Dope Lemon: “I’m always learning and growing on the things I can do better”
We sat down with Angus Stone to discuss their new album.
Photo: Katie Kingsman for The Indie Scene
So, this is your fifth album?
Fifth album, yeah.
Was there a pivotal moment or spark that inspired this new album?
I mean, the spark’s always there. I think it’s a bottleneck, more so than anything. I think you get to a moment where you need to share what it is that you’ve been jotting down, whether it be six months to a year of your insights and how you’re sort of rolling through the world. I think that’s when a record gets made.
What can people kind of expect for this one?
I think every song has its own sort of universe and style, and this sort of crossing genres in ways that generally you’ll find the storytelling will follow the musicality of it, and then the feeling comes. We’re really proud of this one – it’s cool that it’s our fifth, and we feel like we’re growing as a project.
Does the sound come first or the lyrics?
The music always, and the lyrics or what happens after you feel it.
Are the lyrics inspired by the sound?
For sure. And this – the music, the sound – will always be the sort of protagonist leading into the story.
Was there a particular instrument that you kept coming back to on the album?
I mean, typically, the instruments are newer – well, actually, not really. They’re typically electric, and we bring sitar in sometimes and bass-heavy drums. I don’t know. That’s the sort of combination that rolls out.
Do you find that you do lots of the instrumentals, or do you work as a team?
Yeah. I think the beauty of where we are now is that we have such amazing tools within arm’s length and can shoot to all the corners of the Earth and be virtually in a room together and creating. I’ll flick stuff over to my pianist in New York, to the Keys in Berlin, to my guitarist in Australia. We’re so lucky to have those tools in this day and age, because in the past it would be so clunky trying to organise. Now it’s a whole different ball game.
Did you find that you embraced the virtual stuff more during COVID?
For sure. I think growing and evolving with your art form is being ready for change and accepting a new skill set and tools that you have to apply to your craft.
Do you have a ritual or routine that comes with the creative process?
Ritual, I don’t know. I think, for me, ritualistically wise, I could say that I’m a completionist, so my ritual is making sure I see things through.
Where did you get the inspiration from for the first album track, John Belushi?
I touch on asking the question ‘what was it like meeting the gods, and were they there ready for you when you arrived?’ and how that party must have been. Conceptually, on that song, it’s saying what John Belushi gave the world was love and light. He was such an incredibly gifted human being.
How did Gods and the afterlife come to be an influence?
The record touches on the next life lyrically, and when we get to the end, how will it be when you pass through it? What will you take with you, and what will you leave behind, and possibly who will lead you there? And will you make the next one better than it is now, or would you live this life again? That’s what Golden Wolf, symbolically, is about.
I think as human beings we’re all searching for purpose, and the cool thing about making music for me is that I feel like I have purpose. I guess it’s this really fun puzzle. I get to put together the things I reflect on, things that make me sad, the things that bring me joy, and combining all those things into a song is cool. It’s a really cool way to compound this extraterrestrial feeling of vulnerability, and the things that we all go through. I feel really lucky to be able to express those things.
Would you say there’s a mythology or concept of the afterlife that you believe in or find fascinating?
Always, to be honest. I feel there isn’t this one guy sitting over us and making judgment and bringing people up, putting people below. I feel like there’s energetically a higher power.
I feel like your energy will linger if you haven’t had resolve in your life. I think energetically, there is a place in a field of consciousness that, if you concluded where it was and and you’re on a frequency that was joy and you’ve had a had a positive way of of of looking at life, you pass through to this cool place where perhaps it gets passed on to the next one.
Did your parents have any influence over that when you were younger?
We went to Baha’i temple, but it wasn’t a big thing. I think the Baha’i is interesting. It’s sort of all religions. They pick the best parts of what’s beautiful about each religion, and I think that’s a cool concept for life, right? It’s picking all the best parts that you see, making the world a better place and moving through the world in a positive way.
The album is about the future as well, the mortal coil. Is there anything from your future that inspired you, or was it just the concept of your future?
I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and write music and be around incredible human beings. I’m always learning and hopefully growing on the things I can do better. For me personally, music has this really cool orbit, it brings a community together and the people that want to share something together in a room. It’s cool, you’ll bump into people on the street and they’ll share those experiences with you that they’ve had with the music the first time they heard it, or, sometimes it can be sad, the story, then really positive, lots of joy. It’s just really interesting how it affects, not just yourself, outside of your world. It lives its own life.
Once it’s out there, I guess it evolves and it becomes something separate to what you imagined in the first place.
Yeah, it can affect so many different facets of people’s lives, and it’s really cool.
Has there ever been a song or an album that’s been taken in a different direction to what you saw?
For sure. I feel like overarching, amongst the chaos of it all, is that we all get together and celebrate, and DOPE LEMON is that for me. It’s that universe that we all want to live in.
Coming back to the concept of DOPE LEMON and Smooth Big Cat and Golden Wolf, do you see that as a similar kind of character, in terms of leading you forward? And the imagery of the Smooth Big Cat, it would be cool to hear you talk about that.
For me, the visuals are really important because it sets a tone and it’s been such a joy working with Daniel Main, the producer and director. There’s no bad ideas, we put together a story and then we execute. He’s been such a joy to work with. There’s a lot of thought behind each scene and the colour coding to the storyline. It’s a bit of fun, we don’t take ourselves too seriously in the story. We’ll either be on a heist or on a boat somewhere, stealing something.
The Ranch as well, did that play a big part? Did you write the album there?
Yeah, there’s a studio on The Ranch, and recently I like going out to second-hand antique places like that. I like talking to the oldies and hearing their stories of these objects that have come into their hands. But I was in one of these old antique stores and this lady said to me, “I think you should go check this place out, it’s really interesting, it’s something that I think you’d like. It’s this old 1970s mansion and nothing’s been touched. The owners passed away, and it’s a time capsule.” So, I went round there, and it had all been locked off, and so I snuck in and peered through the window, and it was so cool. The carpentry, the wallpaper, just fully like stepping into the 70s. Anyway, I made an offer, which is now Sugarcane Mountain Studios, where we’ve made the last two records, and it’s beautiful. It looks out over the sugarcane fields and the mountains and I love it. It’s such a special place, you know.
Quite a haven.
It is, yeah. And I just opened it up commercially last week, so now bands can book. We’ve got our own runway so we can fly people in. I think bands need spaces where they can kind of drop off, get away from society and write that special record. So hopefully that can be that for them one day.
What inspired you with Dust Of A Thousand Stars?
We were just kicking around and drinking some whiskey and kicking out some jams and that one came about. Sometimes less is more, and I think the song speaks for itself in that way. And we’re a dust of a thousand burnt-up stars, that’s all I need to say.
If Smooth Big Cat had a life motto, what do you think it would be?
Just keep rolling. Dream on.
Dope Lemon’s 5th album, Golden Wolf, is out now.
Read the interview in our first print issue, out this June, and available to order here.