Gang Of Youths
The Aussie Band on Hope & Regret
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Tuesday afternoon. Alphabet City, NYC. It was supposed to be a quiet place, but somehow it turned out to be a happening joint that early afternoon on a beautiful summer day. Who did we expect to meet? Here he comes, David Le'aupepe, Gang of Youth’s frontman and songwriter. Let's begin... What was the reasoning behind Gang of Youths music and lyrics? The reason Gang of Youths exist is that we needed hope. I needed hope. We all do. That’s why I believe these stories are powerful. Emotion of hope is just as powerful if not more than fear or resentment. I am pondering death. It’s a pretty intense obsession. Living like death is coming, so, live accordingly. Death is so fucking imminent. I just think that a jaded millennial needs some fire. To be reaffirmed. To be like given some semblance of a life that is not just monotony or misery, being stuck in some shitty job. I don’t like that. |
photo credit: McLean Stephenson |
It’s like beautiful looser, tragic, fatalism Bruce Springsteen shit. But I think it’s something beautiful in trying to conjure some kind of beauty out of the ashes here, like a phoenix type situation.
What introduction do you want Gang of Youths to receive in the US?
The introduction I want people to give us is Gang of Youths say the most human things in the most beautiful way possible. What better to be remembered than say something in a humanly way. Poetry in pain and death and misery. Poetry in a drunken night out. Poetry in fucking someone you don’t know and poetry in fucking someone you know really well. There’s poetry in saying the most human, vulnerable, viable things. It’s intoxicating.
How would you describe yourself?
I am a wasted bore. I play music because it’s fun and easy. I got kicked out of school. I chose playing music I am my own boss. I do whatever I want. It’s a way that I can wrestle with my demons in my own time.
I fucking love Nietzsche. I love Steve Reich. I love Dostoevsky. I like Lev Chestov. Emil Cioran, he’s a Romanian existentialist philosopher.
Heidegger, don’t care about him as much. He was a Nazi too so fuck him. I like Sartre as well. I read Nausea twice. I found a copy of it at my friend’s house.
A fuck up can still be smart.
My grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust. They moved to Australia and converted to Christianity. They became really, really Christian. I guess I was raised a Jewish-Christian hybrid.
My sister is a pastor. She loves what I do. My parents aren’t under any delusions that I’d be this clean cut kid. I’ve always been a fuck up kid. I was always the kid who got in trouble. My mom has got some fucking stories.
How about the other members of Gang of Youths? Are you afraid success will change you?
We know each other most of our lives. We have matching tattoos, a vital sign. They’re my best friends. We were raised in evangelical Christian families. I met these guys in bible camp. We’re stuck together for better or for worse. We finish each other sentences. People change irrespectively of success. Might as well change together.
I get more attention than all the guys combined. They don’t care. It’s better than I do it. I deal with it. They’re pretty good at letting me do what I need to do. Because they’re fucking way better at what they do than I am. I cannot play drums like a drummer. I can’t play bass guitar. What I can do is be the frontman. That’s all I can contribute. They let me do my job which is lead the band. They pull me out when I am being a cunt. They call me out when I am wrong. They pull me up when I am drunk. They’re the best fucking people. I’ve changed so much because they’ve been in my life. Imagine where I’ll be in five years. Not as much of a fuck up as I could’ve been without them.
Did you write your own lyrics?
Yeah, I totally wrote those. All about hope and regret. I don’t think I have regret but I want regret in my life. It’d be cool if I did. I probably should but I don’t. I’m always planning for a very short amount of time.
What introduction do you want Gang of Youths to receive in the US?
The introduction I want people to give us is Gang of Youths say the most human things in the most beautiful way possible. What better to be remembered than say something in a humanly way. Poetry in pain and death and misery. Poetry in a drunken night out. Poetry in fucking someone you don’t know and poetry in fucking someone you know really well. There’s poetry in saying the most human, vulnerable, viable things. It’s intoxicating.
How would you describe yourself?
I am a wasted bore. I play music because it’s fun and easy. I got kicked out of school. I chose playing music I am my own boss. I do whatever I want. It’s a way that I can wrestle with my demons in my own time.
I fucking love Nietzsche. I love Steve Reich. I love Dostoevsky. I like Lev Chestov. Emil Cioran, he’s a Romanian existentialist philosopher.
Heidegger, don’t care about him as much. He was a Nazi too so fuck him. I like Sartre as well. I read Nausea twice. I found a copy of it at my friend’s house.
A fuck up can still be smart.
My grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust. They moved to Australia and converted to Christianity. They became really, really Christian. I guess I was raised a Jewish-Christian hybrid.
