At a hand-me-down piano pocked with her uncle’s cigarette burns, Lukelle (Lou-kell) became a songwriter. That same 1976 upright Currier Spinet gifted from her father came to her with wobbly legs, tamed keys, and a loaded family history. The now thoughtfully repurposed piano would be a symbolic foretelling of Lukelle’s musical journey, as she learned through music what it means to embrace struggle and turn trauma into truth and triumph.

She’s been in the trenches of our mental health system for more than a decade, working in psychiatric hospitals and her own practice to pull adults and children through their darkest times. Now singer-songwriter Lukelle, known personally and professionally as Dr. Katie Fetzer, is encouraging others to “fly on faith,” as her debut single teaches. She’s finding new purpose in the pain she’s experienced and using her music and lyrics to shine a light into the world.

“Being up close and personal with the darkness of this world forced me to get real about the meaning and finality of life, and my role in it” she explains. “My Faith and my training as a mental health professional helped me discover the purpose in pain and taught me how to accept struggle and look at it truthfully, and objectively. I approach my songwriting in the same way, hoping to give honest testimony to how music can be a powerful voice of reason and hope.”

Lukelle weaves together her psychological wisdoms, experiences as a healer and even her own personal struggles to craft words and melodies that break the barriers of superficiality and pierce right into your heart and soul. Her words send a healing message to a hurting world that the path forward is guided by truth, intention, and purpose, encouraging us to not run from struggle, but rather face it and work through it.

With a songwriter for a father and an artist for a mother, Lukelle was exposed to the arts and power of creativity at a young age. Sitting in the garage of her childhood home in Baton Rouge, LA, watching her father Rip Collins and uncle Tommy create their own songs, Lukelle learned the language of music. Two of the most instrumental men in her life wrote lyrics that resonated with her, sometimes because they were about her.

From singing along to The Beatles in their living room when she could barely talk to traveling to the Majestic Theater in San Antonio to see Bob Dylan in concert when she was 10, Lukelle’s dad seamlessly incorporated music into her life. She remembers taking her first turn playing the piano in elementary school - to her piano teacher’s disappointment, mostly by ear. Then as a member of her high school choir, she performed at Carnegie Hall. But soon her innate passion would take a backseat to what seemed to be a more sensible career.

Lukelle earned her PhD in counseling and grew a family of her own in the process. She cared for people suffering with acute mental health and addiction issues at a psychiatric hospital. She co-founded an award-winning mental health practice, “The Wellness Studio.” She even returned to the classroom as an assistant professor of counseling, as an adjunct professor at multiple other universities, and spent three summers teaching abroad in Malta.

Now 38 years old Lukelle says “I have seen more human suffering than many people experience in a lifetime.” She’s been trained to help others, but what she couldn’t anticipate was the help she would need to seek after experiencing her own traumas. Forced to face her own darkness, she leaned on faith and music to heal and discovered herself as an artist in the process. “Music was there for me. Music is an otherworldly force that has the power to change perception in a way that normal conversation can’t. I hope my songs can lighten peoples’ pain just a little, and point them in a direction towards light, the way it did for me.”

More than 30 years later, that old piano from her childhood garage now sits in the home she’s built with her husband Peyton. It’s where she wrote her first song, as her two young children soaked in the melodies. “I do not boast in the tragedy I’ve seen, because I’ve also witnessed the miraculous transformation of the broken into the beautiful. I want to encourage people to look at struggle as an invitation to discovering your authentic self, and to relentlessly seek truth. When you hear my music, I hope you can feel how real and vulnerable I am and take comfort knowing - whatever your struggle - you are not alone.”

Recorded in Nashville summer of 2021, Lukelle’s first single “fly on faith”, co-written with artist, House of Burges, is live now on all major platforms. Her first EP is scheduled for release in Spring of 2023. Lukelle’s music will include collaborations with her father/songwriter Rip Collins and award winning songwriter/producer Jay Speight.