Given that only a few years ago Melbourne-based songstress Lanie Lane was without a record deal and working as a florist, squirreling away cash to finance the recording of her debut album, it’s no exaggeration to say that the past 12 months have well and truly been the stuff of dreams.

Not only was the 27-year-old signed to Ivy League records, she also released that self-made album, To The Horses, and toured to critical acclaim, as well as catching the ear of such influential contemporaries as Clare Bowditch and former White Stripes frontman, Jack White, both of whom tracked her down and asked her to collaborate with them.

“It is a bit insane, isn’t it? I think back to when I was working with flowers and I was putting away everything to do the album, which I could do because I had a really awesome partner at the time and he really looked after me. All the money I made from working went into getting myself to gigs and getting my music out there, getting whatever guitar thing I needed or making up demo CDs,” Lane recalls.

“He let me put all the money I earned into that and looked after everything else. That was a really lovely, supportive relationship. I was a lucky girl. It was only after I’d recorded everything, really, that I got signed and obviously that was really good and the start of a lot of things for me.”

Lane reckons, in retrospect, that being signed once she had recorded her album was a blessing in disguise. The years she spent working, while also writing and recording the songs that eventually became To the Horses, meant that she was able to better hone her craft, not only in terms of her songwriting and her instrumental skills, but also her stagecraft.

“It was really cool, that early time, because even though I was only doing shows where you were paid very little and were sometimes playing to only a few people and other times to a few hundred people, if I was really lucky, and it really did teach me a lot, and it’s important to do that stuff,” she says.

“I think you learn and it gives you an appreciation for whatever might or might not come later. I’m really grateful I had that time to develop my stage presence and also learn all the practical stuff to do with being onstage, in terms of working with venues and people behind the scenes. It’s nice to do a slow build-up because I think then you really do appreciate what you’ve got when you get to sell out a venue.”

For Lane, who was born in London but grew up in Melbourne, music has been a lifelong presence. Her father played the guitar and she recalls dinner parties where guests would bring along musical instruments and spontaneous jam sessions would ensue.

“I very much grew up with music and I guess it always just felt quite social and quite central from a very young age. We always had music playing, whether it was records or just my dad playing or even me having Rage on. It felt like there was always something musical going on, yeah. There was definitely always music around me,” she reflects.

Lane, whose aesthetics, both in terms of her look and her music, owe a huge debt to the rockabilly movement associated with the 1950s, has received acclaim for the soulfulness and authenticity of her take on old-school Americana.

It was that sound that saw White invite her to record with him in Nashville and, to her further disbelief, extend her an invitation to perform at his Third Man Records showcase at the prestigious South By Southwest music festival in Texas.

Of Lane, White said: “She’s got a great attitude. There’s a long of singers, post-Amy Winehouse, that have come out and been able to get a lot dirtier, a lot more soulful in the female side of music. I like her twist on that, her style. I don’t think it’s cookie cutter and that extends to everything about her. I think she’s going to do some very interesting things in the future.”

Lane has heard White’s words of praise before, but remains humbled by both his fandom and support.

“Both Clare and Jack contacted me by e-mail. I remember getting an e-mail from her in the middle of a shift at the florist shop and it was just so exciting! Jack also somehow heard my stuff and then e-mailed me two days later and asked me to come over and record with him. It was kind of amazing and very cool. It’s quite nice to think what can happen when a musician likes another musician, really, but it was quite weird to think Jack liked me,” Lane laughs.

Still, while Lane says she always be a rockabilly aficionado, she warns that fans shouldn’t grow too attached to the sound of To the Horses. Its follow-up, she reckons, constitutes a marked shift in sound and musical direction.

“I’ve only had one album so I haven’t yet had the chance to show other sides to myself and I do worry people might be a bit surprised or even disappointed, but I also hope they understand that there’s more to me than that one thing. The next album is not at all like the first one,” she admits.

“I would say, actually, that there’s not a single rockabilly part on my guitar and that is very much what To the Horses is like. I wrote everyone for this next one on the keyboard, so it’s a totally different sound and a very, very different record.”

Though Lane is reluctant to reveal much at this point, given that she’s still in the thick of writing and recording, she does think her diverse musical tastes will be reflected in the finished product.

She describes her own listening habits as “very broad and very varied.” Indeed, she’s teaching herself to play keyboards and is writing songs as she does so.

Lane also says that she is, as ever, “listening to as much music as I can.”

“I’m not super-nerdy in knowing about new stuff and I actually kind of wish I was a bit more nerdy in that way and had heaps of that sort of knowledge. I listen to so many genres. I grew up listening to everything from Motown and blues to classical and a lot of world music too. I love Afro-beat, Indian music and pop,” she enthuses.

“To me, I feel like the music world is just so massive that, if you limit yourself, you’re going to end up with a limited capacity to draw on, in terms of different influences for your own work. I like knowing that I listen to a lot of really, really different music but don’t always necessarily know how it will affect what I write or what sounds I make. I think about that and see I actually have a really great job. I can’t complain at all!”

To the Horses is out now on Ivy League Records.

Lanie Lane plays The Soundlounge, Currumbin, on August 31 and the A&I Hall, Bangalow, on September 1. She also plays the Courier Mail Spiegeltent, South Bank, on September 27.

Heidi Maier.