when he ran out of money, having ac-
crued a debt of around $80,000. For a year
Corby stopped playing music and start-
ed paying bills, working in a friend’s cafe
inSydney.Hereferstothisasoneofthe
happiest times of his life. “I think it was
thefirsttimeIactuallyfeltlikeIwaspart
ofacommunity,notsomeweirdpersonto
be gawked at. Some people would remem-
berwhoIwas,butitwouldn’tbeweirdbe-
cause,I’mmakingyourcofee,lookhow
it’sturnedout.Andtomakethatjokewith
people, it’s cool, then you’re their friend.”
hen triple j added
“Brother” to rotation in 2011,
Corby was so happy he
thinks he may have cried.
“Before that they were like,
we have no interest in playing an ex-Idol,
and I was like, fair enough, I wouldn’t ei-
ther.” He’d already reinvigorated his love
of playing live via the Secret Garden con-
cept, whereby he’d travel to fans’ houses
and play in their backyard – the perfect
grass roots set-up for a man who’d spent
the years since Idol attempting to take
away “anything which is trying to attach
itself to the music which shouldn’t be
there, because it makes
it impure”.
“Brother”wentonto
sell more than 400,000
copies,landatnumber
threeinthe2011Hot-
test 100, and win an
ARIAforSongofthe
Year.Inmanyways,it
earned him the respect
he’d so badly craved.
And yet such is the rid-
dleofMattCorbythat
todayhecan’tstandit.
“‘Brother’isagim-
mick,man.It’smyver-
sionofapopsong.I
wroteitbecausemy
manager was like,
‘Write an upbeat song!’
I never intended on it
beingthishugedeal,
andthatfucking‘ooh-
we-ooh’–thebirdcallatthebeginningof
thatsong–isthebaneofmyfuckingex-
istence. That’s what a lot of people use to
mock me with.”
Butthat’salsowhatyourfanssingloud-
estatyourshows.
“That’strue,Iguess,”heshrugs.“Ithink
Itakethingsthewrongwayalotofthe
time.Chiponmyshoulder.”
SohowdiditfeelwinningtheSongofthe
Year ARIA for “Brother” and, a year later,
thesameawardfor“Resolution”?
“Ifeelashamedtobe[attheARIAs]
sometimes, cos I’m like, I shouldn’t be win-
ningthisARIA,thisdefinitelyshouldn’tbe
SongoftheYear.Thereissomuchmusic
out there that is so much fucking better
than I am, and [those acts aren’t] even here
tonight. I don’t want to be part of this joke.
Thisseemsmorelikeamajorlabelmarket-
ingschemethanitdoesanightaboutAus-
tralian music and a celebration of it.”
Corby may have spent the years since
Idoldesperately trying to prove his worth,
but such is the standard he sets for himself
you can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever be
satisfied he’s achieved it.erhaps ‘telluric’ will
be the album that gives
Corby peace. Lord knows its
creation has been mired in
the requisite amount of tor-
ture, self-loathing and anxiety, having
been delayed for several years (news sto-
ries as far back as 2010 report the album
will be coming out that year) and preced-
ed by at least one full-length recording
being entirely scrapped. That came in
2013, when Corby decamped to America
to record in Los Angeles. Comprised of
songs written throughout his career, the
album ended up being ditched shortly
after Corby recorded his fi nal overdubs.
“That night everyone sat around and lis-
tenedtoit.AndIwaslike,ofinthedis-
tance, sitting on a
chair, not looking at
anyone,thinkinginmy
head [whispers], ‘You
fucking failed, man,
you fucking failed.’”
The conversation to
scrap it, he says, “went
really bad”, and yet
both he and his label
agreed it was the right
course of action. In
retrospect, he says, “I
just wasn’t ready to do
itthe right way, and I
wasn’t really ready to
say anything. And just
because you can sing
welldoesn’tmeanyou
have anything fuck-
ingrelevanttosay,and
that’s what I’ve been
trying to figure out for
thelastcoupleofyears.”
CorbyreturnedhometoSydneyde-
pressed, but with a fire in his belly. “I’d
beenscaredoffailingatstuffsincethe
wholeIdolthing,” he reasons. “I guess it
wasareallyhumanmoment.Idon’tknow
howtoexplainthepowerofit,butIwas
fine with admitting I’d failed. That was a
realkicker:‘Oh,soI’mfreenow!’”
Hemovedintothestoreroomofa
friend’scafeinSutherlandandsetabout
buying music equipment and learning how
to play a multitude of instruments, excited
attheprospectofbeingableto“startmak-
ingmusicthewayIwanttodoit”.
Hiscreativejourneytookhimnorthto
Brisbane, where he stayed and jammedwith former Middle East co-frontman
Rohin Jones, a time he says “was really en-
couraging”. He also met Alex Henriksson,
who would go on to co-write several of
the songs on Telluric. From there he hired
a house on the Tweed River in northern
NSW, and spent six months writing and
trying to fi gure out “how to make moving
compositions”.
By mid-2014 he was in Paris recording
with Mocky, one of the producers attached
to the discarded fi rst album, whose cred-
its include Feist and Jamie Lidell. Togeth-
er the duo recorded eight songs (“they were
the fi rst little glimmers of hope for me”)
before Corby returned home to keep writ-
ing. When he fl ew to Melbourne to sing
back-up vocals on an EP by R.W. Grace,
it changed the course of what would be-
come his debut album. Reunited with the
EP’s producer Dann Hume, who’d worked
with Corby on 2010 single “My False”, the
two decided to get together for four days to
jam, for no other reason than to see what
would happen. By the end, Corby was con-
vinced – they were going to make his re-
cord together.
“We talked about doing it in a house in
themiddleofnowhere,andgotmoreand
more escapist by the minute,” says Hume.
“Before I knew it we were in this house in
BerryoverlookingBerryMountainwith
an entire studio’s worth of gear, and just
me and him making bacon and eggs and
jamming.Itdidn’tfeelrealtheentiretime.”
In the morning Corby and Hume would
get up and go for a surf, come home and
startworking.Corbywouldplayallthein-
struments, making loops of beats and play-
ing along to them until he had something
that worked. With the exception of some
“four or five hour chess battles”, the pattern
wasrepeateddailyforsixweeks.Bythe
endofit,saveforsomere-recordsinMel-
bourne’s Sing Sing studios, Corby emerged
withTelluric.
Hume talks of them wanting the record
to “be a reflection of where Matt’s at, [not]
wheretheworldisatrightnow”.Giventhat
Corbysaysherarelylistenstotheradio
(andisshockedbysomeofwhathehears
when he does turn it on) and doesn’t own
aTV,it’sperhapsnotsurprisingtheend
product–aspaciousmelangeofjazz,pop,
funk, folk and neo-soul – sounds so unaf-
fectedbythetrendsofmoderndaypop.
“I remember the moment we did the very
lastthingontherecord,whichwasatmy
housedownthesouthcoast,IthinkIwas
doingacoupleofbasstakesforsomething,
andIplayedabitofrecorderon‘Sooth
Lady Wine’,” says Corby. “We finished it
andmeandDannwerelike,‘Cool,we’re
done!’ We gave each other a little hug and
Iwalkedoutoftheroomandstartedwash-
ingup.Ididn’tknowwhattodo!I’djust
spent the last six months, but actually the
lastsixyears,conceivingofandgoingback
on and freaking out aboutMay, 2016 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 55
[Cont. on 104]“‘Brother’
is a
gimmick.
That ‘ooh-
we-ooh’
- the
birdcall – is
the bane of
my fucking
existence.”