In a Burbank rehearsal studio, loaded nearly wall-to-wall with electronics and journey circumstances, 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 a wide range of songs on synthesizers and acoustic drums, the principle query nonetheless to be answered is simply how a lot of themselves to present.
It’s a wet day again in March, because the Australian trio work by means of totally different stay 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 so much love from our fans and consistent people coming to the shows,” says Lindqvist, blond and wearing black behind his synth station. “Our show sits at two hours and 10 minutes in this demoed version, and we’re like, is this too long? At what point are we doing too much? Sometimes less is more, and finding that sweet spot is a little tricky.
“You’re grappling with the extreme love that you have from people and trying to find the balance.”
The Australian band is just not 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 help 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 can be their greatest headline present ever, with near 60,000 followers.
In live performance phrases, Rüfüs Du Sol has grow to be one of many top-selling EDM acts on this planet. The trio additionally suits in simply at each main dance occasions and at multi-genre festivals like Coachella and this yr’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 stay EDM act, which is a crucial 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 stay synths and different devices to steer the “Big Beat” EDM motion starting within the mid-Nineties.
“Our show is a spectacle. It’s a live experience and there’s humanity in it. There’s human error. From night to night, the performance might be slightly different,” says Hunt. “The interaction of technology with humanity has always been at the heart of the project.”
“Inhale / Exhale,” launched final October, reached No. 2 on the Billboard dance music album chart. Its festive first single, “Music is Better,” was meant as a sort of throwback to an early 2000s Home sound. And “Lately” was written in Ibiza and knowledgeable by Hunt and George’s sideline performing DJ units below the Rüfüs Du Sol identify, mingling delicate drama with gospel home vocals. It was among the many first songs to emerge from the brand new album’s writing periods.
The band’s final album, “Surrender,” received a Grammy in 2022 for greatest dance/digital recording for the only “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, government vice chairman of A&R, and he was once more marveling at their huge crowds at two July stadium dates in New Jersey.
“I looked around and I’m watching 25,000 people a night singing every word to every song in a rapturous manner,” says Sosnow. “These are people who have bought in and they are quite passionate.”
Sosnow sees potential development nonetheless forward for the trio, as an EDM act that includes some conventional songwriting constructions into its dynamic digital combine.
“They love what they do, and they are as accomplished producers as I’ve been around,” he provides. “They are meticulous record makers and very hard self-critics and visionaries in their own ecosystem. They’re going to probably find ways to challenge themselves, like many great artists and groups have done. They’re not resting on their laurels.”
When the 2025 reveals started rapidly 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 think about it, I’ll be honest,” says Lindqvist with a smile. “We’re pretty all-consumed in the thing that we’re doing at the time. Like, right now it’s the live show. But around that point, it was about finishing the album.”
The band’s trajectory as a stay act passing by means of Los Angeles started with its first look at Echoplex in 2014, adopted by the Fonda that very same yr, three nights on the Wiltern in 2016, three reveals on the Shrine Expo Corridor in 2018 — taking part in to three,000 folks an evening — after which a headline present for 21,000 at Los Angeles State Historic Park in 2019.
“We’ve built this thing very incrementally, gradually,” says Hunt. “I think that is a really cool thing to have developed, because then there are people who have listened to our music for like 10 years or have gotten married to it or have grieved a friend to it. They’ve had all these life experiences. It seems to be very meaningful.”
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 number of years, and created a brand new report label named for his or her Venice neighborhood avenue: Rose Avenue Information.
“It was really good,” says Hunt of the setup. “We could be playing drums at 6 in the morning and no one could 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 exciting energy to it,” says Lindqvist. “We didn’t have many responsibilities outside of the band, so we moved over and it was a really cool experience.”
By the point Rüfüs Du Sol started working on what would grow to be “Inhale / Exhale,” the members’ private lives had gone by means of some main modifications. 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 along with his spouse and younger youngster, 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 also an air of uncertainty at the start because we’d never done it before,” says Lindqvist. “I was definitely nervous and you didn’t know how a new record was going to come about being separate, but we obviously love making music, we love working with each other. Those two-week blocks really made it happen.”
James Hunt performs the drums throughout Rüfüs Du Sol rehearsals in Burbank.
(Steve Appleford)
On the identical time that band members scattered to totally different cities, in addition they started remedy as a gaggle, on the suggestion of their supervisor. The 2004 Metallica documentary “Some Kind 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 definitely weren’t like that,” George says with a smile. “We’ve been able to use it in a really cool way for ourselves to be able to just open up lines of communication and learn better practices. It’s an ongoing thing for me personally and for us as a band.”
Lindqvist provides, “We’d been in a band for a lot of years, so there’s been a cumulative amount of change and growth between each of us and ruptures and maybe a lack of repairs and resentments that were probably there. We all were aware that there was enough to talk about and work through.”
Tyrone Lindqvist, James Hunt and Jon George are surrounded by mirrors at rehearsals for Rüfüs Du Sol tour dates.
(Steve Appleford)
An essential step in finalizing the brand new album got here late within the course of, when the band gathered with mates and staff members for a listening session at Open, the respiration, yoga and meditation studio in Venice. Company 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 monitor “Inhale,” after which shut with the hopeful, romantic “Exhale.”
“Sharing those things is always vulnerable, especially when it’s beyond your immediate friends,” says Hunt of unveiling new music for the primary time. “So that was a really cool experience for us to hear some of these ideas almost for the first time again.”
5 months after rehearsals in Burbank, Hunt and Lindqvist are on a video name from their lodge in Toronto. The band is simply days away from a headline efficiency at Lollapalooza in Chicago, whereas the Rose Bowl remains to be looming and simply a few weeks after that.
The “behemoth” set record has been fine-tuned because the first weeks of the tour. They’re prepared for Pasadena.
Nonetheless, taking part in to ever larger audiences has been thrilling however may also be disorienting. “Past a certain point, it’s kind of hard to fully grasp how many thousands of people difference it is, at least for me,” says Hunt. “When it comes to the showtime, there is that pressure because there’s 20,000 to 30,000 people per night, which we thrive on.”
For Lindqvist, the expertise is each a pure step for a well-liked EDM act, and is unimaginably far past the band’s beginnings in Sydney, when their purpose was solely to play the 500-capacity native underground venue Oxford Artwork Manufacturing facility.
“We’d seen a lot of bands there, so playing there was like the dream,” the singer says wistfully of these early days. “And then it kept growing. It’s definitely surpassed what we had ever imagined.”
