INTERVIEW: Gus Dapperton tours Australia for the first time
Gus Dapperton, singer-songwriter from Warwick, NY, has impressed audiences with his trendy pop-style on his latest album Where Polly People Go to Read. Dapperton wrote, produced, mixed, and mastered every song on the album, too.
His current Australia tour features a stop in Perth at Jack Rabbit Slim’s this upcoming Saturday. Check out our chat with him below!
How was your tour in the United States?
It was great. Really, really fun. Shows have been a bit bigger and a lot crazier since the last time around. It was really good!
As your first time performing in Australia, is there anything you’re looking forward to there?
Yeah, I’m super looking forward to meeting and seeing all the new fans I haven’t been able to meet before. And I’ve never been to Australia before so I’m excited to go. Definitely playing for a new audience I can’t wait for.
Who are some of your favourite musicians growing up?
David Bowie, The Smiths, The Beatles, Timbaland, Pharrell, Britney Spears, all the big pop-stars. The Beach Boys.
When you create your music do you try and fit any sort of genre?
No, I kind of just let it happen. I don’t like when people stick to a genre based off the sounds involved or how things are mixed or sung. I think it’s just natural. I like to just combine sounds from many genres that I like.
Do you have any particular Australian artists that you listen to?
Chela, who does dance-pop music. BENEE, she’s really sick. Tame Impala, of course.
Last year you wrote A Lacking Spectacle for the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, how was the collaboration on that and did you enjoy the show?
You know what, I loved making that song because I thrive in the area of putting music to visuals. But I’m actually not the biggest fan of the show. I did watch the first season and I thought that it had a lot of redeeming qualities and I thought I could make something good for the second season. But I’m not a huge fan of the show though.
I’m Just Snacking was one of the first songs that you had that received millions of views and after that you started garnering a lot of attention and had a rise in popularity. How’d you handle that?
Good question. I did not expect it but I think when I started pursuing music full time that I’m going to work until I achieve these things and I achieved some recognition so I was exactly surprised or over-excited but I definitely wasn’t expecting it.
Was that before or after you took that semester off at Drexel University?
It was right after, two months after I dropped out of Drexel. Everyone likes to say that I took a semester off, but I dropped out.
You wrote Where Polly People Go to Read in chronological order detailing the demise of your relationship then experiencing love once more, is that a style of writing you implemented while recording and will you attempt it again?
It was in the process of doing it and it just happened to go that way. I think that I never really dabbled in creating whole projects or if I did, I'd never finish them and that was the first one that really felt whole to me and it just happened to be in chronological order. I don’t think I’ll stick to that, it just happened to be that way.
Are you going to master all of your music?
I think I’m mostly going to produce things the rest of my life, as far as mixing and mastering I would like to get someone to take that off my plate. I think I’m definitely interested in getting more people involved in general with my music and other aspects.
Is there anyone you’re interested in making music with at the moment?
Chela and I are working on something and she’s opening for me during the tour in Australia.
What are you looking forward to after tour?
I just can’t wait to be finishing my next project and finishing that and working on the visual aspects of that. I’m really excited for the tour, but get back and work on all of the artwork for my next project. My next project is going to sound a lot different from anything else I’ve done before
