Amy Shark and husband Shane Billings celebrate the No. 1 debut of her Cry Forever record

Amy Shark’s second album dropped a lot of truth bombs and fans loved it, propelling Cry Forever straight to the top of the ARIA charts.

Everybody rise for Amy Shark.

The Adore pop star’s deeply personal and vulnerable second album Cry Forever has struck a chord with her legion of Australian fans to debut at No. 1 on the ARIA charts.

“It’s been my life for the last three years and I can’t believe my baby girl is Number #1,” Shark posted on Friday.

Shark has been sharing the stories behind her songs in the lead up to the record’s release a week ago, including Love Songs Ain’t For Us, the hit single she penned with Ed Sheeran.

When News Corp spoke to her and husband Shane Billings about the album, the loved-up pair spluttered coy deflections when asked which of her hits have been inspired by her partner in life and music.

They won’t even cop to Adore, the song that launched her to global fame almost five years ago, being about the man who was the first to ever tell Shark she was good enough to shoot for her pop dream.

Billings will only admit he did wonder if one line in You’ll Never Meet Anyone Like Me Again from her new record Cry Forever may be about him.

Love songs ain’t for them; Amy Shark and manager husband Shane Billings. Picture: Supplied

“Not once have we ever spoken about whether Adore is about me. Not once,” Billings insists laughing.

“My job is just to get the best songs out of Amy and if I start pressuring her about emotions … we talk about every tiny little part of this business except lyrics. That’s the one thing we don’t talk about.

“Like listen to Miss You on the new album … if I really think about that chorus, then Amy is having an affair! So I leave the lyrics.”

It was her music, rather than words, which initially captured Billings’ ear when the pair became friends about 17 years ago in their Gold Coast hometown.

Shark wears her heart on her sleeve but won’t explain her personal songs. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

They shared mutual friends and a love for emo punk rock so despite downplaying her talents with family and schoolmates for many years, she took a chance on sharing a couple of works in progress with him.

“I burned a CD for him and I remember hearing Shane playing them in his room and he was like, ‘This is really good,’ she recalls.

“I will always remember that moment because it was the first time anyone had actually given a s …. And then he was kind of the only one that gave a s … for a while.”

While Billings hustled to get her gigs and her songs to the gatekeepers of the Australian music industry, the pair worked together at the Gold Coast Titans, she as the club’s videographer, he as a financial manager.

Shark and Billings front row at the ARIA Awards. Picture: Supplied

The manager and his artist figuring it out at soundcheck. Picture: Supplied

After 13 years of slog, the release of Adore and her debut EP Night Thinker, not only struck chart gold in Australia but opened the door to working with the world’s biggest hitmakers including Joel Little, Jack Antonoff and Ed Sheeran.

Her 2018 debut album Love Monster arrived as female singer songwriters asserted their domination of the streaming era by ripping open broken hearts and pouring their disappointment and anxiety into perfect pop songs.

As fans have already discovered from the raft of singles issued ahead of the release of her second album Cry Forever, Shark remains fearlessly vulnerable.

The Billings are determined to keep it real. Picture: Supplied

Last week she released the song called Amy Shark, a wholly original and candid revelation of feeling unsupported – even unloved – by those closest to her.

There was a necessary conversation between Shark and Billings about lyrics before that song made the album.

“Shane convinced me to call the song Amy Shark because what I was going to call it, I would end up in court,” she says.

“I think I was able to put it out and write about it all because it’s just had its time. You know, there’s been so many years to (reconcile) and it wasn’t a priority for whoever … someone who should probably have been a lot more prominent in my life.”

Shark was also applauded last week for sharing video of her and her manager discussing what songs should make the final cut of Cry Forever.

She secretly filmed the three-hour long debate which centred on Billings wanting candid feedback from other member’s of their team without telling them which songs Shark was rooting for; she posted it with Billings’ consent.

It’s both hilarious – the husband and wife fight funny – and revelatory.

Shark’s aim in sharing the video was to demonstrate that sometimes artists don’t get straight talk from those around them when making a record.

“Everyone’s just so PG these days – I wondered if I should’ve got on there and said ‘Hey, I’m not saying this is how you should work with your manager.’ The caption read ‘This is the making of an Amy Shark album’,” she says.

“This is how we operate and I thought the main thing was just to showcase that artists do get told what they want to hear all the time. And if you don’t have someone in your corner that is willing to challenge you, you are just not going to get the best results. And yeah, we had a mountain of swearing through it but that’s who we are.”

With Cry Forever launched into the world and a national tour confirmed for June, Shark is now eagerly supporting her husband’s next music projects.

He has signed two new artists and hopes to release their debut works within the next year.

“Amy and my main goal for 13 years wasn’t money, fame, record deals; it was to get Amy heard because and I knew if I could get into these buildings and show people her songs, they could tell she was a great writer, a great artist,” Billings says.

“If I can do it for these other kids as well … It’s scary to think who’s out there and is yet to be heard.”