Amber Lawrence's big year gets busier

Amber Lawrence is one of the bright lights of Australian country music, winning the 2015 Golden Guitar for Female Artist of the Year. Late last year she released a new album, Happy Ever After, and since then she's written and recorded Our Backyard, an EP with fellow Golden Guitar winner Travis Collins, ahead of their tour starting this week. She's packed in more this year besides - as I found out when I spoke to her recently about what's behind and what's ahead, including the Gympie Music Muster.

There never seems to be a dull moment in your life or career, so since Happy Ever After was released, what have been the highlights?

Since Happy Ever After, which was only September last year, the biggest highlight has been … well, there’s two now since [In Our Backyard] has been going so great. But singing in America, in New York, on the USS Intrepid in May, a song that I wrote called ‘100 Year Handshake’, and the guests of honour being [US President] Donald Trump, [Australian prime minister] Malcolm Turnbull and surviving Coral Sea Battle veterans. It was just me and my guitar standing on a stage in a silent room of 800 people, singing a song that I’d written specifically for the night. So that was kind of validation that, ‘Hey, maybe I’m okay at this job’ [laughs].

You often play with a band, but of course you are used to playing on your own with a guitar – was it really nerve wracking to be out there on your own?

The whole event was just so grand. The President of the United States was there so the Secret Service was everywhere, security – we obviously had to get cleared before it to even be able to go to it. Metal detectors, all that kind of stuff. Very important people in the room – in addition to that there was Rupert Murdoch, Greg Norman and John Travolta. Endless lists of people. So I actually didn’t get nervous. Because it was silent and they were all looking at me, I thought, You cannot get nervous right now. You cannot stuff this up. Sing it properly! It was like this reverse psychology: You have no option now – do it properly. I don’t know if I could bottle that advice or nerve cure but it kind of worked for me in the moment. Beccy Cole was there too and she said, ‘Are you nervous?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And it was weird because I was nervous in the days leading up to it but when I got there just the huge momentousness of it made me think, You’ve just got to be good at this.

Writing a song specifically for that event, do you find it’s really helpful to have that sort of targeted project to do – does it help you channel your creativity? Or is it trickier because you have those constraints?

For me, it was easier. I really loved the challenge of that, actually, and I’ve been doing a lot of that lately – writing school theme songs, songs for tourism, songs for Western Sydney campaign, and then this one came along. I just find it really interesting because this one being a song about Australia and America’s friendship, I was nervous about writing it because it’s a big thing to write. The climate – with a new president and the prime minister and all that – I had to be writing it for the right reasons otherwise people are going to say, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ So I did a lot of research, and my partner, he’s a bit of a history buff so he helped research with me and helped come up with some of the angles for the song. So we just took it to a personal place. Rather than saying this big, grand statement about American and Australian friendship, we looked at what are the things that have shown that. One of them was a man called Leslie Allen, a 26-year-old in 1943, who saved or carried twelve wounded American solders off Mount Tambu. He just kept running back into battle, dragging them out, and saved their lives. He got a Silver Star for it. He was Australian and they were American, and I thought, There’s my first example of Australian-American friendship. Then I thought about Apollo 11 and how Australia was pretty instrumental in getting the pictures to the rest of the world, out at Honeysuckle Creek, and Parkes obviously. And then the war brides were another example. I didn’t delve into really big things like ‘we’ve stood by each other in war’. That’s not who I am. I don’t make grand political statements, I make smaller statements that symbolise. It was really fun to write and send up the chain and get approval for it. [There was] ‘could you just change this word’ or ‘maybe that thing’, but on the whole the song was really embraced by the important people in America. It’s recorded now and you can buy it on iTunes or hard copy. So that’s been the highlight out of everything, but now this new project with Travis is becoming my new highlight.

You were talking about not making the big statements and making smaller statements, but I think it’s also the case that when you make a personal statement, even when it’s someone else’s story, if you’re telling it authentically and with emotion, that makes it more likely that everyone will relate than if you were making a big statement. So leading into the song with Travis and the EP, listening to that song, that’s cataloguing a whole lot of experiences that people can relate to. You’ve known Travis for a while, but how did this collaboration start?

