Catching up with the Australian alt-dance group following their Grammy nominations.
On their Los Angeles leg of their tour, we caught up with some of the coolest Aussies; Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt known as RÜFÜS DU SOL. After being a favourite at Coachella Festival where they played in 2016, 2017 and 2019, they were nominated in November 2019 for their first Grammy for their LA-shaped opus Solace. They’re also up for Best Dance Record for “Underwater”.
We talk wonders, inspiration, revelations, preparations, fashion, and of course music with these beloved dance makers….
What are the wonders in your world?
I think what the biggest wonder would be is this amazing roller-coaster ride that the three of us are on. Every night the three of us, best friends, get to go on stage and experience these extreme highs and it’s really hard to put that into words or even share that experience with anyone else. It’s this amazing opportunity that we get to have each night and I think only the three of us will truly know what that’s like.
Family is a huge thing in all our lives and we’re really lucky that all of us have really close families. We’ve had our parents traveling around the world with us at different points, with all of our close brothers and sisters. So family’s a big one.
How do you prepare for a show?
The most longstanding ritual we have is taking a ginger shot just before we go on. It’s ginger, lemon and cayenne pepper. If I take it right before the show, it starts hitting me just as we go into the first song and my whole body warms up instantly. It puts a bit of fire in your belly.
What do you feel was the moment that changed everything for you?
Reflecting back on the past and our journey, it’s interesting because I think we went after things a bit naively because we weren’t really thinking about what the opposite would be. We pushed for this and we didn’t have any other option in our minds of doing anything other than working in the music industry. When we played Coachella for the first time and we had the reception that we did with 10,000 people in this whole new environment, everything sort of spurred out from there in America for us. It was a pretty big shift in our minds where we were like, “yeah I guess stuff is really starting to happen for us over here” and I think that’s where we would pinpoint it to.
What are you listening to now vs. what were you listening to when you first began?
The reason the band started was because of this mutual love we shared for particular artists. We definitely were listening to different things but our love for Trentmoller, Booka Shade, Radiohead, Foals, Royksopp and The Chemical Brothers really brought us together.
Now we’re trying to push our production chops ourselves and we like listening to more challenging production like Nicolas Jaar, David August and this band called Weval.
What fashion brands are you really into these days?
There’s a brand from LA called Oro – they have these amazing Italian-made black boots, I’ve actually got a pair on right now. They’re suede boots and they’ve got all different types of cool clothes so I wear a lot of that. James and Tyrone have a bit more of an athleisure style – like adidas and Nike. In general on stage, we’re very much into this rock and roll aesthetic of all black everything – black jeans, black shirts. We just try to keep it simple and about the music. I think that works really well.
If you could meet anyone, who would it be and why?
It would probably be someone that I mentioned before. It’s amazing that we’ve become friends with some of the bands that helped us form our own group. But I think The Chemical Brothers – Ed and Tom – meeting them would be amazing. Thom Yorke from Radiohead for the same reason. Just to pick their brains. They’ve all been in the industry for so long and they have so much knowledge about what we’re trying to do and achieve, so it would be very interesting to have that type of dialogue with people we really respect.