My sister is a pastor. She loves what I do. My parents aren’t under any delusions that I’d be this clean cut kid. I’ve always been a fuck up kid. I was always the kid who got in trouble. My mom has got some fucking stories.
How about the other members of Gang of Youths? Are you afraid success will change you?
We know each other most of our lives. We have matching tattoos, a vital sign. They’re my best friends. We were raised in evangelical Christian families. I met these guys in bible camp. We’re stuck together for better or for worse. We finish each other sentences. People change irrespectively of success. Might as well change together.
I get more attention than all the guys combined. They don’t care. It’s better than I do it. I deal with it. They’re pretty good at letting me do what I need to do. Because they’re fucking way better at what they do than I am. I cannot play drums like a drummer. I can’t play bass guitar. What I can do is be the frontman. That’s all I can contribute. They let me do my job which is lead the band. They pull me out when I am being a cunt. They call me out when I am wrong. They pull me up when I am drunk. They’re the best fucking people. I’ve changed so much because they’ve been in my life. Imagine where I’ll be in five years. Not as much of a fuck up as I could’ve been without them.
Did you write your own lyrics?
Yeah, I totally wrote those. All about hope and regret. I don’t think I have regret but I want regret in my life. It’d be cool if I did. I probably should but I don’t. I’m always planning for a very short amount of time.
Did you expect all the critical acclaim, one of top five best albums in Australia last year, and sold out concerts?
I was convinced it was going to flop. Do you know who gives a shit about guitar music anymore? Fucking nobody.
This is an industry fucking inundated with kids, white, wealthy, aristocratic ass kids and their fucking laptops tapping away, singing about bullshit. We don’t fit in.
I am a grumpy dude with a heart and a guitar. I am really grumpy. We didn’t expect any of it. I wouldn’t fit in. There’s nothing in me that expected any of this to happen.
The thing I cared about was critical acclamation. I made one record and if it did badly commercially at least I made a good one with my friends. That’s what I gave a shit about. And that other stuff happening, it was cool. You never expect things like that. You never expect something you like doing to turn into a job. It’s like eating cake. You wouldn’t expect eating cake would turn into a job but it could. It’s totally strange. Who can believe this fucking shit? People singing the songs back to you. Fuck! That’s so weird. Totally terrifying. The expectations now. I am a fucking mess man. I am so unprepared to deal with any of it. It’s cool as hell. But I am unprepared to deal with the attention or anything else.
What’s your favorite track in your debut album, The Positions?
I love Kansas. I was in my underpants when I recorded that. That’s not the reason I love it. I have a sentimental attachment to that song. And I love strings. That song feels like I let a really deep part of my heart that I exposed. I did it really quickly. It felt like it came out very naturally. It was an organic investment into something creative.
Why do your songs resonate with so many people around the world?
Hope is totally fucking contagious. Hope is beautiful. Hope is the point here. We’re all pushing up a fucking stone up the hill ‘til we die. Like Albert Camus said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” I adore Camus. We have to make the process happy.
Hope is the mechanism by which people get into a celebratory dance at a festival. It’s a promise of some really cathartic moment that hasn’t come up yet. We’re really searching for that. Fucking jaded and shit. Find something real in the heart of a person.
We like your videos. Do you have much input in them?
They’re really shit. Magnolia is fun. Dancing on the street. Anytime I hear someone criticize that video, I’m like, I’m talking about wanting to kill myself in that song and I will dance if I want to. Don’t fucking tell me what to do. It’s the best. It’s cool as shit. The whole Magnolia video was my idea and the director was Josh Harris.
Do you like being compared to other bands?
Fuck no. Nobody does. I like being compared to my heroes. Springsteen or Leonard Cohen. I've met him. Do you like Tom Waits? I love Tom Waits. Look at this tattoo. People who compare us to my fucking idols, that’s cool. Don’t compare us to fucking “The Killers.” I guess it’s all fine but most of this shit is so recent. Our references are old.
What do you bring from Sydney?
My books. My biggest anxiety is how to bring my books. Two suitcases. I brought Notes from the Underground and Brothers Karamazov with me. I have nineteen books with me on this tour. Hard copies. I hate the digital shit.
What do you think of NY?
It’s the city. It’s not just a city. It’s The City. New York is New York. I cannot say anything that hasn’t been said. I don’t have anything deep to add. I’m kind of a boring guy. I don’t like to go out or drink or any of that. So I like the boring neighborhoods with the boring people and their boring kids and their boring dogs. Uniformity just kind of freaks me out.
What place you don’t like?
