Music

It’s a Tuesday morning in Australia, and Anna Lunoe has a sizable day ahead. Speaking to Billboard over Zoom from her home studio in Sydney, where post-it notes adorn the white walls, Lunoe is prepping for her set tonight at Accor Stadium, where she’s opening for The Weeknd.
Right now she’s going over her setlist — Ice Spice and Central Cee’s “Did It First,” Azealia Banks’ “New Bottega” — and other tracks that will, as she says, “tell the whole story of the intertwining between hip-hop and dance.” These opening sets are also a reunion for Lunoe, who first opened for The Weeknd in 2013 on his Kiss Land Tour.

Call it all another entry on a long list of accomplishments. In 2012, Lunoe moved to Los Angeles from Australia to pursue music and, amid the crescendo of the U.S. dance music boom, swiftly carved out a career as an in-demand producer and DJ. Four years later, she became the first woman to play a solo set on the mainstage at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, and in 2017 she played Coachella while pregnant, a revelation in a time when women, much less mothers, were even more dramatically underrepresented on dance lineups. She’s played every major global festival, and her list of releases is long, varied and well-listened to.

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But it’s only now, four years after moving back to Australia, that Lunoe is releasing her debut album, Pearl. Out Friday (Oct. 25) on NLV Records, the label from Lunoe’s longtime friend Nina Las Vegas, the 13 tracks embody the style and verve Lunoe has long been known for, working in big ideas about life and motherhood and work and the meaning of it all over productions both driving and delicate.

“I’ve never desired to exist hugely outside of the dance community,” she says. “I think this is a beautiful place. You see things go off, once they cross over into this bigger space, and you can’t always understand what happens out there. But in here, I love this world we’re in.”

Here, Lunoe talks about the album, and why she’s releasing it now.

1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?

I am sitting in my home studio in Sydney, in Australia, and it’s a beautiful day, and I have a really big day today. I’m playing with The Weeknd tonight, so I have all my gear around me and a big list of what to do, and I’ve got to work out what to wear.

2. What’s the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?

I discovered my local CD shop when I was like, five. I used to beg my parents to go there. My parents would have these long lunches at the local cafes with their friends, and I’d get bored, and the CD shop was just next door, so I’d always go next door and literally pester the lady to listen to all different songs. They used to have these little stations where you could listen to music. I remember buying TLC‘s “Creep” on CD single, and the way I felt when I first heard, I think it’s like a synth or guitar sound, that opens it. It was just like, “Oh my god.” That was mind-blowing.

3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do they think of what you do now?

My parents both created their own worlds, in their own way. My dad was in bands, then he [worked in nightclubs, and then he was in the food innovation industry. He’s a bit of an inventor, a really interesting character. So he fully supports and understands the need to forge your own path in life, which was cool. My mom created a fashion label for pregnant women, which was groundbreaking for her time, because there weren’t maternity clothes back then here in Australia.

Although they understand the kind of build your own life situation, I think my mom was always wanting me to have stability. She was always like, “Get a job at a bank.” Every time I called her, I’d go, “Mom, guess what!” She’d go, “You got a job at a bank!” It’d be like, “No mom, not this time.”

4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?

There’s this really cool label called Perks & Mini, which is shortened to P.A.M. I still wear it to this day. It’s the coolest label. It’s out of Melbourne, and I flew to Melbourne for a gig, and I went to the P.A.M. store, and I bought what I thought was a pretty impractical purchase. It was a duffle bag with this awesome alien print. I thought it would fall apart as soon as I started using it, and because it was white I thought it would get dirty. I was like, “This is a stupid purchase, but I just really want it. It’s so fun.” I still have it to this day! It’s still an action. It was a good purchase. It was an absolute investment.

5.  If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance music, what would you give them? 

The first thing that popped into my head was Rooty by Basement Jaxx. It’s a good example of a fun record with incredible references and great pop writing that anyone can relate to, and did it’s own thing and didn’t feel formulaic at all.

6. What’s the last song you listened to?

Embarrassingly, my album songs. I was listening through them this morning.

7. You’ve been making music for a long time. Why is now the right time for your first album?

I’m finally getting to the point where I have the skills and understanding of myself as an artist, that I can make sense of my writing impulse as it pertains to the world I exist in as a DJ, a producer and someone who spends their life in clubs. I started writing, and what I wrote were more song based things. They weren’t necessarily built for the sonic world I exist in as a DJ. It took a long time to bridge those.

8. What changed?

It’s felt like dance music has met me in the middle, too. Dance music’s had this incredible arc in the last five years, or the last 15 years for sure. But in the last five years we’ve seen a lot more sincerity, a lot more real stories being told in the club space, and it made it easier for me. Suddenly there were songs that I could make sense of that I’d [made 10 years ago], or that I’ve always loved but couldn’t work out how they belonged in this space. Now it feels like they belong.

So I think it’s a case of my skill set meeting me here, dance music meeting me here, and honestly, probably the fact that I moved back to Australia and I’m not on tour as much as I used to be. I used to play non-stop. I never stopped touring, ever. Now I get a bit more downtime from being on the road, and that’s given me more space to hone my creativity and my production skills, too.

9. As you’re saying, you moved back to Australia after many years L.A. in 2020. How did that move change your career strategy? Obviously Australia has its own thriving scene, but how do you control your career while being further away from a lot of places, and the U.S. especially?

It’s been really challenging. I made the decision for my kids and my family. It definitely wasn’t a career decision. It was like, “This is what I need to do for my family, to be closer to my parents as they’re getting older,” all that stuff. The career stuff has just been… I don’t think I had control over it. I speak to that in the album as well. There’s songs that reference how it feels to be on the other side of that and to think, “What did I do? Did I just throw everything away, or a part of myself away?”

