Feeling the love with Dope Lemon

Even when discussing the Australian economy and heartbreaking decline of the live music scene (primarily bigger festivals), Angus Stone views it from a place of love, and growth: “when big trees fall, it allows more light to come through and hit younger foliage and allow those trees to grow stronger – which are your community based festivals.” His ponderings of the unknown and uncertainty of the future aren’t filled with apprehension and overwhelming disquietude, but instead glowing admiration for the yet-to-be unveiled – the end result, the fictitious spirit animal – The Golden Wolf.

Speaking from Melbourne, in the throes of his promotional world tour, Stone talks through his idyllic home life, his northern river ranch, his R-rated origins, working with Scottish folk sweetheart Nina Nesbitt, and his psychedelic fifth studio album Golden Wolf.

Talking on Cinema is where Stone’s passion shines. His inspirations have moved away from poets and other songwriters (“our Dad was a wedding singer and we grew up falling asleep under wedding tables,”) instead adapting his sonic inclinations from great directors such as the horror-inclined David Lynch. “It’s films that have become the passion for inspiration, I’ve been getting into a lot of David Lynch and Wes Anderson, and the Coen Brothers. I get really inspired by visuals these days, and I put myself in that protagonist role and fall into those tangents writing these sort of psych stories for Dope [Lemon].” His I’ll-have-to-kill-you-if-I-tell-you R-rated cognomen also finds itself loosely shrouded in cinematic lore: “We were kicking around, drinking beers, and we had this little shack by the beach and this old honky, it was a very simple setup. At the time there was that movieWolf of Wall Street and they had those Quaaludes, and the next step up was the Lemmons. We had our version of that that was kicking around whilst we were making the record and it turned into a thing – we had it on, and had a version of those Lemmons.”

Where earlier records such as Kimosabe reflect on youth, Golden Wolf takes a clairvoyant approach, looking forward to the uncertainty of the future. “I dove into talking about our finality and mortality and what it means when we get to the end of whatever this is, and bleeding into that next life and who it is that will take you there and what you'll take with you. What you'll leave behind, whether you'll start anew. I started to play with the concept of the spirit animal being the Golden Wolf taking me through to the other side.”

The titular track of the album was chosen due to the memorability of the recording session, and Stone finding beauty in conventional, universal moments: “I had one of those afternoons where I was sitting in the studio and I'm sure you've experienced when the afternoon light comes through the window on you, you see that the dust almost turns into particles at this really slow rate, and it feels really magical. We were cutting the tracks for this song and everything was just working out really well. It was just one of those moments that was really memorable, so when it came to giving the album a title, it seemed fitting.”

When it comes to his craft, he opts for considering the experience of his fans rather than his own personal enjoyment on stage, tailoring each setlist to suit the night of the week, or the expectations of the crowd. Fan interactions are something Stone reflects on fondly, with an adoration that he’s often treated like a family member by his listeners: “I have these moments in life where I'll be walking down the street and a complete stranger will come up to me and they'll treat you like family, like you've known each other forever.” It’s also the fan’s connection to the music that he values when releasing new work: “When you let go of a song or an album and you put it out in the world, it sort of lives this parallel life to you and when they first hear the song someone will start telling you about how they lost someone or they fell in love for the first time and what it was when they first heard it. I think if I can achieve that, with this record or just moving on in general… it always inspires me to keep doing what I'm doing. I think it's those moments, the little things that make this life special.”

It’s this notion that he kept in mind during the writing of Golden Wolf (specifically with tracks “Sugar Cat” and “Electric Green Lambo”), with the aim of creating songs that would translate incredibly live, giving fans the best experience possible. “I wanted to lift [my catalogue] up, so that when you walk on stage it’s more exciting… I wanted to put a bubble of energy into this record… and when you have these people that’ve been listening to you for so long, it’s really sweet. You still feel the love. I feel blessed to have a community that supports me in that way.”

On the recording process itself, Stone confesses that it’s like therapy for him, a “way of divulging what I’m going through internally.” On 2019 record Smooth Big Cat, he challenged himself to play every instrument on the record, but Golden Wolf was a global effort: “I feel like we're so lucky in this day and age to be able to have the technology,” he says, nodding to the rise of video calling. “You can literally be in the back of the tour bus, to a hotel room in Texas to, you know, to being back home. This record was a collection of that, and when it came to the musicians, I'd send different tracks to my pianist in New York, bass player in Berlin, to the guitarist down the bottom of Australia. It's cool like that, you can literally be in the same room on each corner of the earth at the same time and really achieve a result as if you're there and in person.”

When asked what other Australian artists should be on listener’s radar, Stone is caught off guard, but quickly begins recounting local talent: “I go down to the pub and the local acts are always too brilliant. There’s a band called The Palms who we toured with over in the States, they’re really a cool outfit that are writing some brilliant songs and records. There’s Kate Peytavin, she’s brilliant and she’s coming on for a bit of the run.”

Despite moving away from his softer origins on this latest album, Stone still finds himself kicking around in the folk community. Having toured with Fleetwood Mac and describing it as a full circle moment (“hanging around with Stevie and the gang… the people that inspired [me] growing up,”) the experience also acted as a grounding reality check for Stone. “When you meet these people that are in that godly realm, you realise they’re just normal creatures that are going through your day-to-days that we all have, and it's just a nice reality check where there isn't this place where they float on the clouds. I think that's the trick of life, believing that if I'm here, everything will be okay, and all the problems will go away. Meeting these crews, everyone’s just getting through it, we’re all sitting on the same level.”

More recently, Stone collaborated with Scottish singer Nina Nesbitt on his new track “She’s All Time”. Her folk-meets-pop approach melds beautifully with Dope Lemon’s more stripped-back cuts, with their collaboration resulting in a sun-soaked lush psychedelia. “I’ve been following her for a while,” Stone admits. “She’s such a cool, cool human. It’s hard for any young artist in any trade to be out there and put stuff online with all the ins-and-outs of how the wheel turns, and I love hearing her talk about it all, she’s really upfront."

Talking about how the collaboration itself came to fruition, Stone notes: “when it came to this song, I was sitting there in the studio, I was like, ‘oh, she's got such a beautiful voice. I'm gonna hit her up and see if she's keen.’ It was really natural and it flowed so nicely, and her voice was perfect for it and we were really proud of this one.”

Marrying his two sides succinctly, however, is “On The 45”, an idyllic consecration of The Grateful Dead and modern indie pop. The track follows a “rich girl” used to getting everything she wants through the Australian high-life: “I pictured this girl sort of smoking a cigarette in the back of a Cadillac being driven through the desert to the next party with not really much, much to worry about, and a lot of people are jealous of that.” Admitting the protagonist is not fictitious, Stone divulges; “when it comes to songwriting you do embellish a lot. You pick all the best parts of other religions or stories and you make this sort of amalgamation of your own, and I think that's the beauty of songwriting – there's no limits. You can really dive into your own social commentary and your own loss, renewal, and finding love and all the things we go to day-to-day.”

While he describes his sound as “Psychedelic Galaxy storyteller,” Dope Lemon is ultimately a project that is equal parts cinematic, philosophical and heart-on-sleeve musical. WithGolden Wolf now free to roam, it’s clear that Angus Stone won’t be letting go of the reins any time soon and, if anything, the best is still yet to come.