In a Burbank rehearsal studio, loaded nearly wall-to-wall with electronics and journey instances, the three musicians of Rüfüs Du Sol are within the remaining hours of rehearsal for the most important tour of their lives. As they run by means of quite a lot of songs on synthesizers and acoustic drums, the primary query nonetheless to be answered is simply how a lot of themselves to offer.
It’s a wet day again in March, because the Australian trio work by means of completely different dwell units for various conditions — festivals, arenas, massive amphitheaters and, most importantly, their very own slate of stadium headline reveals. For the latter, Rüfüs Du Sol is ready with a super-sized set record that singer-keyboardist Tyrone Lindqvist calls “the Behemoth,” and drummer James Hunt describes as “the Beast, the Hulk.”
“We’ve had a lot love from our followers and constant individuals coming to the reveals,” says Lindqvist, blond and wearing black behind his synth station. “Our present sits at two hours and 10 minutes on this demoed model, and we’re like, is that this too lengthy? At what level are we doing an excessive amount of? Generally much less is extra, and discovering that candy spot is just a little tough.
“You’re grappling with the intense love that you’ve from individuals and looking for the stability.”
The Australian band just isn’t new at this. The final time Rüfüs Du Sol headlined in Los Angeles, the band performed three sold-out nights on the 22,000-capacity Banc of California Stadium in 2021. Now, they’re headed to the Rose Bowl this Saturday, capping off the North American leg of their 2025 tour in assist of the band’s newest album, “Inhale / Exhale.”
With keyboardist Jon George, they’re three trendy males in black who based their different digital dance music, or EDM, trio in Sydney, Australia, again in 2010 and have since taken their music to main venues world wide. The Rose Bowl present in Pasadena will probably be their largest headline present ever, with near 60,000 followers.
In live performance phrases, Rüfüs Du Sol has develop into one of many top-selling EDM acts on the earth. The trio additionally matches in simply at each main dance occasions and at multi-genre festivals like Coachella and this 12 months’s Lollapalooza.
Jon George performs the keyboard throughout Rüfüs Du Sol rehearsals in Burbank.
(Steve Appleford)
Rüfüs Du Sol at all times identifies itself as a dwell EDM act, which is a vital distinction to the band, reflecting its personal historical past and the influences which have led it right here. Amongst these inspirations is the Chemical Brothers, who blended samples with dwell synths and different devices to guide the “Large Beat” EDM motion starting within the mid-Nineties.
“Our present is a spectacle. It’s a dwell expertise and there’s humanity in it. There’s human error. From evening to nighttime, the efficiency may be barely completely different,” says Hunt. “The interplay of expertise with humanity has at all times been on the coronary heart of the undertaking.”
“Inhale / Exhale,” launched final October, reached No. 2 on the Billboard dance music album chart. Its festive first single, “Music is Higher,” was meant as a sort of throwback to an early 2000s Home sound. And “These days” was written in Ibiza and knowledgeable by Hunt and George’s sideline performing DJ units below the Rüfüs Du Sol title, mingling refined drama with gospel home vocals. It was among the many first songs to emerge from the brand new album’s writing classes.
The band’s final album, “Give up,” received a Grammy in 2022 for finest dance/digital recording for the one “Alive.”
The band is three studio albums into an ongoing relationship with Warner Information (together with a number of remix collections). The trio was signed to the label by Jeff Sosnow, govt vice chairman of A&R, and he was once more marveling at their large crowds at two July stadium dates in New Jersey.
“I regarded round and I’m watching 25,000 individuals an evening singing each phrase to each music in a rapturous method,” says Sosnow. “These are individuals who have purchased in and they’re fairly passionate.”
Sosnow sees potential development nonetheless forward for the trio, as an EDM act that comes with some conventional songwriting constructions into its dynamic digital combine.
“They love what they do, and they’re as achieved producers as I’ve been round,” he provides. “They’re meticulous file makers and really onerous self-critics and visionaries in their very own ecosystem. They’re going to in all probability discover methods to problem themselves, like many nice artists and teams have accomplished. They’re not resting on their laurels.”
When the 2025 reveals started shortly promoting out, band members have been nearly too busy ending their album to benefit from the expertise.
Singer-keyboardist Tyrone Lindqvist rehearses for Rüfüs Du Sol in Burbank.
(Steve Appleford)
“I didn’t give it some thought, I’ll be sincere,” says Lindqvist with a smile. “We’re fairly all-consumed within the factor that we’re doing on the time. Like, proper now it’s the dwell present. However round that time, it was about ending the album.”
The band’s trajectory as a dwell act passing by means of Los Angeles started with its first look at Echoplex in 2014, adopted by the Fonda that very same 12 months, three nights on the Wiltern in 2016, three reveals on the Shrine Expo Corridor in 2018 — taking part in to three,000 individuals an evening — after which a headline present for 21,000 at Los Angeles State Historic Park in 2019.