We have been good friends for thirteen years now – we met in 2004. When I was deciding last year what to do this year for touring, I planned the tour with Catherine Britt and then thought, well, there’s going to be some time left in the year. We revisited the idea of touring with Travis, because we did it eight years ago. My manager and Travis’s manager are good friends, and they got on the phone and discussed us touring later this year. And I think just as a throwaway they said, ‘They should release an album together.’ They came back to us with the idea and both Travis and I said, ‘Yeah, why not? But here’s the thing: we’re not singing covers. We’re not singing songs other people have written. We’re writing the songs.’ So we basically arrived home from Tamworth in February this year and we had about eight co-writing sessions. We were both exhausted from a huge festival, and Travis won all those awards. So it was possible at that point that we’d say, ‘We’re too tired to write this, let’s not worry about recording.’ But we were both really determined. We wrote five songs together, and then two of the other songs on the EP are one that I’d written by myself and one that he’d written by himself. But this song, ‘Our Backyard’, came about because I went to Silverton in mid-Feb this year to go and visit Catherine Britt. And, of course, the thing you do is go and visit the Silverton sunset. We drove to the highest point in Silverton and watched the sunset, and there is nothing like it, so I wrote that down in my songwriting book. And then when [Travis and I] sat down together to write the song, I said, ‘What about this idea?’ I live in a beautiful part of the world – I live near the beach – and every time I go walking, I think, If I was overseas and I saw this, I’d say, ‘This is amazing’, but because it’s in our own backyard we just neglect to think it’s any good. Same with the Silverton sunset. We both travel so much in Australia – as well as overseas – that it was a song that was really easy to identify with. We put all those experiences overseas in and most of them I’ve done, most of them Travis has done, so together we’ve done them all, but there’s nothing like being home.

It’s a really terrific song, and apart from the lyrics being spot on it’s got a great, catchy sound

to it. So I’m sure it will do very well – it sounds like it is already. But touring the EP – I do love that you said you looked at the second half of the year and thought, I could fit in something there, when a lot of people might have thought they could fit in a rest. So to tour – when you go to plan something like that, how do you pick your venues?

We get that question all the time because people say to us, ‘Why don’t you come to our town? I can’t believe you went to the town an hour up the road when this town was better.’ We don’t really pick them. It’s a juggling act of time – we might have wanted to go to Albury on the Saturday night but they had someone else already booked so we had to go to Corowa an hour down the road. And then we’ll get everyone online saying, ‘Why did you pick that town?’ It’s because it’s really hard to fit timing, and who wants the show. It’s not just a matter of us wanting to do a show there but the venue and the town have to want us as well.

You had the writing process together and then you had the recording process – was there any argy-bargy about who got to sing lead on songs?

[Laughs] No, not really. We were both juggling different touring schedules so we weren’t in the studio the whole time together. I’d say, ‘I’ll leave that for Travis to do and I’ll be back tomorrow. He’ll finish it tonight.’ So no arguments – we left all the hard decisions up to the producer.

When I saw the announcement about the EP I thought, That is a great idea, those two working together. I imagine you’ll have people turning up to your shows also thinking it’s a great idea.

It’s great because we have really different fans as well, so it will be great crossing them over. Some of Travis’s fans have never heard of me and vice versa, and those who know us both can think, Great, two for the price of one!

Will you do a set each and then some songs together, or will the whole set be together?

I think we’ll do a set each and then the whole EP, seven tracks of the EP together, and probably finish on ‘Our Backyard’ – it seems like it’s a bit of a finale song.

And that’s a good evening’s entertainment, I have to say, to get that much music.

[Laughs] Be prepared to have a late night.

Of course, you are also heading to the Gympie Muster and I notice that you were put on the bill first for your normal show and then your kids show was added – what prompted you to add it?

I suggested it to the Muster a long time ago, that I’d be happy to do a kids show while I was there. There are families there and I think in the morning the kids are up – they’ve been up for hours – and what’s to do? The music’s not starting. Some of the singer-songwriter tents maybe the kids are a bit bored. So I thought let’s do a kids show. The Kid’s Gone Country is interactive – they learn to dance, they sing along, we learn their names, get them up on stage. But adults are allowed to come as well.

Are there any technical considerations for you in terms of your voice? If you’re used to singing later in the day, sometimes voices take a while to warm up – so for a morning show, is there anything you have to do?

Yes, you probably should prepare – not like a hard rocker, don’t stay up till 2 a.m. drinking whisky if you’re going to do a kids show. But my voice works pretty well in the morning – it’s fairly match fit, I would call it. It doesn’t need too much to get fired up.

I imagine you’ve done a few Gympies now – what are you looking forward to about the Muster?

What I’m looking forward to is always the same: genuine country fans who just get out in the dust or the mud – whichever one it is, and it’s always one of them – and they sing along to your songs, and you get to meet them. And it’s historic for me, too, because it’s one of the first festivals I ever went to. They had me on back in 2005. I was pretty lucky as a young artist, just with an EP out, that they took me on. So it’s always been one of three or four favourites that I have. I love it. I just love the dust, the dirt, and it brings out your best performance when you’re out in the sticks. You’re out in the country and you’re a country singer, so it feels good.