I don’t care for the fucked up amalgamations of what’s wrong and right about America. That somewhere where the food is good. The culture is really welcoming and inviting. You get a taste of the Americana and it feels really homey. But then you see people clashing for their political convictions. On the surface everything seems great. Until you realize that it is all inundated with failed dreams. I hate that kind of place where the American Dream goes to fucking die and waste away in some café.
How do you feel about making it?
Noone fucking makes it. We’re all fucking pretending until we die. Who’s made it? Michael Jackson never made it. The guy died sad. They’re still trying to figure it out. Once you say you’ve made it, you stop. Stop making music. Making it is a horrible, horrible expression.
Where’s the danger? Where’s the fucking risk in making it. Once you made it, there’s nothing to do. You become sanitized.
What’s the secret of staying relevant then?
Relevance is an overrated characteristic. Relevance is stupid. You know what’s relevant now, bullshit. Stupid shit. Christiano Ronaldo dancing on a boat with a woman, that made the news. I love football, but Ronaldo dancing on a boat, who cares. Why should anyone give a shit? That’s relevant nowadays.
I don’t wanna be relevant like that. Fuck that. It’s an egregious violation. It’s relevant because people talk about that shit. Relevance by consensus. By Consensus Led Zeppelin used to suck. Ten years later, oh, this is amazing. Consensus is fucking stupid. Relevance is totally by consensus. Some young thug is cool by consensus. Remember Sisqo and the thong song. That was relevant some years ago...
What’s your biggest fear?
The worst thing that an artist can ever be is a poster boy for a movement. That’s the greatest fear. That I become a poster boy or a spokesperson for a generation. I don’t want to do that. It’s terrifying. You become subject of scrutiny for the people you’re supposedly representing. That’s horrible.
Everyone needs a group. I don’t need a group. There’s nothing iconoclastic about saying, ‘me and my rock friends here,’ that’s stupid as well. That’s a tacit violation of me wanting to say and do whatever I want.
What’s your most enlightening experience?
Guns ‘N Roses' Sweet Child of Mine videoclip. I was three, no, four years old when I saw it. I saw everything and I heard everything.
What’s the best part of what you do?
Experiencing the audience's reaction. You don’t know how exciting that is. I can’t fucking tell you how much fun my job is. I don’t give a fuck if I perform in front of 150 people or thousands, it’s still the same feeling. The unpredictability to how people react to our music. That’s a gamble. That’s a risk. Especially when you see how we play live.
We aren’t a bunch of white middle class teenagers staring at our shoes. We care deeply. The object of caring is like satiated by that sense of wonderment and wanting to be on stage.
What’s the next album about?
I am interested in existentialism. The next album is about existentialism and the way I perceive it. We’ve started working on the next album.
The new songs deal with empathy and ways to transition as a millennial. I got married so fucking young. I got divorced. So, it’s about that, too. There’s a song about my dad getting old, getting sick. There’s a song about my niece dying.
Just human things. Empathy and trying to navigate through shit. Finding purpose in transitions.
What are you looking forward to?
Right now.
I was convinced it was going to flop. Do you know who gives a shit about guitar music anymore? Fucking nobody.
This is an industry fucking inundated with kids, white, wealthy, aristocratic ass kids and their fucking laptops tapping away, singing about bullshit. We don’t fit in.
I am a grumpy dude with a heart and a guitar. I am really grumpy. We didn’t expect any of it. I wouldn’t fit in. There’s nothing in me that expected any of this to happen.
The thing I cared about was critical acclamation. I made one record and if it did badly commercially at least I made a good one with my friends. That’s what I gave a shit about. And that other stuff happening, it was cool. You never expect things like that. You never expect something you like doing to turn into a job. It’s like eating cake. You wouldn’t expect eating cake would turn into a job but it could. It’s totally strange. Who can believe this fucking shit? People singing the songs back to you. Fuck! That’s so weird. Totally terrifying. The expectations now. I am a fucking mess man. I am so unprepared to deal with any of it. It’s cool as hell. But I am unprepared to deal with the attention or anything else.
What’s your favorite track in your debut album, The Positions?
I love Kansas. I was in my underpants when I recorded that. That’s not the reason I love it. I have a sentimental attachment to that song. And I love strings. That song feels like I let a really deep part of my heart that I exposed. I did it really quickly. It felt like it came out very naturally. It was an organic investment into something creative.
Why do your songs resonate with so many people around the world?
Hope is totally fucking contagious. Hope is beautiful. Hope is the point here. We’re all pushing up a fucking stone up the hill ‘til we die. Like Albert Camus said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” I adore Camus. We have to make the process happy.
