Sydney dad that made Kyle Sandilands cry is taking Australian Idol as it comes
Shire dad Dylan Wright was an early favourite from the Australian Idol auditions after “making Kyle cry”. Here’s how he’s feeling now the Top 30 are locked in.
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Early Australian Idol favourite Dylan Wright is taking his reality television experience “one day at a time”.
The 30-year-old father of two brought radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands to tears in the premiere episode of the current season, with an acoustic rendition of iconic Australian ballad Better Be Home Soon.
The Crowded House crowd-pleaser was dedicated to his late mother, who passed away when Wright was just 21.
The age limit to apply for the star-making TV series is 30, so Wright said he decided to “bite the bullet and give music another crack.”
“That was so beautiful. I don’t usually cry in the presence of other men, but what a sweetheart you are. I loved it,” Sandilands told him at the audition, with Amy Shark calling Wright “a freaking superstar”.
“Getting through was massive highlight. I didn’t even expect that,” Wright said. “To make Kyle cry was a huge moment in itself. He’s a strong man, so that surprised me. My impression of him wasn’t the soft and cuddly type.”
The competition this year is fierce, with singers of all ages, abilities, and styles in the ‘Top 30’ represented from around the nation. “Just getting through the audition was a massive highlight,” Wright said.
“I think it’s nice to be a little bit wiser than what I would have been entering a competition like this at 20.”
“But at 20, I also wouldn’t have been thinking about things as much. And I’d lost mum at 21, so I think it would have been a lot of pressure and I wouldn’t have succeeded.”
The musician, from the Sutherland Shire, has nearly 17,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and more than one million streams All to Myself, a song he released in 2021.
“Having kids kind of slowed me down musically. We moved out to the Northern Rivers a few years ago and I work as a house painter,” Wright said.
“As an independent musician, musician, writing, recording and putting all your time and soul and finances into a project that many people might not hear is a bit daunting.”
Wright’s mother Anne Denis, who passed away while he was in high school, was his biggest support.
“I was very shy kid,” he explained. “She kind of pushed me on to break out of that by busking in my hometown, in the Shire.”
“That helped me massively and she would always just come to every gig and pay for my lessons.”
He became his mother’s primary carer when he was just 16, supporting her through a battle with multiple sclerosis (MS) and leukaemia.
Writing music continued to be an emotional outlet. “I’m just so thankful for that,” he said. “Otherwise, I could have been on a very different path I think.”
His daughters Piper, 4, and Rivi, 1, are very excited that their dad is on “the TV” and will be hosting their “own little neighbourhood Idol with all my little nieces and nephews.”
“My one-year-old picks up my harmonica and gives it quick little tunes, which is funny to see. My four-year-old is singing her own songs all the time, they’re pretty catchy,” he added.
Ratings juggernaut Married At First Sight has a firm hold on the lion’s share of Australia’s free-to-air viewership, with 1.8 million people tuning in over the last week. Australian Idol has maintained a strong second place, with a total TV national audience of 821,000 in the ratings week that ended on Wednesday, February 7.
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