Matt Corby is one of Australia’s most unlikely musical treasures. Beloved by legions of fans who sell out his shows and purchase his records en masse, Corby first came to public attention on the much-maligned reality singing competition Australian Idol.
The 25-year-old is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who’s so committed to his craft that he’s waited until now to release his debut full-length after completely scrapping previous attempts that he deemed unsatisfactory.
With Telluric, his long-awaited debut LP, set to drop this Friday, Corby recently reflected on the way he first came to prominence in an interview with News Corp. According to the sonorous-voiced songsmith, Idol was “a big fucking mistake”.
Corby competed on the 2007 season of the infamous program, coming in as a runner-up to Natalie Gauci. After leaving the show, Corby went on to forge his own path in the music world with a prodigious output of EPs and consistently popular tours.
“When you are young, you think being serious is how you get taken seriously,” he tells News Corp. “It’s probably a post-Idol thing. Something like that can eat away at you.”
“I am someone who looks more to the negative than the positive as well, so I took all the negatives out of that and thought ‘Bugger, I’ve ruined everything.’”
“I realise it didn’t really matter in the end. [But] there’s always been a public perception thing with doing a show like that, it stops people from letting themselves like what you do because it’s tainted by that. Maybe not so much now… but I don’t know.”
The singer addresses the anxieties of being ‘Matt Corby, musician’ living in the shadow of ‘Matt Corby, that guy from Idol‘ on ‘We Could Be Friends’, a cut from his new album on which he sings, “I’m a child star contestant on a show too overrated“.
“I made another fucking mistake and went on Idol and completely jeopardised myself from actually being in a music community.”But speaking to News Corp, Corby reveals that feeling like an outcast is nothing new for him and that he’s always felt excluded from the pack because of his status as an artist and musician.
“I would like it to be more of a unifying thing. I am not going around saying I Am A Singer,” he says. “I know there’s something that happens with it that makes me and everything else feel good but I never wanted it to be an ego thing.”
“Adele has a pure way of communicating something and I hope I do too. The funny thing is I have always felt that it’s the thing that has separated me from people my whole life. Being a singer in this country in this day and age and have kids yell at you, ‘Fuck off, you faggot.’”
“I have always felt like an outcast, never been in any music scene. I made another fucking mistake and went on Idol and completely jeopardised myself from actually being in a music community.”
“It’s kind of devastating in a way because I do feel like that kid in the playground that nobody wanted to play with. Maybe that’s why I thought if it’s the thing that separated me from everyone, maybe it’s also the thing that can bring me back.”
