about

Driven by the power of her dreams and resilient to her core, Sarah Leete is a singer songwriter whose music is shaped not just by her setbacks, but by her ability to bounce back and keep moving. A country girl through and through, armed with her guitar, she tells it like it really is, in a world where a carefully manicured façade is more important than the truth.

Raised on the beautiful Central Coast of NSW, Sarah’s escape from the world was in music. Inspired by Cat Stevens, Patty Griffin and Neil Young, she started playing guitar in high school at age 13. “I had started writing songs and had the opportunity to play guitar in music class at school,” she says. “I was horrible. But a guy I liked at the time played guitar as well, so I stuck with it, teaching myself.”

It is this ability to adapt, borne out of necessity, that has shaped Sarah’s life, career, and music. Leaving music aside during her final years of high school, she opted to pursue agriculture as a career path. After studying farming at college, she worked on the land for a few years, eventually working for a harvest contractor and running a side business, before taking the plunge to pursue music again.

After winning the Moree Superstar competition in 2015, she won a scholarship to the CMAA Academy of Country Music in Tamworth and won a financial grant from Create NSW. She enlisted the help of Golden Guitar-winning songwriter Catherine Britt to produce her debut self-titled EP, released in 2017. She booked her own four-week tour to support the EP and as her reputation grew, she found her way onto support slots with The Viper Creek Band, Bill Chambers and Fanny Lumsden.

Sarah’s habit of making her own opportunities become a reality has seen her create her own showcase performance at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. She created the “Write Like a Girl” Songwriters Round performance in collaboration with Hayley Marsten, in response to her fellow female performers being overlooked for similar songwriters in the round gigs. She has also organised her own tours of Central Australia 2016 and 2018. She also supported Fanny Lumsden on a date on her Country Halls tour throughout rural NSW and Queensland in 2017. She also toured southern NSW and Victoria on the Way Down South tour in February 2018.

Life has a way of presenting challenges, and Sarah has worked her way through many of them and emerging triumphant. Losing her father to cancer, her mother to Lewy Body Dementia and her beloved canine companion Grace (star of the video for Sarah’s 2017 single ‘Safe’) within a short space of each other, has the power to take the wind out of anyone’s sails. While she was knocked around by these events, her tenaciousness has seen her pick herself up and move forward, channelling those emotions into powerful new songs.

Locking herself away in a room during the 2020 pandemic, she emerged with a batch of fresh songs. The first of these songs were recorded in Brisbane with producer Michael Muchow (Catherine Britt, Melody Moko) at The Moon Room between border closures. These sessions resulted in the singles ‘Nothin’ Special’ in March 2021, with a video shot on location in Tasmania with Richard Harmey, and ‘One That Got Away’ in July, with its video filmed by Jeremy Minett of Eyes and Ears Creative. The latest release ‘Used’ brings out Sarah’s melodic pop influences, wrapped in a bright country twang. There is an album in the works that is set to see the light of day later in 2022.

The unique ability to overcome adversity has shaped Sarah Leete into one of the most honest, real, and relevant storytellers in Australian Country music, with a sharp wit and an honest approach to her songs. “I really have tried to be quite intentional with being honest and relatable, both who I am as a person and in my music,” she says. “Listening to the good music I did as a child, it taught me to almost express myself in a way that was true to myself and in a way that other people can understand. I write

with some pretty heavy pop influences, and I’d like to think that catchy and relatable can go hand in hand.”

Thinking about the future, Sarah Leete is aching to bring her music to as many stages around the country as she can get to. In her typically humble and understated way, she says: “I would love to just be able to make a living touring, releasing and playing my own music. Anything on top of that is a genuine bonus.”