His music career is less than five years old but already multi-platinum selling rock star Shannon Noll has been dubbed an icon.
It's not hard to see why. Over the course of three albums, Shannon has re-written Australian chart history by notching up 10 consecutive top 10 singles on the ARIA charts, including five ARIA 1 chart awards.
In addition to walking off with the MTV VMA award for Best Male Artist three years running, beating the likes of Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake, Shannon was also voted his home country's Favourite Australian at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
His debut album "That's What I'm Talking About" went five times platinum and was a fixture on the top 100 albums chart for almost a year. In fact, the combined success of all three albums has made Shannon a platinum selling artist 11 times over.
Among his most recent accolades was a successful stint treading the boards as Parson Nathaniel in Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation of War of the Worlds. Following rave reviews in Australia, he will reprise the role for UK audiences next year, opposite Jennifer Ellison.
His extraordinary talent may have fast tracked him to the big-time but, for Shannon, these achievements pale in comparison to the impact his music has on his fans.
Shannon's 1 hit single "Lift" earned the prestigious award as the Most Performed Work in 2007. It also prompted a thank you letter from a fan who credited the song for saving his life. These are the real achievements for Shannon.
"I'm driven by my effect on people and whatever I write has to be honest. That may be why my songs speak to people. "
Born and raised in the tiny Australian outback town of Condobolin, (pop. 3500) Shannon's childhood was a happy one, spent with his two older brothers, Adam and Damian, on their parents' isolated 4,500 acre sheep farm.
Sheep shearers on the farm by day, Shannon and his brothers formed a band, rehearsing in the shearing shed. In their free time, the trio would travel hundreds of miles to play in small pubs across the vast New South Wales territory. But Shannon was caught between two ambitions. Although being a musician appealed to him, the teenager was on the verge of becoming a professional footballer.
Overnight all dreams and plans vanished when his father, Neil, was killed in a farming accident. Days later, the close-knit family was further devastated when the bank foreclosed on their drought-stricken farm. They were forced to sell the property that had been owned by the Noll family for more than 100 years.
Years later, as a fledgling song-writer, Shannon would write one of his most emotive tracks, "Now I Run" in tribute to his father. It was a difficult task, as Shannon explains:
"The track is inspired by my father's passing and I wanted to make sure I did him justice, so it was a touchy thing to write about so early in my writing career."
With the Noll family reeling and close to destitute, it was not a hunger for fame that led Shannon to audition for the first season of Australian Idol. He had one goal – to earn enough money for his family's survival. Catching the judges' attention from the start, Shannon made it all the way to the final, coming in runner up to winner Guy Sebastian.
Like other post-Idol contestants, Shannon struggled to be taken seriously as a musician at first. But critics soon fell silent as his popularity grew and he continued to top the charts, making him one of the few Idol contestants outside the US to maintain a successful career away from the show.
The runaway success of his songs can be marked not only by chart awards. His hit single "Shine" has been the official theme song for the UK's "Cricket on Five" since 2005. Another hit single "LOUD," has been played in stadiums and ball parks across the US from the National Football League to Major League Baseball games. A favourite of sports fans, the song was also the chosen anthem for Australia's National Rugby and National Football Leagues' respective final championship games last year.
"LOUD" is the first single from Turn It Up, the star's third album, on which he collaborated with multi-Grammy nominated producer Luke Ebbin and Bon Jovi guitarist, Richie Sambora.
"Working with Richie was amazing, "says Shannon. "He had no preconceived ideas of where I came from. He just treated me and respected me as an equal."
Sambora, who co-wrote and played on the track "Sorry Is Just Too Late" is no less complimentary. "Shannon is a Rock and Roll steed… a classic voice with a contemporary flair. We had a great time working together."
A Rock and Roll steed he may be, but Shannon doesn't buy into the whole rock star off-stage lifestyle.
"The way I look at it, it's more the bloke on stage is the rock star. He's not the bloke throwing a TV set into the pool. I couldn't do it," laughs Shannon, "I'd be too worried about hitting some poor bastard lying out by the pool trying to get a tan."
It doesn't matter what label he's given, the reason for his continued success is simple: Shannon Noll is the genuine article.
