Amy Shark lost her addiction for songwriting after fearing she had nothing to say anymore.

But after hunkering down in her house for 30 days, writing non-stop without any distractions, she unlocked her emotional vault, rediscovered her passion and was well on her way to making a fourth album.

Soft Pop was released last week, and despite its challenging beginnings, the Gold Coast-born singer regards the project as her proudest musical moment yet.

Written entirely by herself, Soft Pop ventures into new sonic territory, stripped back to just her voice and an acoustic guitar while still being “pop as hell” and “very lyric-focused”.

Shark says she has never done an album like this before (and yes, the cover really is fluffy), partly due to giving herself one month to write as many fresh songs as she could before jetting off to Wales to record with producer Dann Hume.

The 40-year-old describes going back to the drawing board as “cool” but also “terrible”.

“There were some days that I just hated it, and I really just thought this isn’t going to happen. But then, I guess I found that addiction again for songwriting, which I lost for a minute there. I just hadn’t written in a minute and forgot how good it feels when you stumble across something that you think is special,” she tells PLAY over a Zoom call from Sydney.

Shark, who has won eight ARIA Awards, said she had always loved writing songs but when it “suddenly becomes your job, it becomes a little bit overwhelming”.

“When you’re an artist, everyone’s got their story of how they got to where they are, but it’s usually from just the love of writing songs, and if you’re doing it for the right reasons, you never expect it to actually become your job,” she says.

“You just think it’s this cute little secret you have that you enjoy doing, and the thought of being a musician was so big for me to get my head around, that that could be a thing that I just never thought it would be, and because it took me so long, and I had so many negative experiences.

“And coming up to the fourth album, I kind of lost myself.”

The Australian Idol judge soon realised she had a wealth of life experience and heartbreak to draw inspiration from.

“I’ve been broke. I’ve been on the floor of the shower crying. I’ve experienced high ecstasy of love. I’ve been shattered,” she says.

“I think once I realised I’ve got so many stories yet to tell and so many little things that I can tap into, it just became fun again.

“And I didn’t really have any guidelines either. Like, I don’t have anyone in my life that I’m like, ‘Oh, I hope they don’t hear this song’, so I kind of just needed that reminder to be like, ‘go for it, write whatever you want about whoever you want’, and then I was on a roll.”

Songs written, Shark flew to the tiny Welsh town of Barry to record with Hume in a church turned studio.

Though the pair had worked together on hits like I Said Hi and Can I Shower At Yours, this marked the first time they recorded an entire album together.

With Shark living in the church’s attic, the recording process mirrored the writing sessions in that she was free of any distractions.

“I will remember this time for the rest of my life, probably more so than any other recording experience,” she says.

“I just knew that the second I got in the studio with Dann, he’s just the person I trust to bring them to life.

“There’s no distractions in Barry. Barry’s the most beautiful but boring town in the world.”

Soft Pop features 11 songs. The music video for It’s Kinda Hot finished up exactly how Shark envisioned it: a “hot devil woman just walking around” a Martin Scorsese-type set.

Enter Devlin, an American living her life as the “real life devil girl”, complete with red skin and horns.

“I was at the airport, and I just came across this person, Devlin, and I was like, man, she’s literally the character I need for this video,” Shark says.

“Getting it across the line was not the easiest, but it’s art, and she’s a very artistic girl, and really committed to being an actress. So I think she did really well.”

After being “terrified” of marking her milestone fourth album “when you’re not the hot new artist anymore”, Shark said she has been the most confident during an album campaign since her career took off a decade ago.

“I feel like I know that it’s a good album, and I feel like I’m not so needy this time. I feel like a lot of the other albums, I’ve been like, oh, tell me, is it good? Is it good? And what did they say? And reading every review, and I probably still will read every review, but I don’t think it’s gonna destroy me as it has done in the past.

“I just I feel like it takes up to your fourth album to be like I think I know who I am and what the songs are and what I’m capable of, and I’m really proud of it, and that’s kind of all that matters to me.”

Somehow amongst all her music making, Shark managed to film her debut movie, starring alongside Russell Crowe, Daniel MacPherson and Luke Hemsworth in Beast.

Not many people know acting was Shark’s first love, before music, having taken classes from the age of 14.

“Not on a big scale, but I had a little agent in the town I lived, and would try and get commercials, and I think I was a big fan of people like Macaulay Culkin growing up and being like, ‘that’s so cool’. So for that to come full circle and be an opportunity that I thought I kissed goodbye years ago, is amazing,” she says.

And she’s up for doing more movies in the future if “someone wants to risk it”.

“I would love to do more movies,” Shark reveals.

“I’ve been talking to some people, and I’m up for doing cool stuff, and if the role was right and the timing was right, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Soft Pop is out now.