Inspired by a Travis CD, 12 year old Amy picked up one of the guitars her dad had lying round the house. He never played them; he'd never been in a band and had only 'mucked about' on the instrument with his pals when he was younger. And Amy just taught herself how to play the thing. There were no genetic influences, nor even lessons. Just a good ear and few chord patterns found on the internet. And a huge, burning, raging desire to write and play songs.

At first she would just play tunes she loved from the radio. Then one day she was sat in her big sister's room. Big sis was obsessed with Ewan McGregor, and had a wall full of posters of the Trainspotting star. Amy thought about this, and wrote The Wall, 'about how people idolise stars'. "You never fail to amaze me," it went, "everything you do is out of the blue..." It was rubbish, but the sentiments displayed a switched-on wisdom beyond her years.

Amy was head and shoulders above her peers, and was soon doing shows round Glasgow organised by the Impact team. It was just her and her acoustic guitar onstage. She was 15. Mostly she would play her own songs, but chucked in a few covers: Everybody Hurts by REM and Mad World by Tears For Fears 'but it was the slow version,' says Amy, 'the one from Donnie Darko.”

Soon she had a gig in Starbucks in Borders Books in Glasgow. A good reception at their Friday night open-mic spots led to her doing the same at the Edinburgh branch, and landing gigs in Glasgow venues like the Barfly. She started hanging out with other teenage musicians. 'Me and my pals used to sneak into a pub on Sauchiehall Street on Saturday afternoons when we were 16, so I could play at their acoustic spot. We'd hide at the back till it was my turn. I got a good reception and that egged me on a bit.'

During her year off from school, Amy began sending off demos recorded on eight-track in her bedroom to labels and management companies and talent houses who advertised in the back of NME. After a couple of nibbles of interest she was taken on by Melodramatic Records, a London-based production and management company ran by Pete Wilkinson. He helped Amy, still not yet officially an adult, record better-quality versions of her songs, and he spurred her on creatively. Within six months she'd secured a publishing deal with Warner Chappell and a record deal with Vertigo, home of Razorlight and The Killers.

Last year, with Wilkinson producing in Soho and rock legend Bob Clearmountain mixing in Los Angeles, Amy Macdonald recorded her debut album, ‘This Is The Life’. It's brimming with great tunes. It's no coincidence that one of the most affecting songs on Amy Macdonald's debut album is the trumpet-laden, atmospheric Let's Start A Band: a simple song, sung brilliantly, roaring powerfully in her ears and in the head, about how magic it is to love a band, follow a band, be in a band. When you're a teenager, that's all that matters.

The album was released on 30th July 2007 and debuted at number 2 in the UK official album chart, remaining in the top ten for five weeks. In her native Scotland, the album debuted at number 1. It also went gold within four days of its release and reached platinum by November.

Amy Macdonald will be performing live at Manchester Academy 1 on Thurs 22nd May.