Amber Lawrence and I have one thing in common.

We both used to work for an airline, and we both ended up in the music business – albeit in different parts of it.

But the singer’s story – told through her new record, Suburban Cowgirl – is far more interesting than mine. And it goes something like this.

PART 278 OF “AM I EVER GONNA SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN?” A RANDOM COLLECTION OF UNKNOWINGLY OBVIOUS FACTS ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN MUSIC SCENE

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Twenty-one years ago, a girl from Mascot in Sydney quit her job at Australia’s national carrier, Qantas. Then she drove to Tamworth (Australian country music’s capital) and decided she was going to be a singer. Nobody told her she couldn’t, so she just went ahead and did it.

Fast-forward over two decades, six Golden Guitars – including the 2023 Female Artist of the Year recognition – and ARIA Awards nominations. Amber Lawrence has become one of Australia’s most beloved country musicians. She’s also a highly regarded MC and radio presenter who hosted shows across iHeart Country and ABC Country. Relentlessly hardworking, with an unstoppable work ethic fused with infectious energy and passion for everything she does, she has built something very rare: a career on her own terms, in her own voice, from her own wild frontier.

She recently opened up about it in Rolling Stone’s ‘Making Music, Making Ends Meet’ series, sharing that “the stability of a regular pay cheque is something I gave up a long time ago.” But she also acknowledged that “if you have fans – whether you’re independent or signed – you can make this industry work for you.”

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Her new studio album Suburban Cowgirl is both a celebration of that journey and a snapshot of exactly where she stands right now. It’s also the most deliberately joyful record she has ever made, despite her previous, not-so-joyful life experiences.

That she even found the time to write it is an achievement in itself. Between mothering, touring up to 80 shows a year across Australia and overseas, and navigating family life, Amber’s schedule is relentless. Yet somewhere between running a bush half-marathon in Lake Parramatta, headlining Lithuania’s Visagino Country Festival, and performing for Australian troops in the Philippines, the record came to life in stolen pockets of time.

What she wants to say on Suburban Cowgirl covers a lot of ground. There are anthems and party tracks, a cinematic career retrospective, a love letter to the genre that made her, a deeply personal parenting song, and a thread of warm, defiant wisdom running through it all.

The record’s title already sets the tone for its contents. Amber Lawrence has never pretended to be anything other than a city girl who fell in love with country music, so she built her career out of sheer belief, hard work and the kind of grit that doesn’t care where you grew up. It just took an album called Suburban Cowgirl to make it official.

The songs on the record paint the picture of that kind of life: the suburbs wherever they may be, the desire to live true to your calling, the importance of community, and the very real need to offset mum guilt with a glass of wine and your best girlfriends.

The theme of women backing themselves runs deep through the record. For example, “Comeback Queens” is a gloriously unabashed girls-night-out anthem. It’s rooted in nostalgia for Amber’s twenties: Romy-and-Michelle nights out with her sister, Pineapple Cruisers and West Coast Coolers, and the kind of dancing that leaves you with a sore head the next day. “We may not be bar hopping weekly anymore,” Amber grins. “But when we get the chance – look out.”

Another aspect of being a woman in the music business is demonstrated on “Kick the Doors Down.” Jet-lagged, guilt-ridden, and somewhat defeated on the last day of a short Nashville writing trip, Amber highlights the realities of being a touring mother, the creeping self-doubt that comes with being a woman in her forties in a highly visual industry, and the slow accumulation of doors that close before others open. Her frantic thoughts fuelled the song, written in only four hours, just before she flew home. “That became my mantra: Time to shine up my boots and kick the doors down,” she sums it up.

And then there is “Smallest Years”. The phrase “blink and you’ll miss the smallest years” had been sitting in Amber’s diary for a long time before it became a song – a quiet, persistent reminder to soak up every moment with her one child. “Every first is a last,” she reflects. “And a lot of people assume you have one child by choice – for me, it wasn’t a choice. So I really wanted to make sure I celebrate every moment.” Amber knew it was special when she played it to her husband – “way more stoic than I am” – and he teared up.

But the album’s focus single touches on something even more profound. “Sing Me Home” is perhaps the most complete thing Amber has ever put on record. A three-minute-long nod to 20 years on the road, the fans who kept showing up, and the unlikely journey of a girl from a Sydney suburb who opened her very first EP with a yodel.

The song name-checks Keith Urban (“a hero of mine – I’ve never met him, which is the absolute bane of my existence”), gently acknowledges that she was never going to be Dolly (“for many reasons – not just the lack of bust”), and expresses gratitude to every person who ever wrote a letter, sent a message, or turned up to a show.

Amber summarises the record through the lens of her extensive career. “It’s my full-circle story,” she claims. “It’s fun, it’s honest, it’s unapologetic – and it’s the most fully Amber Lawrence version of country music I’ve managed to make since I started doing this in 2004. I’m very proud of it. I hope it finds the people who need it.”

This is where her debut children’s book comes into the picture. Part origin story, part love letter to dreaming big in unlikely places, “The Suburban Cowgirl” book tells Amber’s own remarkable real-life journey through a child’s eyes.

Amber, the main character, is a little girl in a big city – some people call it the Big Smoke. But instead of cows, there are cars, and instead of grass, there’s gravel. It’s too noisy for her to sing a song, so Amber has a plan. And with the help of her friend, Magpie, she sets out to become The Suburban Cowgirl.

Taking readers from the outskirts of Sydney to the bustling streets of the Tamworth Country Music Festival, the book talks about resilience and creativity, no matter where you come from. It is a beautiful record of a woman who has learned, the hard way, the long way, and entirely on her own terms, that the limiting beliefs are the ones worth kicking down the hardest. That you’re allowed to feel guilty and chase your dreams at the same time.

For the singer, the book’s timing couldn’t feel more right. Her son is seven and has just started primary school. It’s also a natural next chapter for an artist who has always made room for younger audiences. Amber has previously released three children’s albums, including the beloved The Kid’s Gone Country series and Aussie Aussie Christmas.

But The Suburban Cowgirl story is something more personal. It’s her origin story, told in two formats at once. The book is for the next generation of kids who dare to dream something unlikely. The album is for the fans who have been on the journey with her all this time.

There’s a song on the record called “You Can Admit You Like Country Music.” 

It stems from the singer’s appearance on Network 10’s popular segment The Project. Amber found herself asked for her opinion on prime-time TV, following the release of Beyoncé’s country album. “They wouldn’t have had me on five years ago,” she laughs. The song stems from that experience: it’s a cheeky, celebratory reckoning by an artist who has believed in this genre for two decades before the world (and Beyoncé) caught up.

I’ve never had a problem admitting I like country music. So if you feel the same way, you should definitely rock up to one of the artist’s gigs on her current tour. Check out Amber Lawrence’s website for full details.

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