Reece Mastin was born to be a rockstar.

He grew up listening to iconic bands Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith, won The X Factor Australia in 2011 singing rock songs aged just 16, and collected an ARIA No.1 Chart Award for his pop rock single Good Night.

Featuring heavily on the Australian music charts through the early 2010s, Mastin’s early hits Shout It Out, Shut Up & Kiss Me, and aptly named Rockstar were all released while the precocious talent was just a teenager.

This year, at 31, he has returned to the stage with The New Dawn Tour, playing shows across Australia and New Zealand as he rolls out new music.

And in October, Mastin will attend Telethon Weekend with his band for the first time in 12 years, teleporting viewers back to a familiar era with just a few strums, even if it’s not so familiar to him anymore.

The brash kid with the rockstar haircut never actually stopped making music — so why does it feel like he disappeared from the airwaves after his early success?

Put simply, Mastin decided he wanted to be more “rock”.

“I ended up kind of moving on from the label world when it got more and more poppy,” he tells PLAY from his home in Victoria’s Mount Macedon.

“And obviously, with my musical taste, that wasn’t where I wanted to be.”

In 2015, the teen who had been thrust into an adult’s world joined an independent label that encouraged him to beat his own drum.

He began to express more of his classic rock chops and ambition, leaving the teenage love songs that had become his bread and butter, in the past.

Despite his new direction not quite striking a chord with commercial radio stations, it was a truer reflection of his soul.

COVID hit a few years later, triggering Mastin’s move to the Victorian Hinterland where he assisted a mate with farm work as touring became impossible.

When borders opened back up, Mastin continued to release music, and toured it wherever was possible.

In 2026, he completely “rebranded” into the type of musician he always wanted to be — taking the rock genre to a place where it more closely resembles “metal”.

He says his single Wembley, released in November 2025, is a sign of things to come in 2027.

Mastin’s current jaunt — symbolically labelled “New Dawn” — might even be a subtle tribute to one of his favourite metal bands, Bring Me The Horizon.

“There’s no wrong turn in metal music, and I find that really inspirational when you’re writing because I can sing the way I want to sing, I can play whatever guitar I want. I can put whatever sound I want in it, and it can be anything,” Mastin says.

Grinning as he recalls getting “pushed to the ground and helped back up” at metal concerts as a teenager, Mastin will tell you it’s the path he always imagined for himself, and a community he always wished to be accepted by.

But the now-hardened musician’s career progression has not been so willingly accepted by his mother. And that might actually make its trajectory even more metal.

“She’s like, ‘Why can’t you just keep singing the acoustic songs?’” Mastin teases.

“I’m like, ‘I get it, Mum, I feel you, but I can’t just establish my career around what you want’. And the same goes for everybody around me.”

Fifteen years after becoming a household name on TV under the tutelage of Guy Sebastian — who he has occasionally bumped into on tour — Mastin can’t quite recognise “the rock kid” who stood on that stage.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the success and opportunities it has afforded him.

Mastin credits his TV stardom for introducing him to a loyal fan base, with many following his growth from green teen into mature touring act who enjoys driving the tour van to shows.

“I sometimes struggle to recognise the person that I was, or put myself back in those shoes. I think so much has happened since then, good and great things, but also some pretty heavy things too,” he says.

Often, Mastin’s most confronting reminder of the passage of time is returning to a venue or location he played as a teenager and comparing ticket sales. But his perspective has changed.

He uses a recent example of being “rapt” with selling out a 400-seat venue in Auckland.

“Fourteen years ago, the venue that it’s connected to was called Spark Arena, and I sold that out. It was like 12,000 seats, and I just thought, ‘How amazing is it?’” Mastin recalls.

“I remember back then, not really appreciating it, but not understanding the vastness of how good that is in ticket sales and how well somebody must have done out of it.

“It humbles you in the best way because, yeah it’s hard out there and everyone’s trying really hard in the industry to keep their head above water, and I just I’m so proud and thankful that I’m still there and there’s still people rocking up to shows, having the best time.

“I think it’s a bit of a time machine sometimes in those gigs — I feel very blessed, very lucky.”

Reece Mastin will perform at RAC Arena for Telethon Weekend on October 17-18.

Telethon 2026 airs from 7.00pm Saturday, October 17 on Seven and 7plus