‘We had been exhausted – mentally unwell’: Empire of the Solar on the draw back of success – and rising once more

“Things are good. I don’t assume issues within the Empire have ever been higher. We’re in a completely artistic movement state proper now. We’re on a imaginative and prescient quest of types,” says Nick Littlemore, his honeyed voice concurrently intense and surprisingly laid-back.

“Lord” Littlemore is looking from Hawaii, the place he and “Emperor” Luke Steele are already engaged on their fifth album, having dropped their fourth, Ask That God, only a month in the past. “Effectively, we waited so lengthy to do the final one,” Littlemore says. (It was eight years.) “We thought, with out additional ado – as a result of there’s actually been numerous that.”

Logical schedules aren’t related on the earth of Empire of the Solar and maybe that’s why they’ve maintained such an idiosyncratic and difficult profession. Their hook-drenched electro pop music is exclusive sufficient to face up to the winds of trend, whereas their Aztec-on-Mars visible aesthetic brings out the playfulness and pleasure of their tracks. They’ve discarded the Native American headdresses they used to put on; Littlemore has beforehand spoken about being extra delicate to cultural appropriation, saying: “I’d hate to assume we ever offended anybody.”

Each Steele and Littlemore have flourishing careers outdoors Empire of the Solar: Steele has launched two critically acclaimed albums with the Sleepy Jackson in addition to a solo file, and has labored with the likes of Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Littlemore, in the meantime, is one third of the dance music act Pnau, which has a longstanding relationship with Elton John. In 2021 Pnau produced Chilly Coronary heart, a disco medley of John songs sung with Dua Lipa that turned the most important track of that yr, with greater than two billion streams.

However Littlemore and Steele are two artists with reputations for perfectionism, that are naturally going to conflict. Over nearly 20 years of collaboration, there have been lengthy durations of no communication. Littlemore acknowledges there have been battles of the ego previously, however says they’ve reached what he calls a “harmonic resonance”.

“I really feel just like the noise has settled right into a form of excellent tonality. I feel we’re within the quickening proper now,” he says.

“Success is usually one thing that crushes you to the purpose the place you don’t know who you might be any extra. It didn’t fairly occur to me, however the impact on us collectively has been difficult. I feel it was Snoop Dogg who mentioned, extra money, extra issues?”

Nonetheless, Steele and Littlemore are drawn to one another. There’s a mutual fascination. “I like how hungry we each are,” Steele says. “That starvation is what saved the band looking.”

“I really feel that he [Luke] has the voice of a technology. It’s a privilege to work with him,” Littlemore provides. “And it’s tremendous cool if we are able to give you stuff collectively. That’s tremendous highly effective. Within the final two years, it’s been actually fairly energetic and we’ve been much more in contact with one another. The communications have been actually open, which I like. I feel that occurs once you develop into older artists.”

“We work exhausting to seek out the magic,” Steele provides. “We’ll fly all over the world 4 occasions and work on a track for 3 years … We’ll abandon issues after which resurrect them and do no matter it takes. And we’ve at all times labored like that, to the purpose of exhaustion, to verify it has an actual treasured magnificence about it.”

A binding think about Empire’s longevity has been the spirituality that underpins the music. For Littlemore, music is a transcendent expertise, generally accompanied by sacraments; he first dropped LSD at 13 and named the fifth Pnau album, Changa, after a psychedelic cocktail. Issues have calmed down in recent times: in 2019 Littlemore needed to retreat whereas he recovered from Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a model of shingles that paralysed half his face and affected his listening to. And final yr, he turned a father for the primary time.

Steele’s non secular journey began when he was born-again. “I used to be in my 20s and I put all the things in my power to be the hero of the pop world after which it simply got here crashing down,” he remembers. “I simply acquired cornered. I’ve been via these massive depressions the place you simply cornered and also you’re like, no means out.”

Steele’s brother Jesse, who had additionally performed within the Sleepy Jackson, realised he was not coping effectively and, in Luke’s phrases, “rescued” him by taking him on a midnight stroll on a pitch-black evening, then to church the following day. “And there was this Irish preacher there, Colin Murphy, who was simply placed on the planet to speak to Luke Steele,” he says. Ever since, he has put his religion in divine steering, particularly in the case of music. “For issues to work,” he says, “it’s acquired to have God’s favour on it. It needs to be spirit-led.”

Littlemore and Steele started engaged on Ask That God again in 2017. Each had been “actually decided” however “it simply acquired actually, actually robust”, Steele remembers. “Nothing labored and we simply acquired actually pissed off with one another. We had been exhausted – mentally unwell.”

The pandemic halted their recording classes and so they “deserted the entire thing”. Littlemore cut up his isolation between Sydney and Los Angeles, whereas Steele and household hunkered down in a Unabomber-style cabin in north California, the place the native retailer bought solely beer and ammunition.

“Wanting again, it was an incredible second to go away the fort and simply say, it’s over,” Steele says.

Ultimately they returned to the album, pulling it collectively over the previous two years in recording classes in Japan, Sweden and the US. Steele has spent the previous few months creating the brand new Empire of the Solar reside present for his or her world tour, which begins in Australia in October, earlier than heading to Mexico, the US and hopefully elements past. He envisions the reveals being “like an opera”.

“I’ve by no means appreciated the concept of simply throwing in songs right here and there,” he says, earlier than including what could be Empire of the Solar’s imaginative and prescient assertion: “We’re actually hungry for one thing that’s not like all the things else.”

• Ask That God is out now (EMI Music Australia). Empire of the Solar are touring Australia, Mexico and the US. See right here for dates.