Amy Shark: 'If People Like You, They're Going To Like The Sh*t That You Do'

The Sunday scaries. The Sunday sads. We all feel it: as Sunday approaches its end, so comes the downer feeling of knowing that the next day is Monday, and we all know what that means: we have to get back to work.

But Amy Shark gets the Sunday sads for another reason: she thrives on being busy, and the quiet time offered by a Sunday – if she’s not on the road, anyway – isn’t all that enjoyable.

Inspired by the feelings and thoughts in that downtime, Amy Shark named her new album, Sunday Sadness, after the complexity of that time. But she certainly didn’t expect the album title – or the artwork, inspired by a photo of a young Drew Barrymore eating pasta – to resonate with an audience the way both have.

@amyshark

#stitch with @Drew Barrymore 🍝📸 SUNDAY SADNESS OUT AUG 16

♬ original sound - Amy Shark

Catching up with The Music just days before the release of Sunday Sadness, which Shark dropped a week earlier than initially planned (“I love the element of surprise. It’ll be a bit of hype for the album, and it’s cool. Why not?”), she says of people approaching her relating to the album title, “I was shocked by how many people were like, ‘Yeah, the Sunday scaries!’. It's the same with [me and] my husband [Shane Billings].

“It's like, Sunday rolls around, and both [of] our families are [a] little cooked, and everyone's busy with their families. We're just sitting there and, like, our whole life is work,” the I Said Hi singer explains. “So, everything stops on Sunday. So, you’re like, ‘What do we do?’ I guess we could go for a walk… It's such a weird day, and then that evening feels so gloomy, and I start thinking about my family and things of the past and shit like, ‘Where's my passport? Is it updated? Have we done that?’

“You start freaking out about these ridiculous things, and it's like, biding the time for that evening to end. And then Monday feels great. Monday is like, ‘We're back on, work's happening, we're busy’—it's all good. But yes, Sunday Sadness, I was really surprised when I announced that people were like, ‘Yeah, we get it. That's definitely a weird time.’ It was cool to see other people feeling that way as well.”

For Sunday Sadness, Shark teamed up with an A-list roster of talent, including producer Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus), with additional production credits coming from Matt Corby, Joel Little, Dann Hume, Jon Hume, Sam DeJong and Aaron Rubin – a dream team she calls “incredible”. And yet, she couldn’t be more authentically Amy Shark (“It's the most exciting feeling going in with people you respect and know will do the best thing for the song”).

Amy Shark has built her career on being a relatable artist. She is someone fans go to when they’re heartbroken, falling in love again, falling out with their best friend, or experiencing awkward moments in their mid-20s and early thirties.

Marking a maturation in her songwriting, Sunday Sadness contains Shark’s “favourite” song she’s ever written, Beautiful Eyes, as well as the poppy Loving Me Lover, punchy Two Friends, short-and-sweet Can I Shower At Yours?, and, of course, the completion of the blink-182 trifecta with My Only Friend.

On her latest single, Shark teamed up with Tom DeLonge, the guitarist and co-vocalist of blink-182, locking in a member of the band for each of her albums. Singer and bassist Mark Hoppus featured on the Love Monster cut Psycho, while drummer Travis Barker starred on Cry Forever’s C’MON. And, when we talk blink-182, it’s fair to say that teenage Amy wouldn’t believe where her career has taken her.

Sharing that “the whole blink thing” wasn’t part of her plan for her trio of albums, Shark says, “Oh, my God. Teenage Amy is losing her shit, but adult Amy is exhausted.

“I mean, the whole blink thing wasn't in the plans. I didn't get signed and say to management, ‘This is what I'm thinking; I want to do a song with each member.’ That just wasn't a part of it. I think everyone thinks it was, but it really wasn't.”

For Psycho, it was Hoppus who reached out, Shark says, and then Barker heard that collaboration and wanted in. But Tom DeLonge was more challenging to get a hold of, with a career consisting of projects outside of music: films and his entertainment, science and aerospace company, To The Stars.

When Shark and DeLonge started discussing collaborating, he wasn’t even in blink-182, as he’d spent some time away from the band from 2015 until 2022. “He ended up coming to a show of mine in San Diego because as you become an artist, you just meet people, you meet people on tours, you meet other bands, and I got his attention somehow, so he came to a show,” she says.

But getting DeLonge on board was an ongoing struggle, and the busier he was, the more Shark wanted him on the record.

“I just couldn't lock him down, you know, and then when blink got back together, it got even harder because he wasn't a free agent anymore,” Shark adds. “He was back at a big record deal and had all these things happening. I was like, ‘Shit, I'm not going to be able to get him.’

“So, I didn't get my hopes up. But the more the album was coming together, the more I got really paranoid about it. I was like, I need him. I need Tom on my third album. It just makes total sense to me. It won't feel complete until I have him on it’ [laughs]. And it went back and forth a million times, and he was stoked with the song, like, he loved the song. He didn't even want to rewrite the verse; he liked the verse that I'd written, and all that was cool.”

