Amber Lawrence is the darling of nation music in Australia. With 5 Golden Guitars, two ARIA nominations and 7 studio albums to her title, she has gained many hearts. However paradoxically, it was a damaged coronary heart that first led her down the highway to nation. 

Earlier than Lawrence was performing reside gigs at live shows, festivals and cruise ships – she is the ambassador for the at-sea music competition Cruisin’ Nation – the commerce graduate was crunching numbers within the company world, working as an accountant.

“I may have had a reasonably secure life, if I needed it,” Lawrence tells 9Honey Superstar. “I used to be good at maths in school after which I used to be dux of my yr. I went to college, did Bachelor of Commerce, after which acquired a job at QANTAS in finance. Then I went on to do my chartered accounting research.”

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“However there’s one thing about music. When your tune connects with individuals they usually’re singing your lyrics again at you, they’re the bits that you just go, ‘Oh yeah, I like this job.'”

Her love for music started when she was given a guitar as a present for Christmas. Armed with a new-found ardour on the age of 23, she signed up for guitar classes, the place her tutor inspired her to jot down her personal music.

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Hesitant at first, Lawrence then leaned proper in and unlocked her musical expertise. Quickly after, she suffered a damaged coronary heart. 

“My guitar instructor stated, ‘I would like you to jot down a tune.’ However I do not write songs,” she recalled. “Nicely, fortunately for me, I acquired dumped. Not lengthy after that devastation, I wrote a tune. And all of the feelings of that damaged coronary heart had been in a position to come out and I began to fall in love with songwriting.”

Though she did not quit her day job, Lawrence pursued a singing profession, signing up for a expertise contest in 2004, the place she got here runner-up to a then-unknown Aussie musician.

“It was the Telstra Street to Tamworth and I got here runner-up to Jessica Mauboy – I feel she was about 15 on the time,” Lawrence recalled of Mauboy, who went on to position runner-up on Australian Idol in 2006.

“I juggled being a chartered accountant and a fledgling nation singer for one more about 5 years till I used to be sort of compelled into making a call.”

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Quitting her finance profession was the suitable name as Lawrence is now probably the most sought-after artists within the nation. Ever because the borders had been opened and the lockdown lifted following two years of the pandemic, Lawrence has been on the go. This yr alone, she has already carried out 80 reveals. 

And she or he even hopped on board the Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas in early November to headline the at-sea music competition Cruisin’ Nation, which is organised by famend competition cruise firm Select Your Cruise.

“It is the up-close-and-personal expertise that music lovers love about it,” stated Lawrence, who has been a part of the competition for the final 10 years, bar the pandemic. “I really feel like a part of our job is to interact with them and make that the X-factor of the journey for those that they get to speak with their favourite artists and get a photograph and have a drink even.”

Cruising is family-friendly too, stated Lawrence, who introduced her husband, Martin Newman, and four-year-old son, Ike. After many days spent on the highway – “I have been away each single weekend this yr, leaving my son at house with my husband,” she says – it was good to have her household by her facet. 

“Look, we’re gonna must handle expectations once we get house as a result of [Ike] will not be capable of have doughnuts for breakfast on daily basis,” she laughed, earlier than including, “No, it is nice. It is simply actually lovely high quality time.”

“I have been away loads this yr touring, You already know, for obligatory causes of not having been in a position to work for a few years, model new album out… and I simply needed to hit the bottom working.”

Lawrence launched her album, Residing for the Highlights, in July and it debuted at primary on the ARIA Australian Album Charts and Nation Album Charts and quantity 5 on the ARIA All Style Album Charts, the place she charted was among the many likes of Harry Types, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo and Ed Sheeran.

“I put a lot into this album. I imply, you imagine in each album. However on this one specifically, I felt prefer it’s one of the best one I’ve completed to this point,” she stated. 

“Extra importantly, the those who purchased the album, have actually cherished it and provides him such nice suggestions. That was the plan I needed to come back to fruition and generally it does not, however this time it did,” Lawrence stated of her newest providing, which acquired a Finest Nation Album nomination at this yr’s ARIAs. 

Whereas Residing for the Highlights consists of uplifting songs concerning the pandemic and making it by way of, it additionally options delicate tracks devoted to the onerous time Lawrence went by way of throughout lockdown.

In 2020, she and her husband misplaced their unborn child midway by way of the being pregnant, with the singer writing You Have been Mine in honour of her late son – a tune she loves however cannot deliver herself to carry out on stage.

“Clearly, in case you’ve gotten to the tip of the album, there is a terribly unhappy tune You Have been Mine, monitor 10, which is one thing that lots of people have actually associated to or written to me about,” she shared. 

“That occurred to us within the yr 2020 and locked down we misplaced a being pregnant at 21 weeks. I gave delivery and needed to undergo that entire course of, so it is positively not all highs and lows. It is that journey of happiness and tragedy that I feel everybody went by way of when locked down, so I feel that is the place the album sits for me – it is acquired that mild on the finish of the tunnel.”

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