When Amy Sheppard who is part of the wildly popular Australian band, Sheppard, decided to put out country music, I was intrigued. I wanted to find out more about this family and their musical roots.
Amy Sheppard is an Australian singer-songwriter, and along with her siblings George and Emma, is a founding and current member of indie pop band Sheppard. The group itself is 34X platinum and their massive hit “Geronimo” has had more than 750 million streams.
Their dad is a classically trained pianist, so the kids were forced to take music lessons. But Amy admitted it wasn’t her thing. “It’s so regimented and just not fun.”
As a child, they lived part of their life in the third-world country known as Papua New Guinea. They didn’t have a lot of access to much music, so they just listened to what their parents listened to.
“My dad was a huge country music fan. He used to wake us up in the morning blasting Dolly Parton as our alarm clock. And I guess some of it rubbed off on me because I just really gravitated towards country music and I loved watching the CMT channel.”
Amy found an old guitar that had about three strings and she pretended to be Shania Twain. Eventually, they fixed up the guitar and got her lessons. That’s when she started songwriting as well.
Throughout high school being a musician was always in the back of her mind. She even studied music at university; one of her assignments was writing and recording an EP. She had to produce and market it, the whole deal.
She confessed, “And I left it to the last minute, and I was freaking out. My brother (George) was walking past my room, and he was like, ‘Oh, what are you working on? Sounds pretty cool.’ I played it for him, and he had all of these incredible ideas, and we bounced off each other so well and he put in harmonies and I was like, ‘Oh wow, you can sing.’”
From there they wrote a couple of songs and what started as a college project eventually snowballed into what we now know as Sheppard.
They started out small playing local charity events and small gigs. They eventually caught the eye of Australian entertainment promoter, Michael Chugg. He was starting his own management company and was looking for new acts to sign.
Known for his gruff personality, they were a little apprehensive, but they went to Sydney to audition. He loved their harmonies. Once Chugg managed them, it changed their lives in terms of traction in Australia and they went on tour. They even visited Portland, Oregon, which further expanded their fan base.
Amy explained, “I guess we got a bit more attention from that because Australia was like, ‘Wow, who’s this Australian band doing so well in America?’ And then we got ourselves on TV and, it was like a snowball effect. And then we wrote “Geronimo,” and the rest is history.
And while Sheppard took the more pop route, Amy always had the itch to write and sing country music.
She shared, “The first song I learned to sing was John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home Country Roads.’ I couldn’t deny that I had the urge to write country music. So, I wrote a song called “Blue Guitar” and I sent it to my manager and a couple of the artists in the country industry in Australia, and they loved it. They were blown away that I wrote country music.”
The remarkable song proves that Amy Sheppard can do country music as successfully as her familiar pop tunes. In 2019, Amy was encouraged to go to Nashville to further explore songwriting and like so many, she fell in love with the town and songwriting.
“We had never been to Nashville before, and I had just had the freedom of writing by myself. It helped me figure out who I was as an artist. To be in Music City was such a thrill, and I met some great people,” she reported.
She wrote most of her first country EP Nothing But Wild and released it in 2022. It went to number one on the Australian ARIA charts.
“It was a big sign to me that I was heading in the right direction,” she stated.
Since then, she, her brother, and sister have all moved to Nashville. “We live next door to each other,” she shared. They still regularly perform and tour as the band Sheppard.
But Amy is continuing with her country music and has since released the singles, “Overthinking,” and “Backfire.”
“Backfire” talks about love gone wrong, that started as a spark, but eventually crashed and burned. It was written by Amy Sheppard, Lauren McLamb, and Australian-born Phil Barton.
Written by Amy Sheppard, Lindsay Rimes, and Phil Barton, “Overthinking” is an emotionally charged song that explores the aftermath of a past relationship. The lyrics delve into the constant preoccupation with a former partner as they reminisce about shared memories, long for their presence, and grapple with the difficulty of moving on.
Now she has released her most country-sounding song to date, “Small Town Rumours.’ The vibe of the song is reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt’s “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About” except with Amy’s song, she isn’t having it. With the words They got no trouble speaking their mind/ She said he’s putting dirt on my name/ But I ain’t got time for playing those games/ You can talk all you want I got nothing to say/ No I won’t take the blame for walking away the song is as country as you can get.
Written alongside her brother, George Sheppard, Danielle Blakey, and Lindsay Rimes, the song was originally written for someone like Lainey Wilson.
She reported, “We just wanted to write a fun tongue-in-cheek song. I had read some bad comments online and I always think that the best way to handle those comments is to turn them into art rather than try and defend myself. I’ve been able to play it live a couple of times and it always goes down as a treat. So that’s the best revenge in my opinion.”
Lindsay Rimes has produced the majority of Amy’s country songs. He’s the perfect person to bring the sound that fits her best.
And while she admits it can be “quite a juggle” to be both a solo country artist and be in a pop band, she is up for the task. While they still travel quite a bit in Australia, Amy and her family are in good hands in Music City. Look for more to come from Australia’s newest rising country star.
You can follow Amy Sheppard on Facebook, Instagram, X(Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, and all streaming platforms.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Instagram, and X(Twitter).
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