Gang of Youths: Go Big & Go Home

Gang Of Youths may be on the cover of Rolling Stone Australia this month, and headlining major venues like the Hordern Pavilion next month – but frontman David Le’aupepe insists he’s not a rock star.

The charismatic, ever-candid frontman does sort of have his own origin story. This is what happens when you (and your four best mates) write one of the decade’s biggest, most uplifting Australian rock anthems (‘Magnolia’) and most assured debut albums (The Positions) about big themes like death and love and faith, and then you tell everyone who asks exactly what it’s about.

“Mythology is for legends, not a person. I’m human,” he says. “Mythology is for fucking rock stars and for rappers. Mythology is for people who want a fucking story to follow for the rest of their life. I’m just a bloke, fucking figuring shit out in public.”

What also happens, says Le’aupepe, is that you get a lot of things out of your system, and find yourself with another record to write, wondering if you have anything left to say.

“And it turns out I had a lot to say. I feel there was part of me that was so broken and so empty and sullen, empty of life, that I just fucking need to talk about it… But it’s also things that I’m trying to embrace – love and life – for the first time in a long time. Where do you go afterThe Positions? You go straight fucking up.”

After the band came roaring back with the #2 charting EPLet Me Be Clearin mid-2016, they returned this year with ‘What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out’, which topped the TMN Hot 100 Alternative in March, creeping steadily up from a #9 debut; the band, now based in London and occasionally in New York, followed it up with the sly orchestral anthem ‘Let Me Down Easy’. They’re just two huge tracks on the albumGo Farther In Lightness, released Friday, which sees the intimacy ofThe Positionsblown out to a cinematic, almost overwhelming scale.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ die one day,” Le’aupepe says simply, “and I don’t wanna half-ass anything.”

While he appreciates the compliment, Le’aupepe finds the all-too-regular comparisons to Springsteen – or anyone – unhelpful overall (“they don’t necessarily serve the artist that you’re complimenting”) but it’s telling that journalists and broadcasters keep reaching for the Boss as a touchstone as they struggle to articulate just what makes the Gang Of Youths cocktail so potent. A sense of wind-in-your-hair grandeur that never feels calculated or image-conscious, deft and revealing turns of phrase and narrative that slip between riffs as easily as the laziest rock’n’roll cliches, an emotional core that’s vulnerable and masculine, and thundering crescendos that feel earned, cathartic and deliciously unrestrained – this is a recipe for sucking in everyone from casual commercial rock listeners in Hiluxes to bookish community radio devotees, especially when you’re sneaking in lines like “I got solipsism, baby, and I brought lemonade”.

It’s likely that not many of the fans who sentThe Positionsto #5 on the ARIA chart, or voted ‘Magnolia’ to #21 in the Hottest 100, could relate directly to being a divorced, near-suicidal 23-year-old Samoan-Jewish Sydneysider with a passion for German philosophy and black metal.

But while Le’aupepe may be namechecking Greek demigods, cracking the five-minute mark on most of the songs onGo Farther In Lightness, and up to his trademark mane in intense personal revelations, the engine that drives his songwriting – the unadulterated struggle to live life well and form emotional connections –is what audiences connect so deeply with.

“I was cursed with feeling deeply and unfortunately, the world was cursed with the fact that I can articulate it well,” Le’aupepe says wryly.

“I just feel the world is gonna be subjected to my nonsense for, you know until the market decides that I … or until the market realises that I’m actually terrible.”