$1000 roadtrip secret to Aussie music star Fanny Lumsden’s stunning success

A $1000 road trip propelled country music star Fanny Lumsden on her path to success, revealing what fans really wanted.

Handpainted signs scrawled on corrugated iron and wood scraps declaring “We Love Fanny” are️ propped against fences and rural town halls from Loomberah to Bundalaguah, Joanna to Camooweal.

Rural Australia’s love affair with country music star Fanny Lumsden began more than a decade ago, years before she won her first Golden Guitar or ARIA award.

Long before anyone even knew her name, and after teen Fanny spent more than $1000 to travel from her central west NSW home to Sydney to see Mumford and Sons, the aspiring singer and songwriter became a tour entrepreneur. She wanted the people of rural and regional towns to get great gigs.

Australian country music star, Fanny Lumsden. Picture: Dan Stanley- Freeman

As she releases her fourth record Hey Dawn, Lumsden has not only booked shows up and down the east coast but is prepping the next leg of the 10th anniversary celebrations of her Country Halls tour.

She receives about 80 applications a year from tiny towns to turn their small community halls into a gig venue. The successful applicants get a how-to kit which explains how to raise council backing for the show, organise a bar and BBQ with local footy clubs and P & Cs, and secure volunteers to help run the show.

Lumsden and her on-the-road family, including husband Dan Freeman, her brother Tom and her Prawnstars band members, have played more than 200 unforgettable Country Hall shows, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for local communities, capping prices at $30 per adult and offering family tickets.

Fanny Lumsden with her husband Dan Stanley Freeman (right with glasses), their children Walter (toddler) and Rupert (baby) and Prawn Stars bandmates. Picture: Supplied.

“I know there are people out here that want to go out for a night, who want to see their stories reflected back to them and have a really bloody good time. They want some joy and to stop having to think about the weather and the season,” she said.

“And I just was determined to sing my songs, I wasn’t going to do any cover show, I knew I could make them listen. And it’s made me as an artist.”

Lumsden is now being heard not just in Australia’s heartland but around the world. She was as gobsmacked as anyone when the word-of-mouth buzz about Fallow, her 2020 country album of the year, reached the ears of music industry gatekeepers in the UK who invited her to perform at this year’s Glastonbury festival.

Fans queues outside a Fanny Lumsden show on her Country Halls Tour. Picture: Supplied.

She was one of only nine Australian acts on the line-up for an event which can jettison artists from unknowns to Next Big Things.

“There are very few things in my career I haven’t hustled hard to make happen and I can tell you every single step of the way how I got it,” she said.

“But there have been a couple of things which have felt like a little gift – doing Playschool was one of them, the ARIA and Golden Guitar awards and now Glastonbury.”

Lumsden and her husband Dan work up to 18 hours on their family music business as well as raising their two young sons Walter and Rupert.

She writes and records the music, her husband films the videos and designs the art for her releases, they personally pack every vinyl record or T-shirt ordered by fans with Lumsden adding a personal note to each.

Rural and regional Australia loves Fanny Lumsden for her Country Halls tour. Picture: Supplied.

Her brother and bandmates read bedtime stories to her boys and help keep them fed and entertained on the long drives between gigs.

And now as they head out to play to the people, they have the new songs from Hey Dawn. Songs like Great Divide, the only song she was finally able to write about the Snowy Mountain firefronts which threatened her home in Tooma during the Black Summer of 2020.

Lumsden and her husband joined the firefighting efforts as two massive firefronts bore down on their valley.

“That’s my only song that kind of references it; there was a lot of noise around whose fault it was and stuff, and when you’re in the middle of it, people are just grappling with how to deal with stuff,” she said.

“Living in the mountains, you know the mountains are powerful, you can’t control them as a person.”

Fanny Lumsden with brother and bandmate Thomas on stage with her baby son Rupert. Picture: Supplied.

Other songs by this masterful storyteller, like Ugly Flowers, You’ll Be Fine and Enjoy The Ride, are reflections on the “stories we are told when we were young, and the stories that we tell ourselves, and how they define us in life.”

Stories about expectations of women to not “raise your voice but raise your babies” and how perspective changes as you grow older.

And songs about being lucky to live out a musical dream. And not wanting to be a millionaire. Her aspirations have never been tied to financial gain.

Australian country music star, Fanny Lumsden. Picture: Dan Stanley - Freeman

“I’ve never really cared. I’ve been lucky enough just be stable enough in my life,” she said.

“I’ve never put much value on (being a millionaire). It’s probably to my detriment because I suck at money … we make it and I’m like ‘Let’s do something else creative. Let’s make another project. Let’s all go for dinner and I’ll pay for my band for a nice dinner.”

Hey Dawn is out now. All tour dates and tickets via  https://www.fannylumsden.net/

Originally published as $1000 roadtrip secret to Aussie music star Fanny Lumsden’s stunning success