Amy Shark is HUGE in Australia and now she’s making a name for herself in North America. The songstress plays the Starlite Room tomorrow night (March 1), and called into SONiC to chat.

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Amy Shark Details New Music With Blink-182's Mark Hoppus

Originally Aired: February 28, 2018

 

Q: Do Australians actually call barbecues “barbies”?

A: Yes, we definitely do ‘come around for a barbie’. Where Dumb and Dumber got it wrong is when they say ‘put another shrimp on the barbie’. We call shrimp prawns.

 

Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?

A: I wasn’t in primary school thinking I wanted to be a musician. It wasn’t until high school started playing guitar and got kinda semi-okay at it. I was listening to a lot of bands when the indie wave was coming through… I just kinda fell into it.

 

Q: Who were you listening to at the time?

A: It was like Death Cab [For Cutie], Blink-182 and Bright Eyes and Tegan and Sara.

 

Q: Did you know Tegan and Sara are from the city you’re calling from? They’re from Calgary.

A: I did! Because I was like a big, big, big fan. I followed them all around my country – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. I went and saw one of their very first shows when they played a tiny little RSL in Southport. So… yeah, I’m kind of hunting them down.

 

Q: Is Australia supportive of their artists?

A: Most definitely. We don’t have as many radio stations that you guys have over here,  we’ve kinda only got one alternative radio station [called] Triple J. If they get on board, you’ve kinda broken the country.

 

Q: How did you find out your song was going to be on the radio?

A: They emailed me and said they heard the song and that they wanted to premier it on the radio. It was my friend’s birthday that night, so I went to their birthday dinner, but we were all streaming it on our phones at this Mexican restaurant.  It was really cool!

 

Q: And then you got to go on tour with Vance Joy, Bleachers and Bishopp Briggs!

A:  Yeah, they were amazing tours. It definitely helped build a bit of a fan base here. Victoria the other night was just incredible, it was such a packed room. And so many people were coming up saying, ‘I saw you with Vance Joy, and Bleachers!’ and it’s cool that people are travelling around and just happen to catch me.

 

Q: Of those three, who has the weirdest tour rider request?

A: The wierdest rider… hmm. They’re all pretty stocked standard, but one weird thing was I walked past Jack [Antonoff]’s room and he was making these, like, I think they were maple syrups?  And he was labeling them himself, and he said ‘Amy come in here!’ and we had a chat. It was the first time we met and I started labeling these maple syrups! It was really cool.

 

Q: You mentioned Blink-182, a band you’re a huge fan of, and you recently started working with the one and only Mark Hoppus.

A: I know, can you believe that?

 

Q: How did that happen?

A: Well, I was having a couple days off in Hawaii before I head to LA to work on some stuff with Jack Antonoff and Joel Little, and I checked my phone to see a Twitter message from Mark Hoppus saying, ‘Hello Amy, I’ve got some friends that are loving your music. I’ve had a listen and if you’re ever in LA hit me up and we’ll grab coffee.’ I passed out for a little bit.

 

Q: So you met up?

A: Yeah, I met up with him, had a coffee and we spoke about music. He’s this tall, handsome man with a deep voice that I always imagined. I was really emotional like a giddy school girl sitting there. And then two days later, we were in a studio.

 

Q: How does Mark Hoppus take his coffee?

A: He has a guy. He always has, like, seven people around him and that’s when I realized this was actual rockstar territory. One guys getting his lunch, another has his whole day planned. So yeah, he has a coffee guy.

 

Q: Blink-182 is pretty upbeat and pop-punk while your music is a little laid back. Does the song sound like both you and Blink?

A: God, I wish I could just send you the song right now! But it’s definitely one you wanna hear, it’s well unexpected. It’s the best possible balance of Amy Shark and Blink.

 

Get tickets HERE to see Amy Shark Thursday night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Amy Shark, Blink 182