“We’ve constructed this factor very incrementally, steadily,” says Hunt. “I feel that may be a actually cool factor to have developed, as a result of then there are individuals who have listened to our music for like 10 years or have gotten married to it or have grieved a buddy to it. They’ve had all these life experiences. It appears to be very significant.”
The Australian trio’s connection to Los Angeles runs even deeper. As they’d accomplished in different cities earlier than — setting themselves up for a time in a home in Surrey, England, after which in Berlin — Rüfüs Du Sol spent years of high quality time in L.A. after relocating to a mid-century home in Venice. Hooked up to the house was a storage transformed into an expert recording studio, and it’s the place the band recorded the 2018 album “Solace.”
They remained in that home for a couple of years, and created a brand new file label named for his or her Venice neighborhood road: Rose Avenue Information.
“It was actually good,” says Hunt of the setup. “We might be taking part in drums at 6 within the morning and nobody may hear it.”
Throughout that point, the trio additionally immersed itself within the native tradition of Venice. “It’s a hub of so many artists and creatives that it had an thrilling vitality to it,” says Lindqvist. “We didn’t have many tasks outdoors of the band, so we moved over and it was a extremely cool expertise.”
By the point Rüfüs Du Sol started working on what would develop into “Inhale / Exhale,” the members’ private lives had gone by means of some main adjustments. That they had already given up alcohol collectively, and now lean right into a wellness life-style. Then Lindqvist moved to North San Diego County together with his spouse and younger baby, whereas Hunt and George relocated to Miami.
That meant their new album was the primary to be written and recorded whereas band members now not resided in the identical metropolis. To reconnect creatively, the trio took a number of writing journeys collectively for 2 weeks at a time, touring to Austin, Texas, L.A. and Ibiza to compose new materials.
“There was additionally an air of uncertainty firstly as a result of we’d by no means accomplished it earlier than,” says Lindqvist. “I used to be positively nervous and also you didn’t understand how a brand new file was going to return about being separate, however we clearly love making music, we love working with one another. These two-week blocks actually made it occur.”
James Hunt performs the drums throughout Rüfüs Du Sol rehearsals in Burbank.
(Steve Appleford)
On the identical time that band members scattered to completely different cities, in addition they started remedy as a bunch, on the suggestion of their supervisor. The 2004 Metallica documentary “Some Sort of Monster” famously depicts a band struggling by means of remedy collectively, with scenes of arguments, slammed doorways and far gnashing of tooth, however issues have been far much less dramatic for Rüfüs Du Sol.
“We positively weren’t like that,” George says with a smile. “We’ve been ready to make use of it in a extremely cool approach for ourselves to have the ability to simply open up traces of communication and study higher practices. It’s an ongoing factor for me personally and for us as a band.”
Lindqvist provides, “We’d been in a band for lots of years, so there’s been a cumulative quantity of change and development between every of us and ruptures and perhaps a scarcity of repairs and resentments that have been in all probability there. All of us have been conscious that there was sufficient to speak about and work by means of.”
Tyrone Lindqvist, James Hunt and Jon George are surrounded by mirrors at rehearsals for Rüfüs Du Sol tour dates.
(Steve Appleford)
An vital step in finalizing the brand new album got here late within the course of, when the band gathered with associates and group members for a listening session at Open, the respiration, yoga and meditation studio in Venice. Friends heard the band’s latest work-in-progress whereas carrying blindfolds.
From that have got here the album’s title, and the sequencing that had the album open with the ethereal, percolating observe “Inhale,” after which shut with the hopeful, romantic “Exhale.”
“Sharing these issues is at all times weak, particularly when it’s past your instant associates,” says Hunt of unveiling new music for the primary time. “In order that was a extremely cool expertise for us to listen to a few of these concepts nearly for the primary time once more.”
5 months after rehearsals in Burbank, Hunt and Lindqvist are on a video name from their resort in Toronto. The band is simply days away from a headline efficiency at Lollapalooza in Chicago, whereas the Rose Bowl continues to be looming and simply a few weeks after that.
The “behemoth” set record has been fine-tuned for the reason that first weeks of the tour. They’re prepared for Pasadena.
Nonetheless, taking part in to ever greater audiences has been thrilling however will also be disorienting. “Previous a sure level, it’s sort of onerous to totally grasp what number of hundreds of individuals distinction it’s, at the very least for me,” says Hunt. “In relation to the showtime, there may be that stress as a result of there’s 20,000 to 30,000 individuals per evening, which we thrive on.”
For Lindqvist, the expertise is each a pure step for a preferred EDM act, and is unimaginably far past the band’s beginnings in Sydney, when their objective was solely to play the 500-capacity native underground venue Oxford Artwork Manufacturing unit.
“We’d seen a variety of bands there, so taking part in there was just like the dream,” the singer says wistfully of these early days. “After which it saved rising. It’s positively surpassed what we had ever imagined.”
