[Published in The Student newspaper 20/11/12]
On 17 November I had the opportunity of sitting down with singer-songwriter Matt Corby before his gig at the Electric Circus. Soft-spoken and genuine, he comes across as a musician who is truly impassioned by what he does.
Corby is a 22-year old singer-songwriter hailing from Sydney, Australia. Former contestant on Australian Idol, he is currently signed to Ben Lovett’s (of Mumford & Sons) label Communion which prides itself on being a friendly platform for independent artists.
His latest EP Into the Flames (out this week in the UK) has already gone 4X Platinum in Australia. Mixing indie rock with stunning falsettos, Into the Flames offers a break from its folky predecessors with a venture into blues on song Souls’ A Fire. I asked him if this new musical direction was intentional “I try to make a decision not to do that. I have always wanted to write that type of music. But I try as best as I can not to let it head down that avenue. Too much blues can be a bit overbearing.” The Australian is definitely non-committed when it comes to defining his musical genre “I write whatever I feel. If I want to write a blues song, I write a blues song. For me, it’s finding that cross-genre balance in the songs.”
Trained classically as a child, Corby started touring in a 5-piece vocal group at the age of 13. He tells me that he’s always placed particular importance on his singing voice “I trained and practiced for years and years. It’s always been my number one instrument”. His vocal control is definitely put on show during his live performances where it ranges from low and husky to surprisingly high and powerful, particularly on Brother which Corby agrees has “different elements and dynamic, jumping notes”. In fact, friend and musical act Passenger (who is currently supporting Ed Sheeran on his Autumn tour) asked the singer-songwriter if he would collaborate with him on his track Golden Thread. “He’s a beautiful human being. We recorded that song when I had no money,” confesses Corby, “when I was bumming around Sydney not doing anything and he just got me to do these twirly vocals on it. He even paid me which I thought was the sweetest thing ever.”
I purposefully avoided asking him about his experience on reality TV, but there still seems to be a lingering grudge against the current music business. “People have to like it, market it, and distribute it”, he says, concerning his debut album to be recorded in January. “It’s not really in my hold. Musicians don’t run this industry, funnily enough. I’m just trying to write music that’s timeless, so it doesn’t really matter when it’s released”.
And writing music always seems to follow a certain creative pattern for him, describing how he always hears the melodic structure of the song “then you’re honing it to lyrically what you mean to say. There’s a thousand ways to say one thing. But there’s only one or two great melodies that would fit with the words.”
“I love singers that have a proper message, even if they say the simplest thing ever. Ryan Adams gets away with so much. He has blatant, obvious lyrics, but he’s so incredible. I don’t know how you can get away with saying something that honest.”
What would be his perfect collaboration then, if he could choose any musician in history?
“There’s people I would want to collaborate with just because I would want to see them work and people that I would want to collaborate with because we could do something great. I’d be interested to see what would happen if me and Tom Waits got into a room together. He’s one of the best songwriters ever.”
Certainly Matt Corby is one to watch. After success down under, all signs lead to him becoming a sensation in the UK. Into the Flames is well worth checking out for avid listeners of Ben Howard, Jeff Buckley and Bon Iver.
Cultural ponderings 