Sondre Lerche couldn’t have asked for a better start to his music career. At 14 years old, the Norwegian singer made his debut in a club where his sister worked. At 17, he signed to Virgin Records.

When Lerche was 19, his first album was released and his second at 21.

Now 22, the musician is known for his mix of ’60s lush-pop, Beach Boys-inspired harmonies and instrumental orchestrations. He is an accomplished and experienced performer who can admit that it takes the help of others to get where you want to be.

“Growing up in Bergen [Norway], I’ve always been surrounded by extremely talented people who [have shown] a great interest and appreciation of what I do,” Lerche says. “That makes you kind of secure of yourself before you’re exposed to the record business and to the rest of the world.”

Although he had many people who gave advice and helped him along the way, Lerche says he knew he wanted to be in music by the time he was 10 years old. It didn’t take any other band or person to make him realize that.

“I think I just had an intuition,” Lerche says. “At first, I just felt I wanted to learn to play an instrument, so I started taking guitar lessons. Once I started getting into playing guitar and I started taking it seriously, I just instinctively wanted to use the instrument in order to create something.”

That intuition has taken Lerche a long way. Traveling on a tour that encompasses nearly 40 cities, Lerche will stop in Ames with Kansas City band The Golden Republic.

Lerche says he met the group two years ago when they were both on tour with Nada Surf. Even though Lerche is on a solo tour, he says the band will back him on a few of his songs.

“When we were discussing doing this tour where [The Golden Republic] would open up for me, it just felt natural that we would try to do something together,” Lerche says. “So now on this tour, I’m doing a lot of my solo stuff, and then at the end of the show, we do some of my rock songs together.”

Lerche says every night differs in terms of how he feels about his performance.

“On a good night there is an intuition that you kind of master that gives you a feel of control and a feel of not thinking and just doing,” Lerche says. “On bad nights you think too much and you catch your thoughts drifting away to other subjects.”

Lerche also says many times, the crowd’s reaction is a surprise to him.

“Often when I feel that the show was bad and I didn’t appreciate it as much as I would like to and I didn’t really connect as much …, when I meet the audience afterwards, they have a totally different opinion,” Lerche says. “It is really uplifting when you feel that it wasn’t really how you wanted it to be and you meet the audience and it was exactly how they wanted it to be. You just have to appreciate that.”

Who: Sondre Lerche, The Golden Republic

Where: M-Shop

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Cost: $14 student, $17 public