Australian Idol judge Amy Shark has firmly established herself as a mentor to music hopefuls after a decade-long rise to the top, kicking off her career through pub and club performances.
While the Logie and eight-time ARIA winner never competed on a talent show like Idol, she relates to the terrifying point in any artist’s career when they take the leap and perform for others.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Amy Shark looks back on her career and judging Australian Idol.
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Instead of auditioning for the original Australian Idol judging line-up, Shark earned her stripes performing live in front of others in local pubs around the Gold Coast, where she was born and raised.
“I look back at those first shows, and I’m horrified because I’m just so, so scared up there and not comfortable,” she tells 7NEWS.com.au.
“I look back at all the times I played pubs and clubs and I hated it.”
“It was soul-destroying for me.”
A natural songwriter, the young talent thought playing covers was “a waste of time” — instead determined to record and perform her own tracks.
Looking back now, Shark says that she “was cutting my teeth back then”.
Unlike some fellow Aussie music icons, including Guy Sebastian and Jess Mauboy, Shark never auditioned for Australian Idol.
“I wouldn’t have got through because I had an attitude back then,” she laughs, recalling her younger self.
“I used to watch and be like, ‘Why would I go there and get judged by them’ — and now I’m a judge.”
“All my friends, they’re like, ‘Do you remember your attitude towards that show, and now you’re on it’.”
Shark says that while Australia Idol “was not my way of getting to be a musician, it was just different then.
“But now I think it’s like it’s pretty crucial.”
The new season, airing on Channel 7 on Monday, January 29, is Shark’s second stint as a judge, this time around being “much more confident”.
“I sort of know the ropes a little bit now. Like television — in case you can’t tell, I’m not a big glam girl,” Shark laughs.
“There’s a lot of glam involved and bright lights and there’s a lot going on.”
But the singer proudly says that she has “found my place on the desk” and has learned the tough lesson of saying no to some aspiring artists.
“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cry every time it would be a no from me,” she said of rejecting auditions in 2023.
“I kept apologising, so now I’m a little more stable up there.
“You can also see the ones that are just like, ‘I’m so hungry for it, I need this’. And I just know that feeling so, so bad.
“It’s really crushing when you can’t give them that.”
Shark has been juggling performing and Australian Idol with recording and releasing new music, most recently her newest single, Beautiful Eyes which she says is her “favourite song” to date.
Writing it “in a really bad place,” the singer shares her pride in bringing everything together to create the hit.
“It all made sense,” she says.
“It’s not very often that lightning strikes like that where things just come out and you’re like, OK, (this) makes sense.”
“I think the reason I was so frustrated for so long was that I kept going back to the same chords, and I was boring myself.
“Like I’m never going to write a good song again. And then when I fell into those chords for Beautiful Eyes, I was like, this is different.”
When Shark writes a song she’s happy with, her husband-turned-manager Shane Billings is next to hear the piece.
Shark and Billings met in 2007 when they both worked for the Gold Coast Titans rugby league team when she was a video editor, and he was a financial manager.
They for married in 2013 and Billings went on to become his wife’s local talent manager.
“He’s very brutal and honest, and I’m pretty brutal and honest myself. So if it gets past me, then it’ll go to Shane,” she says.
“I sent Beautiful Eyes to him for the first time, I just said, ‘you’re going to like this one’.”
While he’s not directly musical, Shark says that her husband has “got a good ear”.
Australian Idol returns Monday January 29 at 7.30pm (AEDT) on Channel 7 and 7plus.
