Amy Shark was 17 when Australian Idol debuted in 2003, but she never considered auditioning.
“‘I told myself that it was for real singers,” the Gold Coast-born singer-songwriter explains to TV WEEK.
”When I was at school, if you couldn’t sing like Mariah Carey, you weren’t a singer. I thought I could never stand there and blow someone away.”
Through her twenties, Amy kept writing songs and performing, but was unsigned when ”Adore” began being played on radio in 2016. The huge hit saw Amy invited to sing on James Corden and Jimmy Fallon‘s talk shows in the US and win a stack of ARIA awards.
With fellow judges Kyle Sandilands, Meghan Trainor and Harry Connick Jnr.
(IMAGE: Supplied)
.png?resize=380%2C285)
Amy attributes a lot of her success to her husband and manager, Shane Billings.
”I’d given up well before he had,” she says.
”I didn’t know he was still emailing demos to people in the industry – to a point where I got annoyed with him. I was like, ‘Chasing people is embarrassing.’
”His enthusiasm and his belief kept me writing songs. He believed in me a lot more than I did. He is Amy Shark, really!”
As a judge on Idol, Amy, 36, says she’s become ”a lot more confident” throughout the audition process.
”At the start, I was really apologetic and scared, because I know what it’s like to be told no a lot,” she explains.
”Then, as time went on, I got a little more ruthless. I want to be really polite and nice, but honest and direct – as direct as I can be.”
Amy is an ARIA award winning performer.
(IMAGE: Supplied)Amy says she still has ”a big self-deprecating mountain” to climb.
”I see kids come in [to Idol] who dead-set have better voices than I do. But I try to lean in to what I know, which is a very different, alternative path to getting somewhere in music and being authentic and doing everything for the right reasons.”
