He may have just completed the UK and European summer festival circuit, where he performed to a career highlight crowd of over 90,000 people at EDM festival Creamfields, but Example – real name Elliot Gleave – is perfectly content back in his adopted home of Brisbane, where he's in dad mode: it's all football practice and playing FIFA with the kids.
Gleave has also recently taken up painting, which can be seen on his social media – and on the cover of 'Strictly 4 Tha', his upcoming single with Sydney-based producer Moss."He makes this really cool bass sound, like that kind of Jersey dubstep crossover thing that Skrillex kind of brought back again," Gleave says, "and then I've basically just got a single [dropping] every month for the foreseeable future: drum & bass, drum & bass house, drum & bass house-techno – not so much rapping or drill or hip hop for a while."
Although Elliot says he enjoys flexing that muscle "every now and again", it's hard to compete in the rap world at the moment. "There's a real love for proper street kids with street stories to tell at the moment, which isn't really suitable to a 41-year-old white dad," he explains.
"I think I can still share my story when I need to. But I think at the moment rapping's a kid's game, you know what I mean? For the people in their early 20s and so on."
Gleave's most recent studio album, 'We May Grow Old But We Never Grow Up', was released in June last year, and featured collaborations with Penny Ivy, Tommy Trash, Nerve, Local and more.
"It plays like a really nice party/ compilation from start to finish because it's got so many different production styles on there, and it's all tied together in my voice, but then you've also got Penny Ivy singing on it and you've got these different voices, so it kind of feels like a playlist in itself," Gleave says. "It was an amazingly fun album to make."
After eight albums across fifteen years, there's an extensive Example back catalogue to comb through – so Gleave is bringing it all out for one unforgettable night of what he calls Bangers, Hits, and a Couple New Bits. "It's literally what it says on the tin," Gleave says of the new show.
"It's like anything that goes off in a festival or club environment we've got in the set, so every hit record is in there, then there's probably four or five new songs – fresh songs that no one's heard – it's me rapping, singing, shouting, jumping around on stage for 90 minutes."
This is the essential Example show, Gleave promises. "There's no bands or rappers or DJs who put on a show as hectic as this," he says. "Godlands is supporting, who's obviously making a bit of noise at the moment, and there's going to be a couple of surprises.
"I've got full visual package effects at each venue, and each venue is about a thousand capacity. My last tour in Australia, I think the venues were around 300 each, so we've gone way bigger a year later.
"It's cool because Brisbane now is like my home town," Gleave adds. "I've got something like 50 guest list already coming down: friends, friends of family, family, my masseuse and the guy who works at the picture frame shop and a couple of teachers from the school."
When tickets for the UK leg of his tour went on sale, over 10,000 were sold in three days. That number was closer to 20,000 when we spoke.
"Realistically the UK tour will probably have a few more surprise guests just because all the surprise feature guests are usually over there already," Gleave says, "and I reckon maybe ten per cent of the show is different [because] I find in Australia certain sounds work better and in the UK certain sounds work better, and I might adjust the show from Sydney to Perth, for instance."
Example 2023 Tour Dates
Fri 3 Nov - Liberty Hall (Sydney)Fri 10 Nov - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Fri 17 Nov - The Princess Theatre (Brisbane)