I guess it’s a different energy to Tamworth, too, because in Tamworth you have these confined venues – you’re inside for a lot of it – whereas at Gympie everything’s outside. I imagine that wave of energy that would come from having a massive outside crowd would be different.

Definitely. I think I’ve played there maybe five or six times – every second or third year. I’ve played in the rain. I’ve been freezing. I’ve been sunburnt. I’ve been muddy. I’ve been rained out. I’ve been every single option. So every other festival where you’re inside, it’s nice and comfortable but you don’t get that kind of raw response from the crowd that you do at Gympie. I really don’t wish for rain, though – I wish for sun and dust. That’s the best option.

You do other sorts of work – you work with RSL Defence Care and Special Olympics, and you’re a Fight Stroke Advocate. My impression of your working life is that you have a lot of different things going on and you obviously manage your time very well, but these causes are close to you because you’ve been involved for a while. How did you get involved with each of those?

Fight Stroke – my dad had a stroke when he was forty. When I wrote the song ‘Lifesaver’, which is about that, I actually sent it to Stroke Foundation and said, ‘I have a really good reason to want to help you guys out.’ If Dad had had, I guess, what they had now – that’s thirty years ago nearly that he had a stroke – he wouldn’t have been left disabled the way he was, because they would have been able to get him to hospital and change things. He would have known to check his blood pressure. But he didn’t know any of that. So my reason for doing work with the Stroke Foundation is to help prevent via awareness. I do help raise money at times, but more spread the word. Get your blood pressure tested – that’s one of the highest-risk signs of it. One family might benefit from me saying, ‘Going get your blood pressure tested’, and find out that their dad or their mum was on the verge of having stroke and avoid what our family went through, which was really tough.

Defence Care asked me after I wrote a song called ‘The Man Across the Street’ to help spread the word and, again, it’s not so much raising funds for them as awareness. They do need some money, but they also need veterans – young veterans. You say the word ‘veteran’ and you’re thinking of sixty-, seventy-year-old men, but we’re talking about thirty-year-old men here, and women. For them to know that when they come home from war or the theatre, that there is someone to help them when they don’t know why they’re not feeling that great. No physical scars but ‘I can’t really get my life back on track’ or ‘my word has fallen apart’. There are organisations out there to call, and Defence Care is one of them.

And the Special Olympics?

I’ve been helping them for a long time, and that is more about fundraising. Just performing at their events. Those Special Olympics kids are Down syndrome and autistic young people who just absolutely have the most vigour and zest for life. I love performing with them – they all get up and dance with me. It’s awesome.

Looking ahead – you’ve packed a lot into this year already, and Tamworth will be upon us before we know it, so what are your Tamworth plans, and I would imagine you’re already looking to another album.

Yes, you’re right. This year is going to be taken up with Travis and I, and then I’ll do my show on Australia Day in January. I’m not sure about touring – I might have been everywhere. I might just have a little bit of time off [laughs] … Nah, I’m sure I won’t. I think I’ll work on another kids album as well as another adults album, but it’s still early days for [Happy Ever After] so I’ll probably go the kids album next, I think.

How do you organise your time with songwriting? Do you allocate time to write or just do it when you can?

I have to allocate time. I’m certainly not a ‘oh, inspiration’s just hit me, drop everything, I’ve got to write a song’. I write a song if I put it in my diary to write a song.

Amber Lawrence will be performing at Gympie Music Muster which is held 24 to 27 August at Amamoor Creek State Forest.  For further info visit www.muster.com.au

Happy Ever After is out now. 

You can also find '100 Year Handshake' on

www.amberlawrence.com.au

Album review: Happy Ever After by Amber Lawrence

Amber Lawrence does many things well, but there’s one thing in particular: on each of her albums she has produced at least one song guaranteed to make me cry every time I hear it, whether recorded or live. On 3 that song was ‘The Man Across the Street’; on Superheroes it was ‘The Lifesaver’, and on her latest album, Happy Ever After, it’s ‘The Lucky One’. There’s a reason Lawrence is able to do this: she writes and sings from an authentic place, and she is unabashed about showing sentiment and emotion. You get the sense that in conversation she wouldn’t be one for small talk – she would want to get right to the heart of a matter.

The songs on Happy Ever After address a range of experiences, not all of them positive. ‘Cheers to the Girls’ is an exhortation for girls (and women) to stand up for themselves in the face of others who try to crush them; on the track Lawrence is joined by Catherine Britt and Fanny Lumsden, with whom she’ll tour next year. ‘Drive By Breakup’ is about the shock ending of a relationship. And the bittersweet ‘The Lucky One’ is Lawrence acknowledging that despite sadness and loss, she has a lot to celebrate.

