Max Jackson felt like the odd one out when she moved from the country to the coast as a child.
"None of my friends liked country music, or they thought it was the daggiest thing in the world," the singer-songwriter recalled.
"I was a complete outsider."
But Jackson knew she could always find her place in the world among the heaving crowds at the Tamworth Country Music Festival every summer.
"The whole town turns into the festival - it was a buzzing hub of everything I loved."
Australian country stars such as Lee Kernaghan, Gina Jeffreys and Troy Cassar-Daley were among the few musicians to tour Jackson's rural hometown of Coonamble, in northwest NSW.
Their songs formed the soundtrack to her early life, and kept her company when her family moved to Newcastle before she went to high school.
Decades later and her name is ranked among those legends, as a double Golden Guitar Award nominee for Female Artist of the Year and New Talent of the Year.
She is also an ambassador for the festival she so loved as a girl, spending sweltering days meeting fans, signing autographs and performing sold-out shows.
Jackson said it is sometimes surreal to be surrounded by her childhood idols, let alone count them as her mentors and friends.
"It's been so awesome to learn that the people I looked up to for such a long time are the great people I thought they were," she said.
"Every now and again I think, 'I was in the front row of your concert years ago'."
Jackson, who won the festival's Star Maker quest for emerging talent in 2022, recently signed her first record deal with ABC Music, releasing the single Little More Country.
The track is a homage to bush living, in all its small town, big sky and dirty boots glory.
It began as a brainstorming session with songwriters Gavin Carfoot and Nolan Wynne about the values of a country person.
"We started with a list: it's kindness, life is smaller, people are generous," Jackson said.
"We wrote the song in an hour - and that never happens - because it just rolled off the tongue."
The song has taken on new meaning on social media, as Jackson posts covers of tracks like Lady Gaga's Poker Face, AC/DC's Highway to Hell, and Eminem's Lose Yourself with a "little more country" twist.
It shows not only the versatility of the genre, but a new generation of country music fans, Jackson said.
"It's been a really surprising and exciting ride with the song.
"That song, every time I sing it, I really connect with it.
"I'm singing with every piece of my heart."
