Ask anyone – your nanna, a firefighter, that shop window over there – if they’re keen for Bluesfest this year, and you’ll find uniform expressions of terrified excitement.
It’s a lineup that strikes fear in the hearts of your enemies, that seduces you oceanside beneath a full moon (even if Neil Young has regretfully pulled out), and high on the list of debut performers is the 25-year-old Gallant. Have you seen him perform ‘Weight In Gold’ yet? No? Well, you go do that now – don’t worry, I’ll wait – and then read on about this R&B wunderkind taking the world’s stages by storm.
“I’m in Los Angeles. I just got back and I’m so happy to be home,” Gallant tells me. Frankly, I’m surprised. It hardly seems like an inspiring place – or, as Nick Cave put it, ‘Even the pale sky-stars were smart enough to keep well away from LA’.
“I was born in the suburbs in Maryland,” Gallant explains. “So it was a town of politicians around the D.C. area, and I went to school in New York. After being in New York for so long, I wanted to get back to a sense of semi-isolation in some way. So I thought LA was the perfect combination of big city, but you can also tuck yourself into the suburban lifestyle if you want. So it just made sense to me, but obviously it’s not for everyone. I know what it’s like to want excitement, to want to move to the big city, and I felt like I’d already done that, and it wasn’t exciting as you’d think. So LA was just right.”
It makes you wonder just how far into isolation Gallant might venture – if he sees a version of Henry David Thoreau in his future, camped out in a cabin deep in the woods. He laughs.
“No, I don’t think so. Even where I live now, it’s in the valley, but I can walk out my door, drive down the road and I’m at a major street. It’s very much a suburban vibe. Some people out here live all the way up these really long drives with these narrow roadways, and it’s hard to get in and out. I’m not looking for inaccessibility, I’m looking for a sense of earthliness. And that doesn’t have to be an extreme. I’m a suburban guy, sure, but I’m not a woodsy guy. I’m a kitschy American lover, but I’m not a loner.”
If you’ve taken my advice and watched one of Gallant’s performances (his appearance on Jimmy Fallon is a strong example), these words ring especially true; no one can witness such engagement and theatricality and think the man a loner. At school he studied music and drama side by side, one feeding the other, though as Gallant puts it, each sprung from the same outlet. Embracing an audience has never been an issue, and yet, when the time came to finally begin sharing music with the world, Gallant was hesitant.
“When I eventually shared it, I was embarrassed. Not in the sense that I didn’t like the music I was making, because I really did. But it said a lot of things that…” He trails off, collecting his thoughts. “I just didn’t see the point in posting a lot of it online. The EP [2014’s Zebra], for example, I made it for myself just to get through a couple of things, and was music that I really enjoyed listening to. So putting it out illustrated this need for attention that didn’t really match the music I was making. So that was a hurdle to jump over early. And I think I just got used to it.
“So with the album process, there’s no real endpoint. Like, ‘Yes, this is it, this is where the album is now done.’ The reel was cut, that’s the best way I can describe it. Whatever I was working on just had to end, and it didn’t feel like this massive undertaking that I was doing. There was no cabin in the woods I went into and grew a beard and had some bullshit spiritual experience. It was just … me, working through a set of issues, and stopping when I felt like it was time to stop.”
Curiously, Gallant’s songwriting style is similarly unfettered. Just as his debut album, 2016’s Ology, dictated its own endpoint, so too do his lyrics arrive at their own pace and with their own agenda.
“I think forcing lyrics is bullshit. If I was an athlete I wouldn’t have any lucky socks or anything. I just accept that you can’t control everything. It’s just crazy to think that you can. Every time I make something, it’s totally random. It could be any kind of environment. I’ve written songs on the toilet, I’ve written songs in the studio, at my parents’ house, in fancy restaurants. It completely doesn’t matter. It has its own timeline that’s separate from whatever I would try to sit down and schedule. And I totally accept that.”
Gallant isn’t the only artist to talk about writing on the toilet; in fact, having spoken to hundreds of musicians, it’s weirdly common.
“Ha, well, when you’re in the studio, people are sitting there trying to judge you. When you’re on the toilet, you know what you look like. You’re in the most vulnerable position you could possibly be in, so you’re really not worried about someone looking over your shoulder and reading your lyrics.”
As you do in the lead-up to any interview, researching past interviews and reviews provides an often surprising time capsule of how an artist has progressed from project to project. While Ology is Gallant’s debut album, he’s been on a lot of folks’ radars for a while now; people keen to share this searing new voice, to find the insights of the man behind the music. It’s understandable, but it does make you ponder the distinction between art and artist; if evolving as a musician is the same as evolving as a person.
“In terms of artistry, the evolution can’t be forced,” he says. “When I was evolving musically, it was very much congruent with the way I was evolving on a personal level. I was opening up to people, slowly. I was going from an environment of post-college bliss to adulthood and self-discovery. A lot of real things that everyone goes through, it’s not that special. But everyone deals with it in their own way.
“When I talk about music, it might suggest that was the only field that could make this creativity happen, but that’s not the case. It was circumstantial. So I don’t think any evolution can be forced. I suspect there will be another evolution, if only because I’ve been travelling so much and have had so many great experiences. I can’t say what that evolution will be, if it will be progress or regression. I have no idea. But I just hope that it’s a real thing, that it isn’t something I think about too much.
“Even now, going back into the creative process, I want to think as less as possible. As long as I do that, I feel like everything will be alright.”
Ologyis out now through Mind Of A Genius/Warner.Gallant appears at Bluesfest 2017, Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Thursday April 13 – Monday April 17; then Metro Theatre, Tuesday April 18, with Ruel.
