{"id":837104,"date":"2026-08-01T04:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837104\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T04:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:52:19","slug":"amy-shark-on-new-album-soft-pop-losing-her-love-of-songwriting-and-acting-with-russell-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837104\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Shark on new album Soft Pop, losing her love of songwriting and acting with Russell Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amy Shark lost her addiction for songwriting after fearing she had nothing to say anymore.<\/p>\n

But after hunkering down in her house for 30 days, writing non-stop without any distractions, she unlocked her emotional vault, rediscovered her passion and was well on her way to making a fourth album.<\/p>\n

Soft Pop was released last week, and despite its challenging beginnings, the Gold Coast-born singer regards the project as her proudest musical moment yet.<\/p>\n

Written entirely by herself, Soft Pop ventures into new sonic territory, stripped back to just her voice and an acoustic guitar while still being \u201cpop as hell\u201d and \u201cvery lyric-focused\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shark says she has never done an album like this before (and yes, the cover really is fluffy), partly due to giving herself one month to write as many fresh songs as she could before jetting off to Wales to record with producer Dann Hume.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old describes going back to the drawing board as \u201ccool\u201d but also \u201cterrible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some days that I just hated it, and I really just thought this isn\u2019t going to happen. But then, I guess I found that addiction again for songwriting, which I lost for a minute there. I just hadn\u2019t written in a minute and forgot how good it feels when you stumble across something that you think is special,\u201d she tells PLAY over a Zoom call from Sydney.<\/p>\n

\"AmyCamera IconAmy Shark’s new album Soft Pop is really fluffy. Credit: Sony Music<\/p>\n

Shark, who has won eight ARIA Awards, said she had always loved writing songs but when it \u201csuddenly becomes your job, it becomes a little bit overwhelming\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re an artist, everyone\u2019s got their story of how they got to where they are, but it\u2019s usually from just the love of writing songs, and if you\u2019re doing it for the right reasons, you never expect it to actually become your job,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just think it\u2019s this cute little secret you have that you enjoy doing, and the thought of being a musician was so big for me to get my head around, that that could be a thing that I just never thought it would be, and because it took me so long, and I had so many negative experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd coming up to the fourth album, I kind of lost myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian Idol judge soon realised she had a wealth of life experience and heartbreak to draw inspiration from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been broke. I\u2019ve been on the floor of the shower crying. I\u2019ve experienced high ecstasy of love. I\u2019ve been shattered,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think once I realised I\u2019ve got so many stories yet to tell and so many little things that I can tap into, it just became fun again.<\/p>\n

\"AmyCamera IconAmy Shark. Credit: Sony Music<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I didn\u2019t really have any guidelines either. Like, I don\u2019t have anyone in my life that I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, I hope they don\u2019t hear this song\u2019, so I kind of just needed that reminder to be like, \u2018go for it, write whatever you want about whoever you want\u2019, and then I was on a roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Songs written, Shark flew to the tiny Welsh town of Barry to record with Hume in a church turned studio.<\/p>\n

Though the pair had worked together on hits like I Said Hi and Can I Shower At Yours, this marked the first time they recorded an entire album together.<\/p>\n

With Shark living in the church\u2019s attic, the recording process mirrored the writing sessions in that she was free of any distractions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will remember this time for the rest of my life, probably more so than any other recording experience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just knew that the second I got in the studio with Dann, he\u2019s just the person I trust to bring them to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no distractions in Barry. Barry\u2019s the most beautiful but boring town in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soft Pop features 11 songs. The music video for It\u2019s Kinda Hot finished up exactly how Shark envisioned it: a \u201chot devil woman just walking around\u201d a Martin Scorsese-type set.<\/p>\n

Enter Devlin, an American living her life as the \u201creal life devil girl\u201d, complete with red skin and horns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at the airport, and I just came across this person, Devlin, and I was like, man, she\u2019s literally the character I need for this video,\u201d Shark says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting it across the line was not the easiest, but it\u2019s art, and she\u2019s a very artistic girl, and really committed to being an actress. So I think she did really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

After being \u201cterrified\u201d of marking her milestone fourth album \u201cwhen you\u2019re not the hot new artist anymore\u201d, Shark said she has been the most confident during an album campaign since her career took off a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I know that it\u2019s a good album, and I feel like I\u2019m not so needy this time. I feel like a lot of the other albums, I\u2019ve been like, oh, tell me, is it good? Is it good? And what did they say? And reading every review, and I probably still will read every review, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna destroy me as it has done in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just I feel like it takes up to your fourth album to be like I think I know who I am and what the songs are and what I\u2019m capable of, and I\u2019m really proud of it, and that\u2019s kind of all that matters to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AmyCamera IconAmy Shark in Beast. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n

Somehow amongst all her music making, Shark managed to film her debut movie, starring alongside Russell Crowe, Daniel MacPherson and Luke Hemsworth in Beast.<\/p>\n

Not many people know acting was Shark\u2019s first love, before music, having taken classes from the age of 14.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot on a big scale, but I had a little agent in the town I lived, and would try and get commercials, and I think I was a big fan of people like Macaulay Culkin growing up and being like, \u2018that\u2019s so cool\u2019. So for that to come full circle and be an opportunity that I thought I kissed goodbye years ago, is amazing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s up for doing more movies in the future if \u201csomeone wants to risk it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to do more movies,\u201d Shark reveals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been talking to some people, and I\u2019m up for doing cool stuff, and if the role was right and the timing was right, I\u2019d do it again in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soft Pop is out now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amy Shark lost her addiction for songwriting after fearing she had nothing to say anymore. But after hunkering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-837104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}