in engineering, which is really weird, cos
it’ssomethingIdidn’tlike.Andthethings
IcaredaboutIcamefuckinglastin,like
English.”)
The morning of theAustralian Idolau-
ditions, Corby’s father woke him three
timesathalfhourlyintervalstotryand
convince his son to go. The first two times,
Corby – who says he used to pay his par-
ents out for watching earlier seasons (“It
was all so cheesy and shiny and awful”)
–rolledoverandsaid,“Cool,notgoing,
thanks mate.” On attempt three, John
Corbyremindedhissonofthetimeheun-
successfully tried to persuade him to audi-
tion for the musicalOliver.“Ididn’twant
to do music theatre anymore, and he was
always really bummed out about that cos
theshowwasamassivesuccess.Sohe
said to me, ‘You don’t want this to be an-
otherOliversituation, I want you to try
andseeifyoucandothis.’SoIputonmy
clothes, grabbed my guitar and we drove
into the city.”
History shows that Corby came second
inAustralian Idol;lesstransparentisthat
hisexperiencesenthimintoaspiralofde-
pression so deep that he threatened the
producer on the eve of the finale that if
hewonhewouldkillhimself.Hehadex-
pressed his discontent as early as the first
dayofauditions,tellingthatsamepro-
ducerthat“Idon’tknowifthisisforme”,
but he “somehow got my arm twisted”
andwentbackforthetelevisedaudi-
tion in front of the panel of judges. On
theoccasionshetriedtoquitmid-sea-
son, he says he was told “you can only
pulloutifyou’resickandyouhavevocal
problems”.
Todayhetalksofbeingmanipulat-
ed and exploited for the cameras, of
psychologists being employed to “get
juice” to fuel content, and of not want-
ing“peopletoseemeinthislightbe-
causeit’snotreallywhoIam,it’slike
some caricature dressed-up version”.
Bythefinale,hewassodespondenthe
justwanted“togoandcryinaballfortwo
weeksinmyroom.Cosyoucan’tseethe
bigpicture,youhaven’tlivedlongenough
tobelike,youhaveupsanddowns,I’llget
throughthis.Iwaslike,I’mdestroying
my reputation, my image; it’s not even my
image, they dress me up in fucking fruit
loopclothessoIcangetmoreattention.
Justabigmess.”
orby describes the year
after Idol as “one of the most
difficult of my life”, as he
didn’t understand “how to
go about changing this mess
that I’d created and that I was a part of ”.
Jarryd James remembers his friend
“being pretty confl icted inside... because
the thing that he loved the most, which is
music, had turned into something that
made him feel so dark”. Compounding the
issue was his level of fame. Dann Hume,
drummer for Evermore and producer of
Telluric, fi rst met Corby not long after Idol
wrapped up. “People would just scream
and jump out of their cars and literally
jump on top of him,” he says today. “I’d
met lots of people with fans and fame
through what I was doing, I thought I un-
derstood what that was, but seeing the
way people reacted to him I remember
thinking, wow, that’s going to be di cult
to navigate.”
“I had a massive chip on my shoulder,”
recalls Corby. “I had so much to prove. You
can hear it in the fi ve EPs [he released be-
fore Telluric], there’s just this despera-
tion to show whoever, I don’t even know
who, that I’m not that anymore.” Later, he
adds, “I was in damage control mode for
five years.”The importance of Australian
Idol to Corby’s career isn’t that it de-
fines him as an artist, but that it’s
determined so many of the moves
he’s made since. He passed on a re-
cord deal of ered by Sony, who’d exer-
cised their option to sign the 17-year-
old after the Idol fi nale. (“My parents
thought I was throwing everything
away.”) He shied away from the spot-
light, using a pseudonym to jump on
low-key bills put together by friends
(“I would never use my name... I was so
ashamed of myself publicly”). Rather than
capitalise on his profi le he opted not to re-
lease any music straight away, and fi gured
his best option would be to head overseas
in search of an objective audience.
The week after he turned 18 he landed
in London, shacking up in a friend’s attic.
After months of fruitless open mic nights,
representatives from the then-fl edgling
Communion label – future home to the
likes of Catfi sh and the Bottlemen and
Ben Howard – caught one of his sets and
of ered him a handshake deal. “It was the
fi rst moment of hope I had with doing this
seriously,” says Corby.
Following on from 2009’s independent
Song For... EP, he released two EPs with
Communion in 2010, My False and Tr a n -
sition To Colour,butwasforcedhome54 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com May, 2016
FROM TOP: GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY, 2Matt
Corby
Into the Flame
(1)At the 2007Australian Idolfinale
with winner Natalie Gauci.(2)Corby at
home.Hefirstpickedupaguitaratthe
ageof5.(3)With Jarryd James in the
vocal group Iron and Clay, where they
first met as teenagers.wol
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