INTERVIEW: Amber Lawrence on the release of her eighth album 'Suburban Cowgirl': "It was quite easy to take my life and put it into country music, because it's genuine."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Published: 7 June 2026

On paper, Australian country singer Amber Lawrence has had the career path many of us dream of. After working for six years as an accountant, she made a decision to quit her job, drive to the country music capital of Australia - Tamworth - and become a country singer. No questions asked, no-one to stop her, she just did it.

And that moment of self-belief and confidence certainly paid off. 21 years later, Lawrence is one of Australia’s most popular singers, with multiple hit albums, six prestigious Golden Guitar Awards and performing up to 80 shows a year across Australia. 

In 2026, her story continues with her recently released eighth studio album Suburban Cowgirl, alongside her first ever children’s book of the same name. Its title is a nod to Lawrence’s upbringing, the girl that grew up in the suburbs - Mascot in Sydney - but with a love of country music that is generally not the music of choice in the city. Built almost piecemeal in between her touring and family life, whenever she could steal a moment of time, it was a creative process entirely different from her previous albums. And while her last album (Living for the Highlights) came from a dark place, Suburban Cowgirl comes from a place of pure joy.

"I had the headspace to cherry-pick what this record needed," she says. "Rather than pouring my heart and soul into whatever I was feeling at the time - this is what I want to sing. What's fun to write about. What I want to say."

The album opener ‘That’s Cowgirl To Me’ sets the tone, with Lawrence singing of pushing through the hard times and owning your own power. “I am the boss of my own wild frontier…Win some you lose some / Battered and bruised but I pick myself back up / And push on through.” Opening with an almost ghostly whistle, it is a glorious mix of different sonics, with guitars and traditional country sounds joined by a discrete, 1980s style synthpop backing.

Created on the last day of a songwriting camp in Nashville, ‘Kick The Doors Down’ is a gorgeously perfect country pop song, while ‘We Ride At Dawn’ is perfect juxtaposition of a warm, melody rich soundscape paired with darkly comedic lyrics that look at the strong bonds of a friendship when you are there for each other no matter what: ‘If it all goes south and a bad guy dies / I've got a shovel and a couple zip ties.’

‘Comeback Queens’, written with fellow country artist Melanie Dyer, is another ode to friendship and the sense of freedom and camaraderie that comes on a night out with your tribe. ‘Remember feeling this free / Tonight we'll be the Comeback Queens.’ A pop-rock beat teamed with a country banjo evokes the sense of joyful abandon on a dancefloor. 

Lawrence’s love of country music and the genre’s changing status in culture is examined in two songs, firstly in the witty, tongue-in-cheek ‘You Can Admit You Like Country Music’. Perhaps the most traditional country sounding song, Lawrence pokes fun at both how country music has gained popularity - ‘the whole world is learning to boot scoot / Oh we're finally part of the cool crew’ - and also the fact she has been on the country train for years. ‘I've been here 21 years now / Guess I've earned my stripes’. It is a story Lawrence continues on the album closer, ‘Live A Country Song’, a country-pop-rock gem in which Lawrence points out country music is no different to any other type of music and reflects everyone’s life, not just someone who lives in the outback. ‘If you ever partied til the sun came up / If you've ever met somebody and then fell in love / If you ever stood your ground when the times got tough / You're already one of us.’

‘I’ve Got A Hankering’, a collaboration with William Alexander, is a beautiful sonic diversion with a bluegrass-folk sound, while ‘Something To Dance To’ lives up to its name, a more pop-leaning track with a definitive ‘move your body’ feel.

The penultimate song ‘In A Nashville Bar’ is one of the album’s gems. Touching, melancholic but ultimately empowering, it sees Lawrence ponder the often unseen side of a touring musician, the pain of leaving family, particularly her young son, behind. ‘I know I'm right where I'm meant to be / But it still hurts my heart each time I leave.’ Ultimately she picks herself up, and carries on with the show. ‘I won't let this doubt get the best of me…They're cheering for you from afar / No more tears in a Nashville bar.’

Suburban Cowgirl is a powerful album that shows Lawrence at her absolute best. If she pokes gentle fun at people that don’t like country music, she is also the absolute, number one reason why people should embrace country music. With incredible storytelling, a broad, versatile soundscape that has something that everyone can find joy in, and bucketloads of charisma, she is a dream to listen to. Jett Tattersall for Women In Pop recently met with Lawrence to chat all about the creation of the album.

