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Trent Richardson hails from Central Queensland, where he grew up on a property running camel rides, racing camels, ostriches, goats and sheep. He picked up a guitar three years ago, taught himself to play, and is now releasing his seventh single. In between, he made the semi-finals of Australian Idol in 2024 after an audition that was, extraordinarily, his first ever public performance, as he talks about in this new interview.
Richardson had always suspected he could sing. A few people had told him so over the years, but an equal number had told him he couldn’t, and he’d believed the latter. It wasn’t until he reached his mid-twenties that he decided to find out for himself … and the way he found out was by auditioning for national television. He’d never written a song. He’d never played a gig.
‘I threw myself in the deep end,’ he says.
The judges told him he was the weakest vocalist in the competition. He made the semi-finals anyway, performing everything from Matchbox Twenty to Michael Bublé to Rihanna along the way, and came out the other side with a clearer sense of who he was as an artist than any conventional path might have given him.
His latest single, ‘Run to You’, was actually the second song he ever wrote, begun three years ago with co-writer Dan Pam, set aside during the Idol journey, and only recently finished and recorded with producer Stuart Stuart, who has worked with luminaries such as Amber Lawrence. It’s a song about the grass not being greener, written from the perspective of someone who walked away from a relationship and later regretted it. It sits alongside a catalogue of upbeat, life-affirming country-pop songs that reflect Richardson’s genuine and hard-won appreciation for being here at all.
‘Life’s too short,’ he says. ‘It’s a blessing to be here.’
His positivity is not so much infectious as influential and it seemed to me that he is someone who, once committed to something, gives his all. And it’s in giving his all that he not only develops his passion but comes to be very good at whatever he is pursuing.
Since Idol, Richardson has been building independently: chasing gigs, learning stagecraft, booking shows and working out what an hour-and-a-half set looks like when you started out singing for sixty seconds on television. He is a new father to young son Archie, and is performing at Biloela Winterfest in July. A seventh single is due on 10 June.
‘Run to You’ is out now.
Listen to Trent Richardson on Apple Music
Listen to Trent Richardson on YouTube
