want to pass that test in my head, that lit-
tle Sixties test.”
CorbywasraisedinOysterBay,asubur-
ban enclave of Sydney’s Sutherland Shire
that sounds about as real as Porpoise Spit.
His first musical memory is being driven
past a guitar shop in nearby Miranda as
a five year old and being captivated by the
rows of shiny instruments in the window.
Noticing the excitement in his child, his
dad, John, an oil painter, stopped the car
and bought his son a three-quarter acous-
tic guitar for $80, on which Corby started
having one lesson a week. The fi rst song he
learned to play was “Greensleeves”, but his
dedication began to wane and singing soon
took priority, fuelled by a desire to be bet-
ter than his sister, Grace, who’s 16 months
older (“We had some healthy competition
growing up,” he smiles). By the time he was
10, Corby had been trained classically by
an opera singer and was making tentative
steps into musical theatre, playing a minor
role in a production of Cain and Abel and
‘Colin the Cripple Boy’ in the Sutherland
Shire Light Opera Company’s take on The
Secret Garden. This did not endear him to
his peers at school.
“The grades lower and above would just
really fuck with me hardcore. I guess be-
causetheydidn’tunderstandmeandthey
wouldjustsee...someprettyboysing-er. That would make them angry for some
reason.
“I can remember moments where I was
sitting on a [school] bus and half the peo-
ple on the bus knew that I was about to
get punched in the nuts. I was just stand-
ing there chilling, and then some guy from
a grade above would be like, BAM! I’d be
bent over crying, everyone was laughing.
That was a standard day at school. I think
a lot of my anxiety started there, cos I
would always imagine the worst case sce-
nario, because I had a few of those pre-
sented to me when I didn’t [expect] them.”
Salvation from the schoolyard bullies
came in the shape of a Christian vocal
group called Iron and Clay, which per-
formed at his youth group when he was 13.
Ayearlaterhewasaskedtojoin,andwith
the eventual blessing of his parents left In-
aburra School in Year 9 and hit the road.
“I think it was pretty hard for Mum,” herefl ects. “She kind of felt like she lost her
teenage boy at that moment.”
Iron and Clay played up to eight gigs a
week at schools and youth groups around
the country; at the former they did “cov-
ers of hip songs, we did some Black Eyed
Peas – I used to rap!”, while their routine
at churches would be “a bit more praise
the Lord style songs”. For his ef orts Corby
received $20 a show. Though he doesn’t
“have a lot of good stuf to say about it in
hindsight”, he “learned how to tour”, “got
my chops up in a lot of ways” and met a
19-year-old Jarr yd James.
“He was still very much a kid at that
point,” refl ects James today. “I think he
really felt close to me because he was so
young and needed someone, not to look
up to necessarily, but to be there for him
as an older male fi gure, which is really im-
portant for a teenage kid like Matty, cos I
think he got bullied a lot at school. That’s
how our friendship started, and it never
stopped.”
Corby left the group just before his 16th
birthday, and got a job making sandwich-
es at Subway before going back to school
in Year 11. His return coincided with the
early rounds ofAustralian Idol, and as he
progressed through the competition he
left Inaburra for good, finishing Year 11
viacorrespondence.(“IthinkIcamethirdMay, 2016 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 53HENRY DILTZ
Good To Be Alone
Corby in L.A. in January. “Over the last
two years, it’s just grown at a really
nice rate [in the U.S] and we haven’t
had to be in anyone’s face.”