How a broken heart brought singer Amber Lawrence from the corporate world to country music

Amber Lawrence is the darling of the Australian country music scene. With five Golden Guitars, two ARIA nominations and seven self-titled studio albums, she has won the hearts of many. But ironically, it was a broken heart that first set her on the road home.

Before Lawrence performed live at concerts, festivals and cruise ships – she was an ambassador for the music festival at sea Sightseeing country – commerce graduates who have had great success in the corporate world, working as accountants.

“I could have had a pretty stable life if I wanted to,” Lawrence told 9Honey Celebrity. “I was good at math in school and then I was a dux for my year. I went to college, got a Bachelor of Commerce, then got a job at QANTAS in finance. Then I went on to study accounting. charter math.”

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“But there’s something about music. When your song connects with people and they’re singing your lyrics back to you, that’s when you say, ‘Oh yeah, I love this job. .'”

Her love for music began when she was given a guitar as a gift for Christmas. With a newfound passion at the age of 23, she enrolled in guitar lessons, where her tutor encouraged her to write her own music.

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At first hesitant, Lawrence then leaned in and unlocked her musical talent. Soon after, she suffered a broken heart.

“My guitar teacher said, ‘I want you to write a song.’ But I didn’t write songs,” she recalls. “Well, lucky for me, I got kicked. Not long after that devastation, I wrote a song. And all those broken heart feelings were able to manifest and I started. creative passion.”

While not giving up her day job, Lawrence pursued a singing career, signing up for a talent contest in 2004 where she finished second to a then-unknown Australian musician.

“It was Telstra Road to Tamworth and I finished second to Jessica Mauboy – I think she was about 15 at the time,” Lawrence recalls Mauboy, who went on to take second place on australian idol in 2006.

“I considered being an accountant and a fledgling country singer for about five years until I was forced to make a decision.”

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Giving up her financial career was the right decision as Lawrence is currently one of the most sought-after artists in the country. Since the border was opened and the blockade was lifted after two years of the pandemic, Lawrence has always been on the go. This year alone, she has performed 80 shows.

And she even boarded Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas in early November to lead the Cruisin’ Country music festival, hosted by the famous festival cruise company. Choose your itinerary.

Lawrence, who has been at the festival for the past 10 years, said: “It’s an up close and personal experience that music lovers love. “I feel like part of our job is to interact with them and make that an X-factor of the trip for people where they can chat with their favorite artists, take pictures and even drink water.”

Lawrence, who brought her husband, Martin Newman, and four-year-old son, Ike, said cruising is also family-friendly. After many days on the road – “I go away every weekend, leaving my son at home with my husband,” she said – it’s great to have family around.

“Look, we’ll have to manage expectations when we get home because [Ike] wouldn’t be able to eat donuts for breakfast every day,” she laughed before adding, “No, it’s great. It was just a really nice quality time.”

“This year I’ve been touring a lot, You know, for the necessary reasons not being able to work for a few years, coming out with a brand new album… and I just wanted to start running.”

Lawrence released his album, Live for the highlightsin July and it debuted at number one on the ARIA Australian Album Charts and Country Album Charts and number five on the ARIA All Genre Album Charts, where she entered the chart alongside the likes of Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo and Ed Sheeran.

“I’ve invested a lot in this album. I mean, you believe in every album. But especially this album, I feel this is the best album I’ve done to date,” she said.

“More importantly, the people who bought the album really loved it and gave him great feedback. It was a plan that I wanted to come true and sometimes it didn’t come true, but this time it did. success,” Lawrence said of her. latest production, which received a nomination for Best Country Album at this year’s ARIAs.

While Live for the highlights including uplifting songs about the pandemic and getting through it, it also features delicate tracks dedicated to the difficult time Lawrence has been going through during the lockdown.

In 2020, her husband and wife lost their baby midway through pregnancy, the singer wrote You are mine in honor of her late son – a song she loved so much but couldn’t perform on stage on her own.

“Obviously, if you watch to the end of the album, there’s a horribly sad song You are minetrack 10, which is something that a lot of people really relate to or write to me about,” she shared.

“It happened to us in 2020 and we miscarried at 21 weeks. I gave birth and had to go through that whole process, so it certainly wasn’t always ups and downs. It was. the happy and tragic journey that I think everyone has gone through during lockdown, so I think that’s the place for the album for me – it has light at the end of the tunnel.”

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