Hi Amber, it is so good to chat to you. Congratulations on Suburban Cowgirl, it's such a fun album, it's like the little wrangler from Mascot, it's so delightful and fun. There's also some pretty soft applications of some heavier subject matter on there, but it's delivered with such warmth and kind of universal welcomeness, which I really appreciate. I can hear the sunshine in it.
Thank you. That is lovely to hear. I'm just loving that people are hearing those little elements I put in throughout that made me smile, but are now making other people smile

 That's what we need, isn't it? This is a reflective album, without the wallowing. You have also released a book with this album, and I’m curious to know was there a moment when you realised that this was something more than an album?
Yeah, and you know as you're piecing it together, naming the album something is always tricky, but I'd come to the name of the album quite early on when I wrote the song ‘Suburban Lifetime’ and I thought ‘I should call the album Suburban Cowgirl’. I was a bit nervous about calling it that, because of the whole buzz of country music is cool now, and everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, and it would seem like here's a city girl with boots on, suburban cowgirl. So from that point on, I wanted to paint the picture that it wasn't about cosplaying as a suburban cowgirl, it was the living the life, the coming out of the suburbs and chasing a dream, and the cowgirl grit and mentality that allows you to build a career like this: self-funding and fulfilling and unusual, and all of those things. That was the picture I wanted to paint, I was not meant to be a country singer, but this is how it ended up.

It’s notoriously linked to that country music mythology, because it's folk songs, where people come from, it comes back to your roots. You've always been very upfront about who you are and where you grew up, and this album reminds us this is where you've always been. Has it always been a badge of honour for you, and was it ever a fight in the sense you felt like you had to prove that you belonged?
Definitely from day one I never pretended to be anything I wasn't. It was always interesting to people that I'd come from one of the busiest suburbs in Sydney, so the opposite of a country town. Because I was so honest about it, I never put on a cowboy hat to fit in, or put on an outfit that made me look like I was trying to cover up, I never had a challenge, to be honest, of people to believe that I was genuine about it. I also listened to so much country music in those early years of me songwriting, and so every song that came out was authentic. I think what I've learned, and I try to convey to people over the years through my sort of double life, living in a busy city and then touring the regions consistently, is that we're not all that different. Our environment might be a bit different, but we’re still all after the same things. We still want to have that close connection to family, and make good friends and enjoy a Friday night with your mates. They're all the things that we do wherever we live. So for me, it was quite easy to take my life and put it into country music, because it's genuine. There's not this big city-country divide, I don't think.

I guess also in Australia, the history is not there and maybe it's the benefit of the battler
Yeah, it's the Aussie battler that country music really identifies with. I've always paid close attention to relationships and family and friends, and that is something that's always been strong in country music. You've got to have your mates, and it doesn't differentiate where you live whether that stuff matters to you. There's always that element for me of self belief, and I've always written songs about that as well, and there's a bit of that on this album.

I love that. I actually wanted to talk to you about ‘Kick the Doors Down’, which feels like such a song for the girls, and your experience about taking up space and really backing yourself, which is something that is hard for the battler to do, particularly if you're a woman claiming space and wanting attention. Can you talk to me a little bit about that track?
Yeah, I wrote it with Phil Barton and I woke up one morning on the last songwriting session, and I was stuck for ideas. I was feeling a bit like, ‘oh god, you've got no ideas, all of the songs you've written this week have been terrible’, and then it was like, ‘come on, shine up your boots and kick the doors down’, and then it was like, damn, there it is, that's the song idea! 

I've been in the game for 20 years, I'm in my 40s, so there are going to be times when I go, ‘am I going to be aged out soon?’ Those are the issues that I talked to in this song, because I feel like that is something that we do feel, that's how I feel. Like I say in that song, just because one door closes or slams in your face, hopefully another one will open for you. It is a bit of that self-belief not just that you can do it, but that you've got worth as you get older,

This is what I was hearing when I was listening to the album, it’s this very joyous collection of songs that are laced with quite brutal sentiments of evaluating where you stand and where your place is in the world. It's so ridiculously honest, you speak about everything you push yourself and that you have to just keep being better and better and better, that sense we have to be so much more as women. How has your relationship with ambition changed in these 20 years?
It hasn't waned, I'm still just as ambitious. But because I have done so many great things, which I have been reflecting on as I've gone through all the memorabilia to put some of the songs and videos together, it does give you that sense of if I can feel inside that I've done my best, the external validation is still important, but some things aren't just going to happen as you get older. You're not going to be on a festival that's attracting 20 year olds. There has to be some sort of acceptance of I've already done all that stuff, that's awesome, and yes, I want to do plenty more, but it's about finding the right things to motivate me and just keep the boxes ticked that you want to tick. But you gotta find the ones that you maybe have to just put to the side now.

I mean you've got the awards, you've done the travel, you got the guitars, they're golden, but now you’ve got an illustrated children's book!
I know, I never make any sense. I've never made any sense in my life, what I do!

It tells the story of your journey, a little girl with a dream, and not fitting into the mould. What was the pivot that made you think this needs to be illustrated, and it's a book?
That part I can't remember! I just remember just coming to the decision that I wanted to write a book, but I actually think it had a lot to do with what I said before about not wanting this album title to stick out like a sore thumb - ‘oh, look at me in my boots’. It had to be genuine. So that's why the book came, to illustrate the whole picture. I have released three children's albums over the years, so I thought I would really love to do a book. I'm not going to write a novel, I don’t have that much story, if I'm going to write a book, the shortest way is a kid's book. I think it's nice for kids to be able to connect the dots between me as an artist, and it's a fan item as well, a collector's item. When I look back now and think, ‘why did I do the book?’, it was to bring that whole picture together of the full 21 years.

