Sara Storer, former Golden Guitar-winning country superstar, now all-round singer/songwriter, makes big decisions. On her latest record, Silver Skies, she eschewed the bush balladry for a more popular, at times folkie, sound. Now she’s moving in on the inner-city gig circuit. And obviously isn’t afraid of a challenge.

The Victorian-born, richly talented Storer, who now lives on the central NSW coast at Wyoming, is affable, easy to chat to, and down-to-earth. She may have won seven Golden Guitars at the 2004 Tamworth Country Music Festival, she may have been awarded APRA Song of the Year and heritage Song Of the Year for her poignant Land Cries Out at this year’s hoedown, but when she talks about a recent week off in the Northern Territory it’s the number of people who hadn’t turned their air-conditioners on — despite the muggy weather — that captures her attention. Sara, you see, is a natural born storyteller. It’s in the detail.

NT is, of course, where it mostly all began. In the mid-1990s she moved to Katherine, where she worked at small aboriginal settlement teaching kindergarten at Casurina Street Primary. She also began playing at parties all over the territory having already written her first songs, including Buffalo Bill, while living in Camooweal, Queensland.

She’s seen Australia from shore to shore and like all good songwriters prefers chronicling what she experiences first-hand, hence the changes on Silver Skies.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt my music has changed over the four albums I’ve released,” she says. “Go back to the first album and the songs I was writing were far more country than those I wrote for Silver Skies. Then I was living in the Northern Territory and going to the rodeo and the like. I wrote about that lifestyle and those characters. Now I live on the central coast in a built up area and I get into the city a lot – and that’s what I write about, my experiences, so the songs become more general and deal with a different type of living and feeling.

“I also changed the production team last year [enlisting the help of Matt Fell and The Waif’s Josh Cunningham in place of Garth Porter who produced the first three albums]. I needed it and I don’t think it hurts my listeners to have something new and fresh – as long as I keep my songwriting standard.

“Why be stuck in a box? There’s no reason. I’ve made a living off country music and I’m thankful for it, but it’s time to step out of the box and say to everybody else ‘I’m branded country but I think you might like my music’.”

Part of that process is the Long Live The Girls run through April, every Wednesday night at The Excelsior Hotel in Surry Hills with fellow songbirds, Bec Willis and Sarah Humphrys.

“It’s like going back to my start in country music, Sara says. “It’s me trying to break into the inner-city which is something I’ve never down before. So it’s three girl singer/songwriters – we all write with real passion. There are musical differences but there’s that tie. We are all going to do our own thing. Bec and Sarah will do some songs and I’ll go on last with a couple of players then the girls will come on later for a few songs together.”

Asked what ambition has become to her, Sara muses over the question for a while, admits that as she’s caught up in the music business she should have her future all mapped out. “But, you know, music is such a funny business and I’ve come into it as a bit of a hobby – that’s why I have management so it’s something I can make a living out of – however, I haven’t got it all planned. I realise how much I’ve achieved, as for the future I’d like to go overseas, get my music out of the box.

“You know what? I’m just giving it a go – I’m not going to be sour and bitter if it doesn’t work out that way. It’s just people, music and life at the end of day, and it’s fun. Everything in my music career is fun. I don’t get too serious. I just want to be here for the long-term as a female writer.”

And, you’d put money on it, that she will.