Happy Ever After is full of well-crafted country pop that will delight Lawrence’s fans and, hopefully, introduce her to new fans. One emotion that is common to the songs on this new album is joy – regardless of the subject matter, Lawrence sounds as if she loves what she does, and that makes listening to it a joyful experience. Lawrence deservedly won a Golden Guitar for Female Artist of the Year in 2016. She is a dedicated songwriter, performer and member of the country music community. These attributes don’t just make her worthy – they make her worthy of your time. And so does this lovely album. 

Happy Ever After is out now through Social Family Records.

www.amberlawrence.com.au

Single release: 'Happy Ever After' by Amber Lawrence

Amber Lawrence's fan base continues to grow, and that is no surprise: she consistently delivers great albums and she goes out of her way to connect with fans and support community organisations. Her songs are carefully crafted works full of emotion - and lovely melodies.

Ahead of the release of her new album, Happy Ever After, on 30 September 2016, Amber has released the title track as a single. You can watch the video below.




You can pre-order Happy Ever After on iTunes. 
www.amberlawrence.com.au

Jason Owen and Amber Lawrence are Islands in the Stream

Amber Lawrence is well known to Australian country music audiences, having released three albums and played regularly around the country, including at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, all while she's still in her twenties. Jason Owen is a newcomer, the 19-year-old runner-up of The X-Factor 2012 who hails from the country but doesn't stick strictly to country music. Now these two have come together to record and release their version of 'Islands in the Stream', the song made famous by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, and to embark on a five-month tour of the same name.

        As it turns out, this tour was to be Amber's alone. But while Jason was recording his new album, Life is a Highway, 'I said to the producer it would be really nice to do a duet,' he told me recently, 'and we needed to find a hit duet that had been out in the '70s/'80s/'90s.

'I sat down with my managers and they mentioned Amber Lawrence and that she was talking about doing a tour, and I said, "Well, what would be wrong with sending me on the road with her with my album and touring with her and maybe we could get together and do a duet, and maybe perform it?" and one thing led to another and I said, "What about 'Islands in the Stream'?" and they said, "That's a risky song to take on" … But we jumped in the studio and recorded it and the way it came up – it just has that country unique style about it and it has our own feel about it. And the tour is called the Islands in the Stream tour and we're pumped to get out on the road and perform it for everybody.'

As Amber tells it, 'I was looking for someone to tour with, and, you know, I've done so many different tours over the years and so many different combinations, and it's kind of almost like all the people in this industry that are established I've already toured with them … Jason came along just at the right time. So it was great, and it was something my manager was thinking of as well, and I've watched a bit of X-Factor and I'd actually voted once, only once, and it was for Jason.'

Amber believes that audiences are excited by the combination because 'they want to know what [Jason's] really like, and I've been around, so people kind of – you know, they know me, and I guess they want to see a new exciting show which this will be, so I'm excited.' And she is full of admiration for her touring buddy: 'He really hadn't done much before the TV show, and what an amazing achievement to have had virtually no experience, go on and sing like that, and come second in a competition.'

Before they headed out on tour, though, they recorded the single. I asked Jason about what that was like, given that he and Amber had not met before they decided to record a song together.

'We had an absolute ball,' he said. 'We've done a bit of a film clip for it too. We just had so much fun. Amber's a great girl … we just have so much fun together, it's great.'

        Amber says that she felt 'nervous' about recording the iconic song, 'but the more I get along in this career, I think, "Just go for it rather than say no to things because, oh, it could end up being bad".  I just think "Go for it, just give it your best", and I'm sure there are people who think, "Oh, [the song's] got nothing on the original", and, of course, the original is always the original, I don't think you can outdo any original song ever. You can do your version of it, and we kept it true to us as well, and it's just really fun to sing. Obviously the lyrics are a bit awkward, you know?' she says, laughing. 'But Jason's cool with singing them to me, so,' she says, still laughing, 'we're okay, we'll cope with the lyrics.'

        Before embarking on the longer tour, Jason and Amber played one date at Rooty Hill RSL in Sydney. They are sharing a band – Amber's – and, says Amber, 'there was a vocal rehearsal, but basically we stepped on the stage and both just had fun, and had a really good time – we've got the same performance vibe. The same wanting to have fun with the audience, wanting them to join us rather than be sung at. So there's a warmth to the show.'

        Jason agrees, saying that the Rooty Hill show was 'great, we had an absolute ball' and he sounds happy to be working with Amber's band, saying that they are 'great guys – really, really good musicians'. Amber says of Jason's interaction with the band, 'he didn't really have his own band, and he loves it. I think the first thing he said to the guys when he met them was, "So are you guys, like, fully be able to have a beer on tour".

