Flyleaf In 2000, Sturm began to play with drummer James Culpepper. The pair worked with guitarists Sameer Bhattacharya and Jared Hartmann. In 2002, Pat Seals, Flyleaf's current bassist, joined, forming a group named Passerby. For legal reasons, they renamed themselves Flyleaf in June 2004. On October 22, 2012, shortly before the release of
New Horizons, Sturm revealed that she had amicably left Flyleaf. The album was nominated for the 2012 Rock Album of the Year
Dove Award. In an interview promoting her book
The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living, Sturm explained that a primary reason for her leaving the band was the death of the band's sound engineer. The band performed one last show as a means to help the sound engineer's wife and child. This experience caused Sturm to consider her own son and wonder what she would do if she knew she had only one more year with him. "It was really amazing to recognize this season changing in my life and the freedom that I was gonna be able to focus on my family", Sturm said. "And although it was really hard, I'm thankful. And that's the reason I stepped down from Flyleaf." On November 7, 2022, it was announced by Flyleaf that Sturm had returned to the band, with the band now calling themselves "Flyleaf with Lacey Sturm".
Guest appearances Sturm provided backing vocals on "Run to You" and "
Born Again", two tracks on Christian rock band
Third Day's 2008 album
Revelation. She received two
Grammy nominations at the
52nd Grammy Awards for her work with Third Day: "Born Again" was nominated for
Best Gospel Song and
Best Gospel Performance. She has also worked with
Apocalyptica on their song "Broken Pieces" and with
Orianthi on the song "Courage". She recorded a song, "Heavy Prey", for the
Underworld: Awakening soundtrack. She was a guest vocalist on the 2013 track "Take the Bullets Away" by
We as Human. In 2020, she performed as a guest vocalist in
Breaking Benjamin's song "Dear Agony (Aurora Version)". In 2021, she performed as a guest vocalist on
Love and Death's cover of DJ Snake and Justin Bieber's song "Let Me Love You" on the album
Perfectly Preserved.
Solo On October 13, 2014, Lacey announced via social media that she had a new band that was being put together. "[We're working on a] solo project and we are calling it Lacey. The brilliant drummer Tom Gascon, amazing bassist Ben Hull, my husband Josh Sturm who's an awesome guitarist and I have written some of my favorite heavy rock songs ever. And we will be rocking them for you tomorrow night! I can't wait!" The band premiered October 2014 at The Blind Tiger in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her debut solo album,
Life Screams, was released in 2016. It opened at No. 74 on the
Billboard 200, topping the
Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart, No. 7 on Alternative Albums and No. 8 on Top Rock Albums. In March and April 2018, Sturm toured with
Red,
Righteous Vendetta and
Messer. Sturm released the single "The Decree" from her upcoming album in May 2020. The song was written with
Skillet's
Korey Cooper. ==Other work==