10. That sounds challenging. How have you navigated it?

I struggled with it a lot, because I spent many years building what I built, and I made a decision in a moment of crisis with a newborn, premature baby and a pandemic and my parents. I made that decision because I had to. I wasn’t thinking about my career at that time. At the same time, I believe that there’s more to life than just doing everything for your career, and that you have to do what’s right for everyone else.

So I don’t regret it, but it definitely meant there was a big spanner in the works in how things were laid out, and I had to adapt. But I also think that things don’t happen for nothing, and you have to look for the meaning in things that happen and look for the reason why this might happen to me and why I did this and what I can do now and look for the best possible road forward from where I’m at.

11. From a very outside perspective, what I see is that you being further away gives things that you do a celebratory feel. Like, “She’s back playing Coachella! She’s back playing in L.A.!” It seems like every time you come here and do something, it’s a moment. Does that feel true to you?

Oh I hope so. I would love that, because it’s such a moment for me. Me coming back to California and the States and the reception that I get, nothing will fill that hole like those cities. Those cities built me. I lived there for like, a third of my life. It’s such a big part of me.

I’m in this situation where now my heart is split in two, because I want to be with my family, but I also want to be in a place where I feel like my music resonates. And it’s also my friends, my community, all that stuff. It is such a big deal for me, and so I hope it feels like a big deal for everyone else too, because that’s what keeps me coming back, and for as long as people will meet me there, I’ll meet them there.

12. Pearl is out on NLV Records, the label from Nina Las Vegas. You and Nina have been very close friends for a long time. Did it just make sense to put the album out on her label?

It’s hard to to work out what might have happened under different circumstances. Coming back here and starting to release on NLV seemed so natural. It just seemed like I was home. Things were changing so fast in those years; I suddenly would have a song that I wanted to release, and Nina is my best friend, and she has this great label. I talk to her every day about what’s going on in my career. So she was like, “Oh, yeah, I can put it out for you.”

13. I imagine there are a lot of advantages to working with your best friend, yeah?

Now I can’t imagine working in a different way, because I have so much control over what I do. I’m not waiting for anyone to approve or give permission on what I do. Don’t get me wrong, me and Nina sometimes go at it about release dates and what we want to do next, in the best way possible, because that’s how we are. We’re sisters. But it feels like there’s no gatekeepers in front of me. Not that I ever felt that. I’ve always released with indie dance labels for the most part, in the last 10 years anyway.

But it just feels particularly aligned when the person is kind of part of your brain. I trust her opinion, and I trust where her head’s at. If she says, “this is cool, we should get this out straight away,” I trust her, because she’s someone who I built this whole thing with. We built it together.

14. What does success for the album look like for you?

I really don’t expect huge amounts to change after the album. I’m proud of of what I created. I think it’s a great jump off point for the next chapter, whatever that may be. I guess what success means to me is my community hearing it, and hearing me and meeting me there. I’ve never desired to exist hugely outside of the dance community. I think this is a beautiful place. You see things go off, once they cross over into this bigger space, and you can’t always understand what happens out there. But in here, I love this world we’re in.

15. Speaking of crossover stars, you’re opening for The Weeknd tonight. What kind of prep goes into a show like that?

This Weeknd situation is so unusual, to have been invited into an artist’s world all those years ago. We were playing 3,000 to 8,000 capacity rooms back then, and now tonight, 72,000. His arc is phenomenal, and I feel grateful to have been invited back into their sphere.

I feel comfortable, because I feel like I understand enough about myself and about their camp to know what to bring to the table and what I can offer. So I’m just looking to do the best job of that and just set things up for the evening ahead. I prepared thoroughly for this, because it is outside of my usual dance realm. But because I’ve done it in the past, I trust my instinct that if I do the prep and if I look at all the reference points and work out what I think I want to present, I trust that I will make the right decision.

16. Your two kids are sampled on your album track “Let’s Go Home.” To what extent do they understand what you do?

My daughter describes me as a “DJ -er.” I don’t correct her, because that’s cute. She knows that I have fun clothes. She likes all my different fun clothes that I wear when I’m DJing, and she always asks if she can have them when she’s older… I don’t post them a lot because I just love keeping them kind of separate and that part of me separate. I don’t put it on them. I just want to focus on them and their experience.

17. What are your proudest moments of your career so far?

I’m proud of myself for moving to America when I did, because I really had no business being that brave. But I think that was brave in hindsight, because I did not know anybody. Obviously there’s the big moments, like the EDC moments and the big pregnancy announcement. Those moments were huge. But there was so many moments that were quiet, when no one was there to cheer me on and I had to keep going, even when things went wrong or things were really hard. I’m proud of all those late night, on my own, being scared and still pushing through moments.

18. What are you proud of now?

Like you said, now it’s harder for me to make moments happen being further away and having kids and family, so I’m proud every time I am able to contribute meaningfully to this genre, whether it’s being part of a big show, or being a part of a mix, or a song that says and does what I want it to say and do. They’re all big achievements for me now. That’s something I’m proud of — that I’m continuing to do it and trying to balance it all.

19. What’s been the best business decision you’ve made?

To be as multifaceted as possible. Having a diverse skill set, whether it be radio or being able to play every genre from disco, to downtempo, to more commercial, to house, to techno, to underground and building a skill set where I can meaningfully speak and contribute in all these different genres. Plus doing my own vocals, and interviewing other artists, and my podcast. Being able to provide all these different services to music has been the thing that’s kept me moving forward, when one avenue fades away.

20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

Remember to stay focused on what is going outwards. It’s very easy to get caught up on the behind the scenes things, and the little things. But you should always remember to think about what’s actually going out to people and make sure you’re focusing enough energy on what’s going out to people, not just seeing yourself with what’s happening behind the scenes.