“My entire family, including my younger brother and sister, loaded up the camper and went from festival to festival,” describes Austin. “My family was just great about it. My mother’s mom died when she was very young and wasn’t there to support her, so I think she wanted to offer me the support she never had,” explains Austin.
One of the biggest stepping stones in Austin’s career was entering a talent contest at the infamous gold-rush town of Charters Towers. Now home to Australia’s largest country music talent quest, Charters Towers draws some 800 contestants prospecting for fame and fortune each year.
“I remember I sang “Jolene” and “Queen of Hearts,” Austin smiles. Despite having placed 2nd with her performance, she won a songwriting contest and caught the attention of the Australian Country Music Association, who immediately offered their support in a multitude of ways, including providing stage clothes made by the president’s wife.
By age 14, Austin was opening shows for Johnny Cash’s Australian Tour. At 16, she was invited to the United States by the Australian Country Music Association to record. But her parents, being supportive but sensible, said she was too young and Austin agreed.
However, when Austin’s mother saw an advertisement in the paper regarding scholarship auditions for a talent school in Sydney, she encouraged her daughter to give it a shot. Austin won the scholarship and began honing her skills, becoming a triple threat in acting, songwriting and singing.
“I always believe that a person really needs to be out of their comfort zone to be at their most creative,” Austin says. In the years to follow, she and her family were moving half-way across the globe, from Sydney to California, in pursuit of her dream.
At the age of 17, Austin encountered success on the small screen of Hollywood, landing the role of Pippa McKenna on one of NBC’s most popular shows, “The Facts of Life.” She also appeared in various Disney productions, alongside Will Smith in an episode of “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” and received her first kiss from Bill Campbell during the filming of the movie, “Call from Space.”
While in Los Angeles, Austin continued songwriting, performing, and taking vocal lessons from Linda Ronstadt’s vocal coach, Robert Edwards. In 1992, Austin debuted as a recording artist on Interscope Records as one half of the pop duo, with Phil Radford.
In 1994, Austin moved to Nashville, Tennessee so she could pursue a career in country music and was enthusiastically accepted by the music community. It wasn’t long before she met her co-writer/co-producer, Will Rambeaux. Austin was signed to Arista Records in 1997, where she released two albums and charted several singles, including “Lucky in Love,” “One Solitary Tear,” “Put Your Heart Into It” and “Never Been Kissed.”
In 1998, Austin returned to Australia for the Tamworth Country Music Awards, where she received the Golden Guitar Award for best new single, “One Solitary Tear.”
After the acquisition of Arista Records by RCA in 2000, Austin’s publishing company, Reynsong Publishing formed Wrensong Entertainment and the independent label, WE Records, in order to release Austin’s third solo album in the United States.
Following this release, Austin began to focus more on songwriting, landing cuts with artists such as Trick Pony, Danielle Peck, Blue Country, Ronnie Milsap, Dolly Parton, Tammy Cochran, Hal Ketchum, and Tim McGraw’s “Shot Gun Rider” from the Let It Go album.
2003 saw the return of Austin as a solo artist when she signed with Broken Bow to record her fourth album in country music, which produced a Top-15 hit with its title track, “Streets of Heaven.”
In 2005, Director/Producer Michael Bush, who had seen Austin perform at the Grand Ole Opry, offered her an opportunity to stretch her theatrical wings in New York as Bonnie Parker in the Musical Theatre Festival’s “The Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde,” a part for which she received critical acclaim. Austin utilized the opportunity as a spring board to Broadway, where she appeared in review, “Ring of Fire,” honoring the life and career of Johnny Cash.
Today, Austin finds her happiest moments are as a songwriter. “I absolutely adore the idea of starting with nothing…taking a blank piece of paper and shaping the words, creating the story, and arranging the melody, until it becomes something beautiful…something that can maybe make a real difference in someone’s life.”
Take for example, her latest cut. Co-writer John Edwards came into the songwriting session with a tender thought about his girlfriend. Edwards, Austin and Will Nance set about carefully crafting the thought into something tangible, a song cut by Joe Nichols, “My Best Friend’s a Girl.”
As a writer with Melrose Music Group, Austin’s success continues with upcoming singles by Blake Shelton “Startin’ Fires,” and Emily West, “That Kind of Happy.” “I am most at peace when I can use my experience and knowledge to help the artist who is just starting out or the fledgling songwriter,” she says, “and Melrose provides that nurturing type of environment where I can do that.”
When asked about her finest accomplishment, Austin humbly replies, “I am so proud that I’ve been able to evolve the way that I have in a business that does everything it can to make you extinct.”
Letting her dreams and passion be her guide and with the support and sacrifice of a family who embraced her dream, Austin has been met with phenomenal success as an artist in a wide array of mediums (theatre, television, motion pictures and recordings) and genres (musicals, pop and country). In fact, when Austin thinks of the paths she has followed through her talent, she jokes, “The only two things I haven’t done in my life is porn or gospel.”
From Townsville to Sydney, Australia, from Sydney to Los Angeles and back—to Nashville and then New York and back, Austin is no stranger to letting her passion guide her. Wherever that path should lead in the future, it might be good to follow, as success is surely not far behind.
