It is a cold early morning in Glasgow, and Matt Corby is stomping around a car park trying to keep warm.
The first show of his Australian tour is set to take place in April, although he has only just performed at Secret Garden Festival and sold out over 20 gigs across the world in the past 12 months alone. Touring is a second skin to Corby, and has been since he first hit the road at 14.
However, few artists are so talented and inspired, yet still so wracked with self-doubt, as the Sydney-born Corby. Though it’s going too far to say he is running from his past, his drive to keep moving seems inexorably tied to his craft as a performer. He is quite sincerely trying to make music that matters, and regardless of the shape of his career, it is the integrity of Corby’s songs that lets him rest easy at night.
“I would like to think that I have this rough plan of being a 70-year-old and not feeling like I compromised in any way,” he begins. “I think that’s always been in the back of my head. I mean, we’ll all be dead soon, and that’s fine, that’s the beauty of art. It’s why art is made. For the most part it’s cause of this crazy fear of your own mortality and of making a mark. I mean, I can sing alright, I can convey a message, so why don’t I devote my life to being uncompromising? I would hate to have someone dictate my creativity and self-expression, and that shouldn’t be taken away from people just for the sake of people making money, or you being ‘successful’.
“I mean, what does ‘success’ mean? You could have something with no substance that doesn’t help anyone, and it could still make a shit-tonne of money. Is that successful? I don’t know. I don’t measure it that way. If this were the ’50s, would anybody even fucking give a shit about what I was doing? Back then you’ve got real musicians that fucking play everything together live on tape, that have worked their entire lives to hit that snare at the exact right increment so you get the exact right tone; those musicians knew all that. Now, you’ve got fucking Kaoss Pads and machines that you can trigger, and you’ve got the snare hit that guy spent 40 years figuring out how to move his wrist that way to do. I don’t know.”
If Corby sounds frustrated, it’s certainly not without reason, yet he is by no means a bitter man. After the uneasy success of coming second on Australian Idol, followed by his breakthrough track ‘Brother’, Corby worked long and hard on the debut album that would finally show his fans the artist he’d always wanted to be; explorative and engaging. But after finding himself encouraged down insincere musical paths in the studio, he jettisoned 22 songs and walked away stunned, yet with a renewed sense of only making music that he was inspired to create.
“I think I kind of knew it wasn’t working the whole time, in my gut – you know, when you’re in the middle of something you’ve been obligated to do, which is how I felt straight off the bat. I had made a tiny bit of music, a few EPs, and then got the attention of the industry, record companies, and they sign you and say, ‘We’re going to make your album, and we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.’ And it’s like, ‘Well, no – what the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t know this was going to be a proviso, this was a condition of me signing the contract, that I have to immediately go out and do what you say.’ I was going along with it because I felt obligated to do it. So I just got to a point where I was so unhappy with the way that music sounds. It isn’t something that I would ever buy or listen to, but I’m putting all my time and all my emotions and effort into it, and for what? For them? For an audience that I would end up hating, because I’d hate myself?
“So I got to the end of that process, listened to the album and I was like, ‘This is fucking terrible.’ Maybe if I was 40 and I’d made that record I’d probably release it, but I was 22, and I should be doing things that I want to do, that were interesting. I don’t want to be some fucking cookie-cutter, boy-band singing [artist].”
Which leads us to Telluric, a collection of 11 tracks that retain Corby’s roots background but don’t shy away from a good dose of funk and blues. It’s strange to think of his debut only now arriving, when he has long been a household name for so many. While it’s easy to think we already know Matt Corby, that we have an understanding of his style and his sensibilities, the portrait that has been presented to us so far is really half in shadow. Corby is earnest and refreshing, yet he is still a man shackled by doubts and confusion, someone who has not quite surmounted the struggle that comes with working out who you are and what you stand for. But by God, you know he’s not going to stop trying.
“I think I feel a little better about myself now. I think I haven’t for a long time. Since I was 14 onwards, I’ve been scrambling to find out what the fuck I’m doing with [my music]. Because I know you can do something good with it, and I feel like this record is the first little glimmer of hope for me being self-sufficient, making the music all on my own. I feel better about myself.
“It’s been hard, man. I mean, everyone has a fucking hard time, but I just … It’s been very strange to have to grow up as a musician since Idol. People look at you and go, ‘Oh, he’s that guy from Idol,’ or, ‘He’s that guy who wrote that dumb song ‘Brother’.’ You know what I mean? You’re continuously redefined, and it weighs you down.
“To be honest, man, I hate doing interviews. I get so nervous and I don’t know what to say, because I don’t want to put myself in the position where I say something fucking stupid, like everyone does. And I don’t want people to have a bad impression of me, because I wouldn’t want it to destroy any of the music for them, because that is all that I ever want to say.
“To be honest, I have so much self-loathing, like so many people. It’s just… I don’t know. This album will hopefully speak to people who are hurting. Which everyone is, in their own way, and I am too. Obviously life isn’t too bad; it’s great. But we’re all in this together, and it’s quite difficult sometimes. But if we have things to bring joy into our lives, that’s a good thing.”
Telluric is out Friday March 11 through Universal, and Matt Corby performs at the Enmore TheatreMonday April 11 – Wednesday April 13.
