AMY FAIRCHILD IS well aware that hers is a name you probably haven’t heard. Or that if you’ve heard it, you likely didn’t take notice. She doesn’t get much airplay, save for an occasional spin on college radio. She hasn’t shot a video for MTV or landed a major-label record deal. There are months that she admittedly can’t pay her Hoboken, New Jersey, rent.

And yet, back in the spring of 1999, Amy Fairchild won the New York City Lilith Fair Talent Competition, which earned her the opportunity to perform, for one day, alongside such female musical luminaries as Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, and Chrissie Hynde. In 2001, she won the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition, a coveted honor in the singer-songwriter world. And she’s appeared on albums by the likes of folk royalty Cliff Eberhardt and Dar Williams.

So what will it take to get Amy Fairchild’s name noticed? It just might be that a new record, Mr. Heart, with noted producer Adam Steinberg at the helm, will finally do the trick.

Q: Why music? How did you find it, or how did it find you?

A: I studied piano from the age of five years old. I was really young when I started studying classical piano, and I had a very strict Hungarian teacher who was really excellent, and she at one point said to my dad, "Music was made for Amy and Amy was made for music." My dad quotes her still on that. So I started very young, and I kind of always have done it.

Q: Was there ever any doubt in your mind that this is what you’d do for a living?

A: Um, yeah.

Q: Is there still?

A: Sometimes there is. Because I’m not always making a living at it. Every month is completely different right now — from having good months to not being able to pay the rent. So I do have some doubts at times, yeah. There’s a lot of different ways you can have a career in music; you know, it’s not only being a performer, only trying to be a pop icon. There’s song-writing, there’s co-writing, there’s publishing, and a million ways to have a career in music. I’ve chosen music as the way that I want to make money; it’s just a matter of focusing on which direction.

Q: So you’re open to possibilities beyond performing?

A: Absolutely. It’s not like you have to pick one, either; you can kind of keep them all going at the same time, and a lot of people do that. It’s really the smartest way, so you have a lot of different viable avenues from which to bring money in. Because at the end of the day, it is about supporting yourself, and I don’t have a trust fund, and I don’t have a patron. I always have to be thinking about how I’m going to pay the rent.

Q: What other jobs have you held to pay the rent?

A: I worked for CNN for a year and a half as an administrative assistant. I had a full-time job with benefits and paid vacations.

Q: You must miss that.

A: I do. I definitely miss that a little, but then again, I prefer to spend my time the way I want to spend it, even if it means struggling a little harder. That’s a decision that I’ve made, and there are always compromises, whatever choices you make in life.

Q: What are some of the sacrifices you’ve had to make, to pursue music?

A: It’s hard to know, because I don’t feel like I’ve really ever known anything else. This is the way I’ve lived my life since I’ve been on my own, really. I think I’ve sacrificed maybe a more comfortable financial situation, but I’m not sure how that would’ve come about, unless I had just made making money the object, which I never have. At this point in the game, I feel like I do need to focus on that a little bit more. I’m starting to more and more be a little bit restless with the choice that seems to have put me in a position where I’m struggling. So it’s a matter of being more aggressive with song-writing. Because it’s a really hard business to actually make a great living as a performer. It really just is.

Q: If you could make a living doing the singer-songwriter/small-club thing, would you want to, or do you have rock-arena aspirations?

A: I look at the big folkies like Cliff Eberhardt and Greg Brown, and they really have a set circuit that they do, and it’s pretty regular, and they do it every year, and it almost appears to be like a job that they can count on. And I guess I’ve tended to shy away from going that route, even if I could. I think I’m at a stage where I could probably build that sort of life within the next year or two pretty comfortably. I think I have higher aspirations in terms of playing in front of larger audiences, with a band, but that also is a choice. It’s also a lifestyle choice; I’m not sure that I really want to be driving around alone in my car across the country, gig to gig, and living most of my life on the road. It’s a lifestyle choice, and I realize that you really have to decide how you want your life to look. And do I want to be away from home, wherever home is? And I think the answer is no. At this point in my life, I’m really starting to actually want to build a life and be there.

Q: How’s the tour going so far?

A: It’s good. I feel like I’m actually just at the beginning of it. [The shows have] been mixed: kind of a songwriters’ circle that BMI sponsored, that was really great, actually; a lot of attentive people and people buying CDs, and that was great. And then I played to a room with 10 people. It’s a little bit of everything.

Q: How do you get psyched up for a performance when there are only 10 people in the room?

A: You find one person that’s into it and focus on them. You try to just focus on playing the songs for the reason you wrote them, if at all possible.

Q: Have you had shows where you just can’t get the energy up?

A: Yeah, that’s been hard a little bit, because sometimes you — not depend on, but you incorporate the audience’s energy, and if there’s not a lot coming out from them, because there’s so few of them ... it’s kind of like a dynamic that happens, it’s not just all coming from you on stage, so if you’re feeling like there’s not much coming back, it’s kind of hard to get the energy flow going. So you just try to close your eyes and sing.

Q: You’re living near New York now, but you’ve lived in Boston and your family is here. How do you think those two cities differ in terms of what they can offer up-and-coming musicians?

A: I think [in] New York [it’s] a lot harder to get any attention for real. I did pretty well in terms of being able to fill pretty cool clubs, but there’s just so much going on. I know this is an obvious thing to say, but there’s so much going on that it’s really hard to flourish there. And people’s attention spans just seem to be so small. And it’s hard to have real moments on stage and with the audience. Everything’s just moving too fast; no one’s really slowing down enough to really appreciate. And it’s kind of unfortunate. I feel like Boston is just more spacious. It feels like there’s more patience. The papers certainly have been very supportive of me. There’s just too much competition in New York, no matter how good you are or whatever. It’s just too hard. And it’s also very expensive to play in New York because you don’t get compensated very well.

Q: So what are you doing there?

A: Well, that’s a good question. I have seriously been thinking about moving to Boston in the fall. I think that I may end up doing that. I moved [to New York] because I was living in Western Massachusetts, in Northampton, and I felt it was time to leave; I was there for nine years after college, and it was a little too incestuous, and I was doing really well in that area. I thought that I was going to go and meet some more producer-types, and I did, actually, and I don’t regret doing that, but I think after five years ... it’s just time. It might just be time.

Q: Talk to me about Lilith Fair. I assume it was one of those defining moments?

A: Yeah, it was a real affirmation and real, sort of, official recognition, somebody else telling me, "You’re good enough to do this." It was a competition that I won. It was an amazing day. There was a lot of support from Sarah [McLachlan] individually; she wrote notes to all the newcomers and left them in the trailers and invited us to come up on stage. Full access to pretty much anybody I wanted to talk to. Because I was the first act of the day, I didn’t play in front of many people. It was almost surreal, because for one day, I lived the life that I felt like I wanted. I was still working a day job, so the day before I was at the computer all day, and then I had this amazing experience. And then the tour buses took off, and I was literally left standing in the dust.

Q: In your press materials, there’s a quote that says that if Tom Petty and Sarah McLachlan had a baby, you’d be it. But which musical parents would you choose for yourself?

A: Sheryl Crow. I think she’s amazing. I respect what she does, I think she’s an incredible writer, an incredible everything. So Sheryl Crow would probably be my mother. Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow are almost too similar, but I think as far as a male songwriter, figure, rocker, whatever, he’s definitely right up there for me.

Q: Do you have a most embarrassing on-stage moment?

A: Probably falling backwards into a drum set. This was back in my early 20s, when I was drinking more than I am now. That was a little while ago, when I was a little bit more careless.

Q: Do you feel like you’re on the cusp of something really big?

A: No. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like I’m going to be successful. But I think I’ve come to realize that there is no anything big. It’s a daily process. Something big would be like suddenly getting a huge smash hit on the radio, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen for me. I feel like I’m on the cusp of ... I’m closer than ever to being in a position to really push. Mostly because of this record. It’s changed everything, career-wise, in terms of being taken seriously, feeling like I’ve finally got stuff down on tape that sounds like me. So yes, I feel like that’s made me more ready, but I don’t feel like, wow, things might explode at any moment. It’s a daily grind. But I do feel like I’m more ready to push.

Amy Fairchild plays a residency on July 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30 at Toad, 1912 Mass Ave, in Cambridge. Call (617) 497-4950. Visit her Web site at www.amyfairchild.com. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com