Hope is the mechanism by which people get into a celebratory dance at a festival. It’s a promise of some really cathartic moment that hasn’t come up yet. We’re really searching for that. Fucking jaded and shit. Find something real in the heart of a person.
We like your videos. Do you have much input in them?
They’re really shit. Magnolia is fun. Dancing on the street. Anytime I hear someone criticize that video, I’m like, I’m talking about wanting to kill myself in that song and I will dance if I want to. Don’t fucking tell me what to do. It’s the best. It’s cool as shit. The whole Magnolia video was my idea and the director was Josh Harris.
Do you like being compared to other bands?
Fuck no. Nobody does. I like being compared to my heroes. Springsteen or Leonard Cohen. I've met him. Do you like Tom Waits? I love Tom Waits. Look at this tattoo. People who compare us to my fucking idols, that’s cool. Don’t compare us to fucking “The Killers.” I guess it’s all fine but most of this shit is so recent. Our references are old.
What do you bring from Sydney?
My books. My biggest anxiety is how to bring my books. Two suitcases. I brought Notes from the Underground and Brothers Karamazov with me. I have nineteen books with me on this tour. Hard copies. I hate the digital shit.
What do you think of NY?
It’s the city. It’s not just a city. It’s The City. New York is New York. I cannot say anything that hasn’t been said. I don’t have anything deep to add. I’m kind of a boring guy. I don’t like to go out or drink or any of that. So I like the boring neighborhoods with the boring people and their boring kids and their boring dogs. Uniformity just kind of freaks me out.
What place you don’t like?
I don’t care for the fucked up amalgamations of what’s wrong and right about America. That somewhere where the food is good. The culture is really welcoming and inviting. You get a taste of the Americana and it feels really homey. But then you see people clashing for their political convictions. On the surface everything seems great. Until you realize that it is all inundated with failed dreams. I hate that kind of place where the American Dream goes to fucking die and waste away in some café.
How do you feel about making it?
Noone fucking makes it. We’re all fucking pretending until we die. Who’s made it? Michael Jackson never made it. The guy died sad. They’re still trying to figure it out. Once you say you’ve made it, you stop. Stop making music. Making it is a horrible, horrible expression.
Where’s the danger? Where’s the fucking risk in making it. Once you made it, there’s nothing to do. You become sanitized.
What’s the secret of staying relevant then?
Relevance is an overrated characteristic. Relevance is stupid. You know what’s relevant now, bullshit. Stupid shit. Christiano Ronaldo dancing on a boat with a woman, that made the news. I love football, but Ronaldo dancing on a boat, who cares. Why should anyone give a shit? That’s relevant nowadays.
I don’t wanna be relevant like that. Fuck that. It’s an egregious violation. It’s relevant because people talk about that shit. Relevance by consensus. By Consensus Led Zeppelin used to suck. Ten years later, oh, this is amazing. Consensus is fucking stupid. Relevance is totally by consensus. Some young thug is cool by consensus. Remember Sisqo and the thong song. That was relevant some years ago...
What’s your biggest fear?
The worst thing that an artist can ever be is a poster boy for a movement. That’s the greatest fear. That I become a poster boy or a spokesperson for a generation. I don’t want to do that. It’s terrifying. You become subject of scrutiny for the people you’re supposedly representing. That’s horrible.
Everyone needs a group. I don’t need a group. There’s nothing iconoclastic about saying, ‘me and my rock friends here,’ that’s stupid as well. That’s a tacit violation of me wanting to say and do whatever I want.
What’s your most enlightening experience?
Guns ‘N Roses' Sweet Child of Mine videoclip. I was three, no, four years old when I saw it. I saw everything and I heard everything.
What’s the best part of what you do?
Experiencing the audience's reaction. You don’t know how exciting that is. I can’t fucking tell you how much fun my job is. I don’t give a fuck if I perform in front of 150 people or thousands, it’s still the same feeling. The unpredictability to how people react to our music. That’s a gamble. That’s a risk. Especially when you see how we play live.
We aren’t a bunch of white middle class teenagers staring at our shoes. We care deeply. The object of caring is like satiated by that sense of wonderment and wanting to be on stage.
What’s the next album about?
I am interested in existentialism. The next album is about existentialism and the way I perceive it. We’ve started working on the next album.
The new songs deal with empathy and ways to transition as a millennial. I got married so fucking young. I got divorced. So, it’s about that, too. There’s a song about my dad getting old, getting sick. There’s a song about my niece dying.
Just human things. Empathy and trying to navigate through shit. Finding purpose in transitions.
What are you looking forward to?
Right now.