Those musicians are flexible, too, when it comes to the set list – they have to be, by the sound of it, because Amber says, with a laugh, that she's 'already had two handwritten letters telling me the songs I need to play.' The letters came in the post, and 'that's a good thing,' she says, 'because lots of times via email I'm actually likely to forget … but the ones that are handwritten, I've got the old-fashioned diary, I pin them to that page of where the show is.'

So Amber and the band will change the set list as the requests come in and, she says, 'I'll do a bit some acoustic songs as well, just to give the band a bit of a break', given that they'll be playing almost a full set for her and a full set for Jason as well.

        Given  that Amber has toured before, there are certain expectations from her audience – namely, that she'll play particular songs, like 'The Man Across the Street'.

        'We haven't had any requests for that, but that's more the one that if I don't sing it, it'd be after the show people will be like, I can't believe you didn't sing "The Man Across the Street". So I will always sing that. It's good when you get to this point, you've got three albums to choose from, and it can make it hard, but I guess it gives a bit of variety, too.'

        Choosing songs can be a process of trial and error. Amber says that during a big tour with Adam Harvey, 'every few weeks we tried sets of new songs that we thought were our new favourites, but generally you go back to the ones that work, even if they're your favourites.  If they don't help you win the audience over, you've got to get back to the ones that weren't.  But so often your favourites are the audiences' favourites.'

        Amber is also at the point in her career when she has to strike the delicate, and sometimes difficult, balance between playing old material and new.

        'You do want to play new songs because that's fun for you, but again, even if [the audience] like it, then they can't take it home with them anyway, so they come up and say, "Oh, I really loved that song", and [I say], "Oh, no, we haven't recorded it yet". So it's kind of useless to play it.  I'll only really play new songs at venues where I've played a lot.  So where people might say, "Come on, play something new, we just saw you."  But pretty much this tour it's going to be all the stuff from the albums.

        The other aspect of touring is the other activities that take place around it. As Jason says, 'It definitely takes a lot of time. We have radio interviews, newspaper interviews, photo shoots, video clips, we're writing songs, we're on the road, we're touring – everything just happens at once. It's a very, very busy lifestyle. But in saying that, your music and your fans are absolutely everything to your career. If you don't have your music and your fans, and perform your music for your fans, your career will go down the drain. The main thing for us to do is tour our music, sing our music for our fans, and to make your fans happy, to perform and do what you love to do is the goal – the rest of it just comes with the career and you find other time for that. The tour is a very important thing to do – you get out and meet your fans, it makes them happy, it makes us happy.'

        And that sounds like the best possible reason of all to go on tour! When I ask Jason if there's one place he's especially looking forward to playing, he says, 'Dubbo will be a big one –  being my area. Coming back here on the show [X-Factor] with Mel B was amazing. So I really think that could be a big one. I reckon Bathurst could be big. So I'm really looking forward to coming back this way, especially for my supporters on X-Factor. I had a hell of a lot of support from around here. So I can't wait to perform for these guys – that's the place I'm most looking forward to, being back out in my home area and thanking everyone.'

To see Amber Lawrence and Jason Owen on tour, scroll down for dates and booking details. And in the coming days I'll post more from each of these artists separately.

