Matt Corby: I almost hid away after Australian Idol
By Frankie Newton
Soulful melody maker Matt Corby has been tipped to be one of the hottest acts of 2016 – but at just 16, the soul singer wanted to hide from reality TV fame.
Australian Corby performed to a sell-out audience at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, last month. So big was the demand to see the singer, the event had to be moved from the Academy to fit the crowd in.
But though his star is clearly very much on the rise and as audiences across the world fall in love with his moody, melancholic strains, fame was not always certain for the singer – who was first showcased at 16 on Australian Idol.
“A year after the show, I just hid…I tried to not be seen or heard by anyone,” he said.
Corby, who cuts a handsome figure, with dazzling green eyes and dirty blonde curls, was starkly affected by everything that came alongside entering such a well-known and popular show.
The 25-year-old was clearly not prepared as a teenager to be thrown in to the limelight without understanding of why he was such an attraction.
“It messes with your frame of mind and the way you view the world and the way you view yourself,” he said.
“In two weeks you go from an unknown person to someone that either the public love or hate…it is the most insane thing to go through”.
Coming out the other side, he says that he felt a “bit ashamed…of the whole process” because of the way the “public had seen me and related to me.”
This subsequently led to a lot of “personal repercussions” and the singer, regrets not shaking off the negativity and saying “F*ck the world”.
Unfortunately, whatever country you are in, artists discovered on reality TV shows like X Factor or The Voice are rarely given the opportunity to develop into unique and original musicians.
They tend to either sell out to the chosen money making label or get thrown back into the abundant and every increasing pile of unknowns. From talking to Corby, it seems that his greatest fear would have been to fall into one of those categories.
The singer has been heralded by Gigwise as “the future superstar of 2016”. It is no doubt, just the beginning of much further recognition for the performer.
Corby’s career has already spanned over nine years. He has produced five EPs and toured internationally, and performed at Glastonbury, Latitude and South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
However, it was only this year with the release of his debut album ‘Telluric’, after a silent two-year hiatus from music, that many seemed to recognise his talent.
Listen to Monday one of Corby’s stand out tracks here: