Australian singer-songwriter Dean Lewis laughs when asked if there's a word or feeling that aptly describes the journey he has undertaken with his music over the past four years.
“I'd say 'grateful but anxious',” Dean quips.
“There's so much amazing stuff happening. I'm not the best at appreciating things, and I know it sounds really cliche but I'm always thinking 'what's the next thing that I have to do?'.
“I feel so lucky to be in this position that I just want to keep moving and keep going. What's the next song, what's the next video?
“I know how lucky I am because there's so many musicians out there that want to have someone interested in their music and ask some questions, so I feel very lucky that I've been chosen to have that by people. It's amazing, but a lot of anxiety.”
Tomorrow (22 March), Dean will release his highly-anticipated debut album 'A Place We Knew', the follow-up to his widely acclaimed 2017 EP 'Same Kind Of Different'. As his first full-length release, Dean says 'A Place We Knew' represents a complete body of work that is cohesive from beginning to end.
“I feel proud that I got to sit down with my friends and family, push play on any song and not say 'I've got to finish the mix' or 'I have to work on it still' or 'it's not mastered'; it feels good that I can play it to people and feel really confident because I worked on them for so long.”
Described as encapsulating the bittersweet memories of past relationships, 'A Place We Knew' is a missive to bygone lovers that plucks a particularly taut heartstring if the singles 'Be Alright' and '7 Minutes' are anything to go by.
For Dean, 'A Place We Knew' is almost entirely autobiographical; the tales on the album torn from his own raft of life experiences both good and bad, each born from a single kernel of truth that lies at its core.
“A lot of the songs that I write, I'd say most of them are about situations that have happened to me, and a few are things that have happened to friends and family,” Dean explains.
“It's important to me for the song to start somewhere real... that's the thing I'm quite stubborn with – I'll only put a song on [an album] if not only does it sound good to me, but it feels good and it feels like there's a meaning behind it.
“I hate when I turn a song on on the radio and it sounds great but there's nothing behind it. I know within a sentence – and I think people do as well – I think they know within the first sentence if it's just five guys in a room writing a song.”
To achieve such a detailed level of storytelling in his songwriting, Dean uses the example of one of his key influences Bruce Springsteen and how he wrote his highest-charting 1984 single 'Dancing In The Dark'. “I'm a big fan of Springsteen and that 'Dancing In The Dark' style of first-person songwriting,” he says.
“When I'm writing songs I try to literally tell the story, describe a little scene. It's quite easy to do if you say it simply, if you channel it through something that's real to you.”
It's Dean's precision with and straightforward approach to wording in his lyrics that he says allows his songs to exude the sense of walking through an emotionally heightened moment in someone else's life. “I don't like songs that have a lot of metaphors or that are quite abstract,” he admits.
“I think it can be jarring on the brain and it just sort of floats around and it doesn't really make you feel anything.
“That's why the stories are really important to me, and they're very simple if you think about them. The lyrics on the album are very simple and straightforward, I'm not trying to pretend to be anything else.”
Before he became Dean Lewis, international singer-songwriter superstar on the rise, he was just plain old Dean Lewis – a songwriter from Sydney working for a publishing company in the US who had become disillusioned with having his original music chewed up and spat back out by the industry machine.
“When you're in America and writing songs for other people, it's a much bigger market,” he says.
“I'm a bit of a control freak with the music and production of what I'm doing. You can write a great song for someone and then their mother would say they didn't like it and the song wouldn't get released. So I just gave away something I really liked for a one-in-a-thousand chance of getting on an album that's not going to get released.”
Opting for the solo artist route instead, Lewis played his first live performance at an open mic night in 2016. The following year he was asked to fill Amy Shark's Groovin The Moo spot when Amy was asked to fill in for Tash Sultana, who had cancelled due to sickness.
By 2018, Dean had a debut EP and a national tour under his belt, not to mention a staggering one billion streams of his music across the globe.
Still though, the record companies weren't exactly pounding down his door to sign Dean. “I got turned down by every major label in Australia except one, Universal Island, who I ended up signing with,” he says, adding wryly: “They say revenge is best served cold, and when you're doing well.”
With the release of 'A Place We Knew', Dean embarks on a national Australian tour in support of the album having already toured the United States in February.
Though his career has taken a steep upward trajectory, Dean says he is in no rush to over-extend himself, preferring instead to reap the greater rewards of playing the long game.
“I don't want to do any big features or collaborations with other artists yet because I feel like that would be cheating,” he says.
“I want to do it on my own terms, and the people that I look up to have done it themselves. So I've said no to doing any other collaborations until I've established myself and I've created something I'm proud of and released it. “Then after that I'll open myself up to doing more stuff because I feel like… I've got to prove myself.”
'A Place We Knew' is released 22 March.
Dean Lewis 2019 Tour Dates
Mon 6 May - Enmore Theatre (Sydney) - sold outTue 7 May - Enmore Theatre (Sydney) - limited tix
Sat 11 May - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane) - sold out
Sun 12 May - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane) - limited tix
Tue 14 May - Thebarton Theatre (Adelaide) - limited tix
Wed 15 May - HBF Stadium (Perth) - limited tix
Fri 17 May - Forum Melbourne - sold out
Sat 18 May - Forum Melbourne - sold out
Sun 19 May - Forum Melbourne* added 10 April