Thursday 1st August 2013

Bathurst Panthers, BATHURST NSW

http://bathurst.panthers.com.au | (02) 6330 0600

Friday 2nd August 2013

Orange Ex-Services Club, ORANGE NSW

www.oesc.com.au | (02) 6362 2666

Saturday 3rd August 2013

Dubbo RSL Club, DUBBO NSW

www.dubborsl.com.au | (02) 6882 4411

Friday 9th August 2013

Hallam Hotel, HALLAM VIC

www.ticketmaster.com.au | www.hallamhotel.com.au | (03) 8786 0200

Saturday 10th August 2013

Commercial Hotel, SOUTH MORANG VIC

www.thecommercialhotellounge.com.au | (03) 9407 1082

Friday 16th August 2013

Gateway Hotel, CORIO VIC

www.ticketmaster.com.au | www.thegatewayhotel.com.au | (03) 5275 1091

Saturday 18th August 2013

Lighthouse Theatre, WARRNAMBOOL VIC

www.lighthousetheatre.com.au | (03) 5559 4999

Saturday 31st August 2013

Caloundra RSL, CALOUNDRA QLD

www.caloundrarsl.com.au | (07) 5438 5800

Sunday 1st September 2013

Toowoomba City Golf Club, TOOWOOMBA QLD

www.citygolf.com.au | (07) 4636 9000

Saturday 7th September 2013

Canberra Southern Cross Club, WODEN ACT

www.cscc.com.au | (02) 6283 7288

Friday 22nd November 2013

Kedron-Wavell Services Club, BRISBANE QLD

www.kedron-wavell.com.au | (07) 3359 9829

Saturday 23rd November 2013

Twin Towns Ex-Services Club, TWEED HEADS NSW

www.twintowns.com.au | 1800 014 014

More dates to be announced in coming weeks

www.amberlawrence.com.au | www.jasonowenofficial.com

www.facebook.com/amberlawrencemusic | www.facebook.com/JasonOwenOfficial

https://twitter.com/amberlawrence | https://twitter.com/jasonowen070

Interview: Amber Lawrence

Amber Lawrence is one of the rising stars - in fact, risen stars - of Australian country music. A great singer, songwriter and performer, Amber has won fans all over the country, and nowhere more so than in Tamworth, where she'll be performing again in January 2013. Before that, though, she's playing two last shows for 2012, in Canberra (16 November at Canberra Casino) and Sydney (24 November at Lizotte's Dee Why). Recently I spoke to her about the shows; about Luke O'Shea, who is joining her on those shows; audiences, and songwriting.

You’re going on tour with Luke O’Shea so I thought I’d ask you how that line up came about - how you chose to have Luke playing those gigs with you?

Luke and I have just been really good friends, probably for about five years. We’re both from Sydney but we didn’t meet through coming from the same town – we met in Mildura, actually, at the country music festival there. And we’ve got the same sense of humour and we really bounce off each other on stage and we’ve done a lot of writers-in-the-round kind of gigs together, where he pays me out and then is surprised when he gets as good as he gives, occasionally. And I am actually a really big fan of his music. I think not only is he underestimated; I think he underestimates himself as well. So we’ve been talking a lot and just decided to work hard together and really try, as independent artists – I mean, I’m not independent at the moment but I still have that independent mentality of really just pushing it all as hard as you can yourself. So we thought, yeah, let’s go out and do some stuff together this year and see if we can take it into next year as well.

And so will you play separate sets – well, obviously you’ll play separate sets but will you play a few songs together?

Definitely. Actually, I have a song on my album, ‘My Attraction’, which I did with Axel Whitehead. But Axel couldn’t make the album launch back in February this year and so I invited Luke O’Shea to come and sing that. And he took it to a place I couldn’t have imagined it, really [laughs]/

 [Laughs] That sounds extremely interesting.

Yeah. People are still talking about the album launch and Luke O’Shea performed – he really interpreted every lyric [laughs].

Given that it’s called ‘My Attraction’, I can only imagine how that played out.

It was very funny. So we’ll be singing that, then we’ll do ‘New England Sky’, his duet with Dianna Corcoran, and we’ll do one or two more classic country songs as well. Just some old-style stuff that’s really nice – fun to sing. With Luke, everyone knows he’s a larrikin and people know I like to have fun as well, so that’s going to be the vibe of these shows – is just a laugh, really – a good laugh [laughs].

And you probably need a good laugh, in that you’ve spent most of the year touring and it’s a lot of shows. I guess some people would think, oh, well, you know, you’re just getting up on stage and it’s only a couple of hours a night, but it’s a lot of energy and it’s a lot of travelling. So I was wondering how you maintain your enthusiasm and your energy over the course of a year, like the one you’ve just had.

Yeah, actually it is starting to – it is at that point where now, I’m quite tired and thinking, wow, that was a big year. I had a great opportunity and then every day was a really great adventure, I suppose. And it is tiring touring, because you go to bed at the very earliest midnight, but it’s usually 1 a.m., and then you never sleep in because you’ve got to drive to the next town. I don’t know how you maintain energy. I mean, I think the crucial part for me was I didn’t get sick all year; I waited ’til holidays – I went on holidays [laughs]. 

[Laughs] How convenient.

Oh, I know. It’s just how it happens, isn’t it? I think that’s the crucial thing, if you can stay well then you can find the energy. The minute the lights turn on on stage, I think for most performances, you don’t even know that you’re tired; you don’t know if you’re hungry or thirsty, you’re tired or even sick sometimes. Once you walk on stage, all that stuff is gone because you’re concentrating on the show. So, for me, that was the year and I packed a lot in as well. I sang at about 30 or 40 schools whilst I was on tour during the year. So during the days I would go and sing at schools and – I just hung on. I was very lucky I didn’t get sick, so I think that was the key to keeping – to maintaining sanity throughout the year. And they’re a good bunch of people as well.

I was about to ask you about the schools and since you’ve raised it, I was wondering if kids are a demanding audience?

