, we we will have Michelle Lewis on soon. Yeah, I haven't interviewed her too, but yeah, I've known her for a long time.

unknown 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah. I mean, these organizations are great. Is it is it a big time commitment for you?

SPEAKER_07 21:53

Not so much. I mean, obviously, when it's like gears up to events that are happening, it becomes a little bit more, but I've done some speaking. Engagements for Sona, going into NYU, going in to talk to seniors that are graduating to show you how to register your songs. Like, how can you get into this very convoluted business and take care of all of your property? And so we've been trying to spread that lesson. And then the recording academy, I'd say, you know, we meet in pr in person five or six times a year. It's really not that bad. And to be honest, it's so thrilling to get together with everybody because everybody's so talented in their own genre, in their own way. Like there's this amazing saxophone player who plays jazz. There's this amazing jazz singer who's been nominated, you know, like two, three times for a Grammy. I mean, it's everybody's just so talented. It's like hard not to get infected by that.

Sync Licensing And Creative Diversification

SPEAKER_00 22:45

It's I I do love the organization. It's really, really fun to go to events and such. Sync. You have been very busy with sync placements, you mentioned briefly. Uh, and of course, you also said you have a new album coming out. What do you think is gonna sustain your next like what's the next move?

SPEAKER_07 23:05

Just continuing on this process with syncs and yeah, I mean, obviously the sync world has changed so much since I started focusing on that in 2010. Everybody has realized that that's one of the only ways to really be make money. So it's a bigger potion to pick from. And so it's it's not as frequent anymore, but I will say I have great relationships with music supervisors, and they always keep my music in mind. And when the right projects pop up, I'm lucky enough to have them consider using my music. And then I have opportunities where I'll write something specifically and produce something specific for like I write and compose for Sesame Street, so that's been really cool since having kids. And another PBS show called Don Quixote, and so that's you know, you just have to try and diversify, you have to try and do different things, and and that's another thing that I always tell everybody, you know. Obviously, you want to just be this specific artist, you want to just do this specific thing, but all these other things help you do that, and it's not necessarily a bad thing to be able to use your brain in another way and and take chances and learn how you can be better at that one thing by doing other things, and so I just think it's like stretching as an athlete. You have to do it. That's kind of how I approach all the different projects that I have. Like after this album, I already know what I want my next album to be.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, no, I you worked with Sam Bisbee, I think. I've noticed.

SPEAKER_07 24:37

I have in the past, yeah. We haven't written together in a while because he's busy producing movies.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Sam here I used to write with him all the time.

SPEAKER_07 24:43

Yeah, but he's a he's a friend, and we actually just had uh a placement come through for a holiday song that we wrote that every holiday season it gets a placement, which is very great.

Joys of Tennis, Puzzles And New Releases

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Christmas songs are the gift they keep on giving every year, never get sold. That's great fun. Is there anything you you want to talk about that we didn't particularly cover? Or is there anything that we don't know, like something we don't know about you that's funny or something you don't know about me?

SPEAKER_07 25:13

I love you. You're a juggler, maybe, or you're I play tennis as much as I can. That's my my main vice. I just want to get out there and smash some balls. That's what I always tell my husband before I go play. I'm gonna go smash some balls, so be ready. Um, but yeah, I love working out and and playing tennis and then being with my kids, and I'm a big puzzler. I love doing puzzles. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, you know, it's just like normal stuff. I'm a big cook. I love having friends come over and cooking for everybody and not cleaning up, but the cookie part is the fun part. And yeah, I mean, I had when I had Leo, I produced a little lullaby album for him of just a bunch of cover songs that I thought would be fun for him to hear. And so after I'm finished with this album, which by the way, I'm releasing May 15th, and it's called Rainbows, and I've already started booking some shows to go around the release of the album, and I already confirmed Joe's pub for May 5th. So I definitely want to put that out there. But I'm gonna do an album for for my four-year-old Maxie, who is now a bubbling toddler, crazy boy, and I already have a whole idea of how I want that album to go for him. So that's uh yeah, that's what I got right now.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Thank you so much. It's been really fun to talk to you, and I really enjoyed hearing your story.

SPEAKER_07 26:36

Finally got it together.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

It's been uh hard to put something together, but thank you so much for for joining me. I'll put links in the notes so people can find your music.

Sponsors Credits And Subscribe Request

SPEAKER_02 27:12

You gotta be brave when you got in the way small. Why you hold it back? Why you hold it back to the city? Blame everybody.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Curry City, the Premier Audio Post Production Company servicing the advertising, motion picture, and television industries right here in NYC. I'd also like to thank Antello, aka XON, for singing the She Creates Noise theme that I wrote. Thanks for listening to She Creates Noise. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, rate, and share. I want to thank the team here: Blair Rhinely, Yelena Stevanovich, Emily Wilson, and the Master of Engineering and Grammy winning Cooper Anderson. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_05 28:50

She creates noise, she creates noise, we hear her voice, she creates noise, she creates noise, she creates noise, we hear her voice, she creates noise.