Amy Shark finds new fanbase in Japan ahead of Aussie star’s third album release

Amy Shark has revealed her future on Australian idol as she taps into a new group of fans who can’t seem to get enough of the star musician.

Amy Shark is big in Japan and growing a fanbase throughout Asia off the back of her starring role as an Australian Idol coach.

As the Aussie pop star ushers her third record Sunday Sadness into the world this week, she has just returned from a promotional visit to Japan where her single Can I Shower At Yours has become a sleeper hit more than a year after its initial release.

Shark, who confirmed she will return to the Australian Idol judges’ desk alongside Marcia Hines and Kyle Sandilands next year, said her music is now being discovered by fans around the world thanks to global streaming of the television talent quest.

Amy Shark is just back from Japan where fans have discovered last year’s single Can I Shower At Yours. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

“It’s so crazy and awesome that so many people over there and Asian fans have discovered me via television and it started with Celebrity Apprentice,” she said.

“This lovely Asian fan and her mum came to an album playback for Sunday Sadness here the other night and they’d done a deep dive into my music because they watched my on Australian Idol.”

The new album title has given the world a name for those weekly blues that set in on Sundays ahead of a new work week.

Shark said she and her manager husband Shane Billings have “always hated Sundays.”

Shark has given the world a name for our Sunday night blues. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

“Shane and I are workaholics and we’ll be sitting on the couch overthinking everything in our lives from work to not having seen family for a minute or I sit there thinking about weird s … from the past and everything feels like a disaster on Sundays,” she said.

“So I started working on the album on Sundays; I’d order in spaghetti, sit with my guitar and work on a song until it made sense.”

Making Sunday Sadness took her around the world to work with some of the biggest hitmakers including Kid Harpoon, the producer behind Harry Styles’ global success, and Joel Little, who has also helmed hits for Taylor Swift, Lorde, Noah Kahan and Vance Joy.

While recording at Peter Gabriel’s famous Real World studios in Bath with producer Dann Hume, her session was gatecrashed by legendary rocker Robert Plant.

“I’d seen him out in the kitchen making a cup of tea and I had to go over where he was to make a coffee anyway so I told him I was a big fan and couldn’t believe he was there,” she said.

“He came and found which studio I was working in and crashed my session to hear what we were working on. It was the best time, the randomness of it, having someone like him sitting there.”

The Australian idol A-team will be back together for the 2025 season. Picture: Nicholas Wilson

With the album now out in the world, Shark now preparing for her national Sadness tour which kicks off in October.

With three albums’ worth of songs to choose from now, the setlist is the one thing she and her husband continue to fight about.

“You want to play the new stuff but you’ve classics and deep cuts it would be nice to bring that – it starts so many arguments when I try to drop a song he wants in so I can fit something else in so the show doesn’t go for three hours,” she said.

Sunday Sadness is out on August 9 and all tickets are via livenation.com.au