Demanding, oh, yeah. The energy that’s required to do a kids show is insane because they are – they’re like, okay, come on, entertain us [laughs]. They give a lot back though, so once you’ve got them, you do feel like you’re One Direction doing a concert. The screams and the love that they give you, and they all want a hug and they all want an autograph. And so, the schools absolutely exhaust you but they send you out on a high as well, so I love playing schools. I have an unusual amount of kids that like to come to my concerts and I guess it’s probably because I’ve done a lot of schools over the time. But maybe it’s because I like to dance and jump around on stage or something like that [laughs].

I’ve seen some kids – some, not a huge amount – but some kids at The McClymonts as well and it’s one of the really beautiful things about country music –it really spans all ages of people. It’s not every performer but you and The McClymonts, I think it is that upbeat thing and parents feel like they can bring their kids, the music’s going to be suitable for them.  And they have fun, it’s just – it’s really lovely.

Yes. And I know none of my songs are inappropriate for children at all, really. I mean, if you wanted to read into ‘My Attraction’ or something, sure, you could say it’s not appropriate for kids [laughs]. But really, on a first listen, there’s no songs that parents would go, ‘I can’t play this to my kids’. And even when I’m at the schools, they’re like, ‘Oh, can we check your lyrics?’ I say, ‘It’s all right, it’s all above board, I’m a country singer, it’s all clean’ [laughs].

Because you never know who’s going to turn up to your gigs, and in Tamworth because so many of the gigs are free, you really could get anyone.

That’s right. You never know who’s in the audience ever, that’s the one thing. And, yeah, I do hate it when people say, ‘Oh, I saw you seven years ago at such and such’, I think, ‘Oh, no, seven years ago’ [laughs] –

[Laughs] ‘Seven years ago, when I was 12’.

Yeah, right [laughs].

I do also think that longevity that artists can have – because audiences are willing to give new artists a go and so therefore, when you’re an artist building a career, you’re more likely to actually have people come and say, I first saw you when you first started playing.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, look, it’s so nice when people say that and if they’re wearing this T-shirt – the very first T-shirt I ever release, ‘I’ve got the blues’, that song and that T-shirt – and you’re like, wow. And they do, they feel like they’ve become part of your life and they’ve followed you and it’s really flattering and amazing. And also, sometimes the demographic of country music too is that there – a lot of my fans are my parents’ age and they do actually treat me like I’m their daughter and it’s so nice, they look out for me and they’re, like, ‘You’re not driving to that next gig by yourself, are you?’ [laughs] All that kind of stuff.  I feel a lot of love in this job.

So do you do a lot of your gigs solo without a band and, therefore, drive yourself between them?

Well, there’s been a lot of that. This year I was on the road with Adam [Harvey] and we had the band – and I played with the band. But I think too, because I’ve been off doing other stuff in the meantime and promotional stuff at schools, that I would just take my own car anyway and get to the gigs by myself. So I do drive a lot by myself and I don’t mind that actually – you know, it clears the mind and gives you lots of songwriting ideas.

And some singing practice, I would think.

Yeah [laughs]. Well, sometimes you just get in the car and you want no noise after a gig – no noise.

I was just thinking, when you said earlier about how if you’re lucky you get to bed at midnight – even then, you’re finishing work for the day at, what, 11 o’clock at night and for anyone else, if we’re finishing work at, say, 5 or 6, there’s no way you go home and go straight to bed.

[Laughs] That’s right. Yeah, you don’t. It’s pretty rare that you go to bed straight after a gig. Yeah, you’ve usually got to drive for a couple of hours or you’ve got to sit back at the motel with the band and dissect the gig and the music industry.

I’d like to talk a little bit about your songwriting and your songs. A lot of country music songwriters are either confessional or storytelling and you seem to fall into the storytelling game. Obviously quite a lot of the stories are not about you, so I was wondering if you find those stories as you travel around and meet people and play gigs?

Yeah, actually, I have – probably less so on the albums thus far, because I use a lot of my own stories or family stories. But that’s running out, so this tour, actually, lots of people came up to me and – you know, beautiful – a couple of touching moments – a family went out to the car and got the eulogy book from their daughter’s funeral – she was only 19 when she died, and, you know, they tell me these stories about their children. Another man emailed me about his beautiful son Max that drowned on their family farm and so there are people – they want their stories told and it’s really beautiful when they come up to you at the end and think that you might be able to be that person that tells their story. So I guess it’s a bit of a burden in a way as well, because I do want to tell their stories, but it’s sometimes hard to do. But I’ve got this folder of these emails and little stories or newspaper articles that people give to me and I definitely – once I start writing for this next album, that’s where I’ll head.