Another issue arose after finally getting Tom DeLonge on the song: waiting for other people to sign off on it. “I remember the day that we got the final contract back where everyone had signed off on the song, and I just, like, collapsed,” Shark admits. “I was just so exhausted. I was so obsessed with it; every day, it was like [we had] a different hurdle to jump over. In the end, we obviously did it.”

Discussing the life dream further, Shark recalls her phone “blowing up” with “friends of the past” getting in touch, saying things like, “I can’t believe you did it, Amy.”

“I remember being at so many of their shows back in the day when they would tour, and just being so obsessed with that band, and then to think that I'm talking to all of them now, and friends with them, is so crazy to me.”

Sunday Sadness is littered with numerous hints of elements of the pop-punk music Shark has always loved. It takes listeners on a throwback with its use of distorted guitars and stories like Two Friends that feel like they’re straight out of high school (in a good way!), something that was intentional throughout the creation of the album.

Shark concurs, “Punk, in general, has been a big player in my craft and me learning how to put songs together and what sounds cool to my ear. When Two Friends came about, it just made sense to fully lean into it. That song really suited it, as well.”

Like her previous records, Shark and her team went there by embracing pop-punk and knew they couldn’t turn back. Those moments have become something Shark “really look[s] forward to.

“I think that's what I love about this album,” she begins, “I never really spent much time listening to albums [from] start to finish. You know, I'd have a bunch of songs, and I was just so all over the place and be like, ‘Yeah, cool. Throw them on an album. They're all strong songs. Cool, cool, cool.’ I was really interested in this one, from [album opener] Slide Down The Wall, and it's so beautiful. I want to keep listening.

“It's nice to feel this way again; it feels like I'm going to have a really good day. It gets me out of bed, but it's still so romantic and sexy [laughs]. And then we go through the playfulness of Can I Shower At Yours and then the rage of Gone. It’s a really exciting record; there's not a lull in it, which I'm really happy about.”

In the lead-up to releasing Sunday Sadness, Amy Shark shared videos on social media revealing the inspirations behind each song. The videos weren’t only used to allow fans to connect with her new music before the album was released but also as a method for Shark to reach potential listeners in an increasingly busy world.

Earlier this year, Shark opened up about the expectations on artists to be constantly connected—the social media grind, if you will—and joked, “Don’t be a musician.”

Detailing trying to capture fans’ attention, Shark reveals, “There’s so much amazing music now, and there [are] so many distractions that people don't have the time like they used to. So, it's just trying to wave your hands in the air and be like, ‘Hey, over here. Can you listen to this?’ [Laughs] Just give me a second, you know?”

Acknowledging the challenge of trying to stand out in such a busy world, Shark says the key to maintaining an online presence as a musician is “work[ing] out how to do it” in a way that “still makes sense for you as an artist, and not end up freaking out and throwing shit at the wall and making yourself look like a goose.”

She adds, “I've seen it happen, and I feel sorry for every artist that ends up doing it because it's easy to do. It's easy to get obsessed with a TikTok trend, something that you know the label wants you to do or something that worked out for someone else that you think might work for you. You’ve just got to stay in your lane, I guess. And if you've built a solid lane, you should be fine.

“Because it's your own lane, it's going to be authentic, and it's going to be you, and if people like you, they're going to like the shit that you do. I know this sounds really corny, but I try to be true to myself and what I would actually do and never try and chase something that someone else has done.”

Amy Shark is hitting the road for a massive tour of Australia and New Zealand this October and November. Planning shows “with all the new songs” sounding “massive” live, as well as the hits, she teases a “very solid” setlist. However, landing on the setlist for the tour hasn’t been easy, drawing arguments out of Shark and her team.

“The arguments have been wild because you look at it, and you're like, ‘Oh, now we're missing that one, and if we have that, we're gonna go for, like, three hours,’” Shark laughs. Everyone has their favourites, and some beloved tracks will inevitably miss out on setlist time.

“It's a good problem to have, but it's really frustrating to say goodbye to a song,” she admits. But together, the setlist and production will be “fire.”

Shark hints, “It's gonna be big. I basically spent every dollar on a big Amy Shark sign – we couldn't eat for a month [laughs]. But it was worth it because it just looks so baller. So, there'll hopefully be some pyro and [be] really loud.

“I want it [the shows] to be loud, but then I want some nice intimate moments; I’ve got some funny stories to tell! It’s going to be a really cool night out.”

Sunday Sadness is out now via Sony Music Australia. You can catch Amy Shark on tour on the following dates:

AMY SHARK

THE SADNESS TOUR 

TOWN HALL, AUCKLAND - SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER 

SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL, MELBOURNE - FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 

MAC 02, HOBART - SATURDAY 19 OCTOBER 

ICC SYDNEY THEATRE, SYDNEY - FRIDAY 25 OCTOBER 

RIVERSTAGE, BRISBANE - SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 

AEC THEATRE, ADELAIDE - THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 

KINGS PARK & BOTANIC GARDEN, PERTH - SATURDAY 2 NOVEMBER

Tickets: Live Nation