Foto-© Thania Rodriguez
Am vergangenen Freitag ist das neue, bereits fünfte Dope Lemon-Album Golden Wolf erschienen. Hinter der grinsenden Zitrone steckt weiterhin Angus Stone, der mit seiner Schwester Julia als Angus & Julia Stone seit Jahren weltweit riesige Erfolge feiert. Doch auch sein sonnendurchflutetes, in 80s-Ästhetik getünchtes Psych-Projekt Dope Lemon findet überall auf der Erde immer mehr viele Fans. Kein Wunder, finden sich doch auf dem neuen Album mal wieder zehn Songs, die perfekt zu den ersten richtig heißen Tagen des Jahres passen: Mal dreamy, mal Yacht-rockig, immer zurückgelehnt und augenzwinkernd unter der Sonnenbrille. Wir sprachen mit dem charismatischen Australier vorab via Zoom über sein neues Dope Lemon-Werk und trafen ihn in Berlin zum Fotoshooting – unser Interview!
Hey Angus, nice to meet you and thanks for being here. So, to get things started…what have you been up to recently?
Hey, yeah, so actually, I have been travelling a lot lately. Been in Los Angeles, Texas and now Berlin, just to do a bit of promotion and highlight the album release. So we’ve been making all the music videos for this album release which has been super fun. Plus, I think for our listening community it’s always fun when it comes to a new record as we’ve got to come up with new creative ways to engage the fans who have been listening up until now and yeah it’s been really awesome.
Sounds fun! A nice way to engage fans and bring them along the creative journey with you. So, lets get to your music … now I only had the chance to listen to the first few songs on the album – John Belushi, Sugarcat, Electric Green Lambo, Golden Wolf and Yamasuki – Yama Yama, but Yamasuki was a clear favourite of mine. There were some clear laid-back groves, folk elements, psychedelic tones and also some inspiration from the Middle East. I loved the elevation of the song through the percussion. It was a wonderful journey to be taken on.
Oh cool! It’s cool you mentioned Yamasuki…um Yamasuki is on a whole other side of writing. I was watching a film called The Gentleman and this song came on and I was sitting there having a whiskey and I sort of started coming up with my own lyrics and singing to it. So, I got off the couch and I called the head of Sony in Australia and asked him to track down who wrote the song. I said “I’d love to have a chance at singing on it and making it my own.” He tracked down the original writer who was in Belgium and we had the conversation of whether we could use it or not and it obviously went well. But yeah, its cool, we basically chopped the whole song up and gave it a new format and then created the song which is now Yama Suki, the original band is called Yamasuki and the song is Yama Yama and so we just sort of took the band name as a bit of a salute to using the song. That was a really fun way about getting into what that song became about. I’m glad you like it!
Oh, that’s interesting, I Iike how you were drawing your inspiration from other artefacts too. I am interested to hear about Golden Wolf (the name of the album) and your interest in the future world and transcendence. I guess that’s what you are trying to convey in Golden Wolf, right? It’s this sense that we’re all trying to give ourselves to some sort of higher being. I wonder what your philosophical views are and how they come into this song?
That’s really cool, I like that. Yeah, exactly so Golden Wolf is conceptually based on y’know having something or someone to pull you into the next life … or whatever it is that happens to us when we fall, or sort of that mortality comes to an end. It’s trying to ask what will you take with you and what you leave behind and who will it be to lead you to that and that next life. I really love the visuals behind it being this cool spirit that takes you through and Golden Wolf is exactly that.
Yeah definitely – it really feels like the kind of song that sparks introspection. To me, it has that perfect road trip sound — like something you’d play while driving or heading somewhere new. The steady rhythm kind of nudges me into reflecting on life decisions and where I’m headed. So, on driving, how about Electric green Lambo, this is the other song you released initially, can you tell me a bit about this?
Yeah, yeah, that’s it exactly, a great song for drive to. So Electric Green I guess sort of describes those wild nights that you sometimes have. For me, whenever I go anywhere near a casino, it has this potential for this wild and chaotic evening. Electric Green Lambo hopes to embody stepping into a lucid dream – it’s that kinda adventurous feeling vs the hazy nostalgia. I guess it’s just first describing the cars you pass as you walk outside the front which is usually a lambo, y’know those sorts of cars. And then you walk into this smoky sort of bright lights and neon lights glowing and it’s this crazy feeling that if you allow it, the night can turn into this sort of wild tone. There is a lyric in there and I was talking about this actually with a friend before – “wolf in the long grass, you won’t find me” and its symbolic of just how fierce those nights can be if you allow them to take you away, however there’s still so much joy – and I think we all needs those nights off where you can go a bit crazy!
Oh definitely! I am really enjoying hearing you talk about the visuals you capture and how you create them for your songs, can you tell me what your inspirations were for this album?
For me, visually, music is this rabbit hole of being the protagonist in whatever format you like really, I guess that’s the beauty of the art form. You can let the song guide you down these rabbit holes and you can lose yourself in the act of creating. Visually for me when I am in the studio it is a lot of fun, its meditative, I get to explore these different story lines and I don’t know for me it’s always been that way. More than listening, I have always been inspired by films. I mean I love music, but yeah films have and do still inspire me.
I like this idea of you being a protagonist in your own creative stories that help to carve out the sounds of new music. This sounds extremely meditative. Is it fair to say you’re somewhat philosophical, looking into a higher being, or perhaps meditation to bring balance to the beautiful chaos of creativity?
To be honest, I feel so lucky, to be able to make music – I think the beauty of sticking to your trade over however many years is that you are constantly refining your skillset. Ironically, its become transcendent in itself. I feel creating music is such an ethereal process. Its meditative.
It must be incredible to get lost in another world whilst you’re writing and absorbed in the creative process. Are there any tracks that resonate with you most and what make these particularly personal?
There is a new single coming out called Sugar Cat. I love this song, it just makes me feel good – I love the mood it sets and the video around it. It’s based on a heist scenario and when it comes to the visual side of making the music videos, it’s always fun. I mean the music video won’t necessarily have much to do with the concept of the lyrics, but it’s fun to play around a little bit, just for a bit of joy y’know.
Is there a place that inspired you with your creation of this album? Your upbringing is a mix of rural and coastal, I wonder if these landscapes and places still inspire you?
Actually, I’ll tell you this – so I love going around and talking to the oldies .. y’know in like old thrift shops and second-hand furniture shops and hearing people’s stories. I frequent this one near where I live and this lady was talking to me, she knows my style, and she said “you should really check this out there is this 1970s capsule of a mansion that has been sitting dormant for a while and no one lives there – I think it’s for sale, you should check it out. It looks over sugarcane and it’s into the mountains, its magic.” So, I went round there, and it was all locked up, I had to climb the fence to peer in. It’s an old 70’s home that looks over the cane fields and its rich in history and a place of artistic freedom and inspiration. This is now my studio and I love being there – the way I have set it up entices me to write and create, it’s an inspiring place.
Dope Lemon Tour:
12.09.25 Hamburg, Grosse Freiheit 36
13.09.25 Berlin, Huxleys
15.09.25 Köln, Carlswerk Victoria
17.09.25 München, Muffathalle
19.09.25 Frankfurt, Batschkapp