I can certainly understand how it would be a burden – unless you’re not human and don’t have emotions, it’d be really hard to not take on a lot of that and to feel that responsibility, that I know a lot of country music artists have, which is that connection with the audience, which seems to be so much stronger than in other genres. And one of the reasons why the genre works, is that connection. But it is a big responsibility.

Yeah, it is.  And you can’t keep telling sad stories all the time either. But most people come up and say, ‘Look, you probably won’t be able to do it but if you can write something’, and maybe just them sharing their story too is part of it as well. I just feel honoured that they would think to share it with me, so if I can write a song about it that does it justice, then I will. But if I can’t, I still will – am just touched that they’ve shared that with me.

So it sounds like you’re gearing up to write a new album – what are the plans there?

The plan is to – I have to switch that other side of the brain back on, actually [laughs]. That hasn’t happened yet. I haven’t’ written a song all year, haven’t even gone close. It’s just been too busy and, I guess, just in a different frame of mind and I’m more a kind of task songwriter, like, sit down to write a song rather than, ‘Oh, it’s just hit me, I’m going to write it’. So I’ve got to clear that space out in my life to tap back into the creative stuff. Hopefully once November’s finished, when all the shows finish for the year, I’ll be back, creative and writing. And it’ll be interesting to write again since I haven’t done it for a year.

And when you say your shows are finished for the year, Tamworth will come hot on the heels of that.

I know [laughs].

You’ve obviously planned your shows for Tamworth already?

Yes. This year, just one show, and it’s at the Blazes Showroom at West Leagues. So it’s a bit scary, it’s a big room, got a lot of tickets to sell but I’m just really looking forward to it, actually. Got my band all booked in and we’ve been working together for the whole year, so we know what we’re doing. And Tamworth’s a lot of fun and the fans are all there – the tickets went on sale last night, actually, so it’s all going well.

You say it’s a big room but I think the people at West Leagues aren’t fools, so they wouldn’t book artists into that showroom if they didn’t think they could fill the room [laughs].

[Laughs] Fingers crossed. Yeah, I hate sleepless nights hoping that tickets sell, that’s the worst part of the job, waking up at 3 a.m. [laughs]

I do think that’s a badge of honour for Tamworth, when you get to play that particular venue.

Yeah, I’m absolutely blown away that I’m doing that this year and you look back at when you started out and you think, ‘Oh, god, I want to be in there one day’. So, I’m in there this year, so things are still going well.

I actually just wanted to ask one more question about your song writing – on some songs you worked with co-writers and so I was wondering what that process is like for you to have your ideas then worked on by others? And whether you sometimes sit back and think, ‘Hmmm ...’

Well, it’s gotten a lot better.  I didn’t co-write much on the first or second album because actually I wasn’t that good at it, so I would go and – well, probably wouldn’t even go in with very good ideas and so I would come out with songs that I didn’t like or I’d think, ‘Well, that’s not anything like I’d ever sing’. So, the third album I actually realised, ‘Hang on a minute, I’ve got to take control in these co-writing sessions’. And so I went in with the hook of the song or the title of the song or what I wanted to write about, and I wasn’t going to come out of that without that being my song. So I think it was just having a bit more – well, confidence was actually the thing that I had much more of on this third album, it was like I can actually go into a co-writing session and go, ‘Nope, yeah, that doesn’t work, this works. No, that’s not me, I’m not going to sing that.’ Whereas, before I would just say, ‘Okay, yeah, that sounds good’. And it was more a musical co-write, I think, on this third album. Lyrically it was my direction but musically I was happy to let them take it somewhere I wouldn’t have taken it. You know, you sit on a guitar and you just play the same chords over and over, so I wanted something different, so – yeah, I think that’s why it didn’t feel like I was losing any substance of my own songs – my own self in them – because I had a much better idea of what I was doing.

Well, it is your album and to an extent, one – well, I mean, the term ‘brand’ gets used a lot but it is your personal brand and your audience expects Amber Lawrence songs.

Yep, exactly.

I think that’s completely reasonable and wise to take charge.

Yeah. And I think co-writers who do it for a living, and they’re good, understand that and they know, ‘We’re here to write your song today’. The co-writer doesn’t want to come out with a song that they’d sing, they want to make some money by getting a song on your album. So if everyone’s on that – if you walk in there knowing that, then it’s going to be successful, usually.

Well, I think it’s worked so far for you.

Yeah, yeah, it has.

Amber's tour dates:

Friday 16 November, Canberra Casino

Saturday 24 November, Lizotte's Dee Why (Sydney)

In Tamworth: Thursday 24 January, West Leagues, Blazes Showroom

Full details: www.amberlawrence.com.au