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“Our fame in Australia actually fucked me up really badly,” Le’aupepe says.
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Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights. Go to one of their gigs abroad and you will be immersed in the unmistakable hum of hundreds of Australians in one room. It’s not that they don’t translate overseas – they do the US late-night shows and European festivals – but it’s nothing like the popularity they enjoy at home. The ABC described Le’aupepe’s lyrics as a “tendency to get all Bono on us.” Somewhere along the way they were labelled “the Ted Lasso of music”, which makes Le’aupepe roar. “Are Gang of Youths too earnest for America?” asked Stereogum. But Le’aupepe’s lyrical verbosity – “A rough arsehole using big words” as he puts it – along with the unashamedly redemptive note that carries through their indie rock, and the faintest echoes of their beginnings in Christian music, means that the very reasons their fans love them so have also earned them a reputation for being, well, a tad uncool. And, just like the songwriters he loves ( Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits), his lyrics tell vivid stories: of a troubled but decent man, outrunning debts and trouble, wrestling with fear and depression, losing faith and finding it again. They’re unforgettable live – frontman Dave Le’aupepe has the charisma and intensity of a preacher, howling his songs like a burly Michael Hutchence. S tep outside Australia, as Gang of Youths have done, and you may struggle to find someone who knows them by name.