As you’ve probably heard, Matt Corby isn’t so fond of his Australian Idol past. As far as the singer and songwriter, who recently unveiled his debut album, Telluric, is concerned, the whole thing was a big mistake.
Speaking to News Corp earlier this month, Corby said his 2007 stint on the infamous reality singing program was “a big fucking mistake” and he’s struggled with being ‘Matt Corby, musician’ living in the shadow of ‘Matt Corby, that guy from Idol‘.
Corby dissects his feelings about his time on Idol on ‘We Could Be Friends’, a cut from his new album which readers can now check out below. As he told News Corp, the song is something of a “playful” go at himself and pop culture in general.
The atmospheric, moody track, which closes with a phased-out, psychedelic passage characteristic of the album as a whole, has Corby singing in a brooding baritone with cutting lines like, “I’m a child star contestant on a show too overrated“.
“When you are young, you think being serious is how you get taken seriously,” Corby told News Corp during the interview. “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.”
“I have always felt like an outcast, never been in any music scene,” Corby continued. “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.”
Check out our review of Matt Corby’s debut full-length effort, Telluric, here.
