Shauna Sweeney, a singer-songwriter who traveled the country. (Courtesy shaunasweeney.com)

Teenagers are often natural wanderers, and Lantana-based singer/songwriter Shauna Sweeney (shaunasweeney.com) was no exception. By age 17, the Vermont native had moved to Connecticut, Fort Lauderdale and Boston (to attend Emerson College after receiving a scholarship). When Beantown’s music scene inspired her more than her studies, the road beckoned again, landing her in Orlando, Chicago and Europe before her latest relocations.

“I’ve been in Boca Raton, Stuart and Lantana, all in the past year,” says Sweeney, now 24. “I started playing live in the Fort Lauderdale area when I was 15, but now that I’m playing so much in Lake Worth and Lantana, I’ve noticed how excited people are to have live music around here. But I’m still always ready to jump on a bus and go on tour.”

With her recent debut EP, Cliff Jumping, she has the ammunition and incentive. Produced by Keith Michaud, the singer/songwriter for area band Summer Blanket, the disc features radio-ready pop tunes like Another Day and the title track. The self-taught Sweeney, who says she learned to play through the “school of life,” doubles on acoustic guitar and the African djembe drum. Her strong voice was also fueled by the forward-thinking grade school she attended in West Hartford, Conn. By age 9, she’d published and recorded three songs there, one the theme song for a public television documentary.

Many lead singers aren’t as good as backing vocalists, but Sweeney is an exception. In her duo with another singer/songwriter, Jason Montero, she sings lead on her own compositions and switches between backing and lead, plus guitar and djembe, on unorthodox covers like Men at Work’s Overkill and KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree. On the latter, Sweeney also recently used pedals to loop multiple guitar parts after Montero broke a string, thickening the sound before he and his repaired guitar were able to return.

See Shauna Sweeney solo from 9-11 p.m. Fridays at Bizaare Avenue Cafe, 921 Lake Ave., Lake Worth (561) 588-4488, and with Jason Montero from 3-8 p.m. Sundays at the Old Key Lime House, 300 E. Ocean Ave., Lantana, (561) 582-1889, and 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Wednesdays at Lake Worth Rum Shack, 606 Lake Ave., Lake Worth, (561) 588-2929.