For songwriter Lila Rose, it's just a matter of finding the right words

From small town Washington to Music City, Lila Rose is an outlaw in song only, and performing on the Fourth of July at the Festival of America at the Grand Coulee Dam.

Lila Rose Bowden is the daughter of Coulee Dam Police Chief Paul Bowden and Coulee Dam City Clerk Stefani Bowden.

She performs under the name Lila Rose. "I'm sure this confuses some people around here that have known me my whole life," she said, "but I like to keep my last name out of my music so that someday when I get married, a name change won't confuse more people."

Raised in nearby Wilbur, the now 20-year-old moved to Nashville, Tennessee a few years ago to study songwriting. So what led her down the path to Music City, U.S.A.?

"Music is definitely a different career path than what both of my parents chose, but they are so incredibly supportive of my dreams and I really couldn't do it without them," Rose said. "I started singing at church with my grandparents and in choirs at a very young age, and my parents really encouraged me to do so.

Back then, music was just fun, but it took a more crucial role in her life a little later.

"I had some issues with bullying and went through some pretty dark times," she says. "That's when I started writing songs. I used them as a way to express my feelings and get the words out that I couldn't just say. If I'm being honest, music really saved my life."

She learned music's "incredible power and ability to connect with people no matter what they're going through," she says. "That is the moment I really decided I wanted to pursue music seriously ... I hope that my music can do for someone else what it did for me."

Rose will start her junior year in the fall at Belmont University, where she'll continue to study songwriting, her passion, classes on which are taught by Grammy-award-winning songwriters.

"My homework is literally to go home and write a song; and because of these assignments, I have seen my writing abilities grow exponentially," Rose said. "I'm writing songs now that sometimes I have a hard time believing actually came from me. They're so different than what I was writing two years ago. I am also minoring in Music Business, so I take a lot of classes that focus on the business side of the music industry, and I have found a lot of them extremely interesting."

The move from small town Wilbur, Washington to a major U.S. city wasn't any trouble for the young artist.

"I will admit that I was a little intimidated by the idea of moving from a tiny town of 800 people to a big city," Rose said, "but Nashville is so welcoming and has a small town feel to it, so the transition was painless."

She gets to "perform quite a bit" in the city where most bars and restaurants offer live music every night.

"I play in a lot of Writers Rounds, which consist of three or four songwriters who take turns playing some of their original songs," she explains. She's met friends and co-writers, and even done a solo show.

Currently the vice president of the Belmont University Songwriters Association, she's instrumental in hosting speakers and events on campus, adding to a list of industry professionals she knows. "I've also met famous people just by walking down the street. I literally ran into Thomas Rhett going into a grocery store and almost tripped over Brett Eldredge's dog while he was out walking him."

"I write Outlaw Country music, which probably freaks out a lot of people who don't know what Outlaw Country is," Rose said about her craft. "It is a style of music that I have always loved and always felt a connection to, but I was too scared to write it because I was afraid people wouldn't take me seriously. My dad is a cop, I can't be an outlaw. But Outlaw Country doesn't mean you're an outlaw. I promise I have never robbed a train or run from the law on horseback."

Like "outlaw country" legends Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, her style of music today is different than the country music that was coming out of Nashville in their time.

Today's pop/country "is not me," she says. Telling a story is more important than a dance beat.

Rose says she finds songwriting inspiration just about anywhere.

"I have written a song based off of the crazy weather in Nashville; I have gone to an art museum and written a song about a painting I saw; I write songs about memories and my own life," she said. "Sometimes I eavesdrop on other people's conversations and hear a word that I can turn into a song. I guess songwriting has just become second nature, anything and everything I see or hear has a song in it; it's just a matter of finding the right words."

You can take the songwriter out of Eastern Washington, but you can't take Eastern Washington out of the songwriter.

"Nashville is a fun, beautiful city," Rose said, "but let me tell you, it does not even hold a candle to the beauty of Eastern Washington."

Rose is performing at 3 p.m. on July Fourth in front of the Grand Coulee Dam.