Shannon Noll will return to Geelong with his new single “Southern Sky” next week.
‘Nollsie’ was fresh off filming the track’s film clip in Newcastle and NSW’s Hunter Valley with his dog Matilda last month.
But nothing beats getting back to the pub for a live show, he said.
“It’s the live set-up that separates the really good singers from someone who’s really good on a computer. It separates the men from the boys.”
His return to the Gateway Hotel next Thursday (11 May) will be his third stop on his latest tour, which kicked off today in Sydney.
Last year Noll performed across the country alongside Australia’s biggest names including John Farnham, Jon Stevens, James Reyne, Daryl Braithwaite and Keith Urban.
This time the inaugural Australian Idol runner-up has hit the road alone. He will perform at more than 35 shows from Cairns to Perth until November.
Noll grew up to the sounds of John Williamson, a country singer who, like him, grew up on a farm.
“You can hear it in his lyrics,” he said. “You know he had to be living that life, or he wouldn’t have known those intricacies.”
The former farmhand shot to fame in 2003 after winning Idol and is perhaps best-known for his reboot of Moving Pictures’ classic What About Me?
The cover went to number one on the ARIA charts and Noll enjoyed similar success with his own songs Drive, Lift and Shine.
For Noll, songwriting is about connecting with a simple message.
“I tell it straight up and down when I’m writing songs,” he said. “I’m not the sort of person who’ll write something that means 15 things to 15 different people.”
“Music’s about making you feel something, and even more importantly, making you feel that someone else out there feels the same way.”
Shannon boasts a reputation as the only Australian male artist in national chart history to have ever achieved 10 consecutive top 10 singles.
Noll has sold more than 1.3 million singles in Australia and has had five top 10 albums.
In September 2016 he released a new single “Who I am” which had more than a million views after its release.
Whether Noll is at the pub or in front of a 10,000 strong crowd, he delivers that heart-pumping, raw, rock performance, promoters said.
