Jessica Willis Fisher opens up new love, old wounds, and painful realities of her past: 'I'm dying inside.'

Jessica Willis Fisher puts on another great show.

And as he left the stage with his family members, The Willis Clan, the angelic-voiced violinist was immediately surrounded by praise from his fans.

"I place people coming up to me after the show and saying, 'I want to be a part of your family,'" Fischer, now 30, recalled in an interview with PEOPLE. "Our music inspires them and makes them feel good. But then I died inside. There is a difference between what I feel and what makes people believe what I feel."

The family's happiness on shows like TLC's Willis Family and America Have NBC Talent is just part of Fisher and the siblings' lives. Unfortunately, things happened that the camera didn't see, and Fisher's father, Toby Willis, was eventually arrested and jailed on sexual assault charges.

"I remember filling my journal and notebook with the pain of what I was going through," Fisher recalls. "I've just been through some things that I couldn't handle any other way. Or even survive.

He took a deep breath.

"I'm reading these journals right now, and I see 13-year-old Jess looking at them all but not knowing what to do with them. But now I'm doing it."

He went and turned his pain into a musical masterpiece.

"I lived every word of this album," Fisher said of her new debut solo album, Brand New Day, for which she wrote eight of the album's ten songs, some of which she began writing more than a decade ago. "I wrote these songs because I needed them. However, the singer, who has always lived on in his heart, admits that he mixed a bit of fiction with a bit of truth to create something that evokes emotion, spurred on by songs from albums like the upcoming Fire Song, The Lucky One and "My Story."

"This music comes straight from your veins," says Fisher, who has long drawn inspiration from artists such as Alison Kraus and Jason Isbell. "It's risky to open up like that, and I feel very vulnerable when I do, but the payoff is huge when someone feels seen listening to these songs. I'm happy to take that risk. I've learned that every day is a whole new day."