It's also a very important nod to your broad audience that feels very natural. I was just watching the gorgeous video you had for ‘Sing Me Home’ earlier, your baby fans with their signs, there's something about that that just feels very, very genuine. I did this for kids, and this song is for women, but it's all for me. To be able to see it played out like that, it really encapsulates the album, and it's so incredibly honest and accessible and warm. It's beautiful.
Oh, thank you, that's really nice to hear. I’m very lucky the young fans connect with me. Even when I did the kids' albums, which was 10 years ago, it never felt weird to me, because it was just an extension of who I am as a person. I love to have fun,and connect with people, and they could see that was genuine, rather than I'm just going to try and do a kids project and put it on. It did come from a real place, just like the book.

Beautiful, that song as well starts with such a great line, you talk about that you wouldn't be here without the yodelling blues, and that The Chicks had your heart, I thought this was so lovely. Now that you've got your own epic career behind you, your segue into children's music, do you still hear your influences in the music you are making today?
The earliest influence for me was LeAnn Rimes and The Chicks, vocally, that's why I'm a country singer, thanks to listening to LeAnn Rimes. I wanted that vocal break in my voice, and that's probably my strongest ways of emoting in a song. I still do that, and that was the reason back in the day when I'd write songs, they sounded like country songs, that was the authenticity, so there's still that connection. The early Australian artists that inspired me were Beccy Cole, Melinda Schneider, and I learned from them about being specific in your songs about things in your life. This album is probably one of the most line by line specific albums I've written. I think all of those early influences have come back to play

You've got such a beautiful fan base, and you seem to have a really beautiful rapport with them as well. How has your fans' reaction to music, or response to your music shaped, if at all, how you write, and this album in particular?
My first album, The Mile, was unfiltered because I was a beginner songwriter, and I just wrote exactly about my life in the most simplest terms. Because they were so simple, it really connected to people, and that is where I wanted to come back to with this album, trying to be simple, relatable, and I think that does connect. I love a party song, and there's party songs on here too, but I also wanted to have those moments that I love when I hear someone else's albums, where you listen to a line and you wonder if it was true, or you go to the internet to look it up. All of the lines in the song ‘This Suburban Lifetime’, every single one, is true. We live right near a bus stop, and we can't find a park outside our house, and all those things. So, there's not much held back, but whenever I sing that song live, people smile because they also can't find a park outside their house!

Oh I do love that! Were there any of the songs on Suburban Cowgirl that you weren't initially sure if that actually fit what you want to portray with the album
One of the songs that I struggled with a little bit was ‘Something To Dance To’, only because it's so simple, but so catchy. Everyone who heard it said it's just so fun and catchy, you've got to include it, it's so well written. I just sometimes struggle with simplicity, I think. The other song was ‘I've Got A Hankering’, which is very, very country, but that again was part of the whole flashback. The first song I ever released was called ‘I've Got the Blues’, and it was influenced by Hank Williams, so I really needed ‘I've Got A Hankering’ which sits do differently next to ‘Something To Dance To’, they're just polar opposites, but hopefully it takes you on a journey!

You have obviously your career exactly how you wanted to from the get go, which I think is really commendable. That must be very inspiring for artists that have followed you and are coming up now in the, as you said, ever rising and ever popular country music scene. When you started out, was there ever a moment where you second-guessed your style and your approach, or did you also know exactly how you wanted to  sound and how it was going to come across.
I would say the majority of the time I stood firm in my decisions. Looking back, there were probably some turning points. Before I'd released my album and I'd written all these songs, the producer that I was working with on my first album said, ‘Go and see a song publisher and get some songs’. So I went and sat down with the person who had songs, and I was like, well, I can write these. These aren't mind-blowing. If I'm not going to have the credit, I might as well write them myself. And the song pusher agreed.  So that was a turning point, because that was the first decision that I'd actually made that went against someone who was stronger and more influential. I've definitely made those decisions along the way where a producer has said, ‘No, I don't like this song’, and rather than saying, ‘Okay, I agree with you’, I said ‘Okay why don't you like it? What do we need to fix?’ One of my songs on the first album, ‘Good Girls’, which people still ask me to play 20 years on, nearly went on the cutting room floor because the producer said, ‘no, not this song’, and I said ‘why not?’, tweaked one word and we had a song. Questioning people who said no to me along the way has always worked out, but you do get a headstrong reputation. But that's just what I've been since I was five years old, as my mum would tell you. You have an opinion, stand by it.

Suburban Cowgirl is out now. You can buy and stream here.
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