When Gang of Youths finished touring commitments for their third album, Angel in Realtime, in late 2022, that would be the last time the band performed together on stage for almost four years.
Dave Le’aupepe, Jung Kim, Donnie Borzestowski and Tom Hobden – now all based in London – still jammed together. They still hung out all of the time. But they didn’t perform any shows.
When I sit down with Le’aupepe and Kim at the Sydney Opera House ahead of Gang of Youths’ second of two homecoming shows at the iconic venue for the Rolling Stone Uncut in an Australian podcast exclusive, they admit there’s no particular reason for the layoff. As their brand-new single and first taste of new music in four years suggest, these things take time.
“Lightning struck all of a sudden, basically,” Kim says of “Things Take Time.”
“Dave had something to write about.”
“It’s about fucking time that we make some music,” Le’aupepe jumps in. “I just take ages. That’s the point… and that’s the process. Nothing really happens enough to write a fucking album about. But I think, with regard to the song, it didn’t have to be about anything. The very concept of growing plants and growth and death, and growth into that constant cycle — the kind of entropy of everything, it’s more than enough inspiration. So that’s kind of why I’m like, fuck it.”
So casual was their approach to new music, Le’aupepe says, there wasn’t even an intention to build towards releasing a new song. “Things Take Time,” he says, felt right to release now and is a strong reflection of Gang of Youths in 2026.
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“I think it just felt really easy this song, and so it’s just really obvious. Like, why not just share it and not overthink things, basically, and just see what happens, really.”
“And it was just so timely too,” Kim says, “with everything you’re saying — about growth and decay and all that. I think we’ve all, in the last three years, grown. It’s kind of an ode to the time we spent in our solitude, developing, and just also getting on with life. Like me, finding a partner, or Dave finally going on some holidays, you know? Seeing the world, or whatever. It’s almost a documentation of all that life experience, really, and the overarching theme is that things are always in motion, and then that motion leads to whatever, or nothing, and that’s completely fine.”
Gang of Youths were largely absent from the public eye for the last few years. But make no mistake, they were still playing and recording in the studio. What they weren’t doing was tying themselves to any quotas or expectations that something had to come of the studio sessions.
Image: Cal McIntyre
“I just bring the songs when they’re ready, and that’s it,” Le’aupepe says matter-of-factly. “We’re always kind of like, ‘Should we go to the studio today?’ We had a studio in London the whole time. We gave it up and then decided to actually concretely record, so we set a date, and I was writing. It’s not like one of those things where we’re all gonna get together to start with. We don’t really have that sort of vibe. We treat it like a job, in that way. In some ways, we treat it like a job, but in other ways, it’s kind of not really a job. It’s not this fucking corporatised thing with an HR department, you know? It doesn’t really work like that. And when people try to turn it into that bullshit, it makes it not only not fun, but it turns into this fucking fascist nightmare where everything’s about meeting a deadline. Everything’s corporate, you know?
“When we’re together in a studio, it’s because we know we’re recording something that will go onto vinyl and out into the ether, do you know what I mean? But there’s no elephant in the room with us when we’re recording, because we know what the story is. For me and Jung especially, having had such a long musical relationship, it’s…”
“Symbiotic,” Kim finishes.
It’s a fair point. Le’aupepe and Kim were two of the founding members of Gang of Youths back in 2011. After signing a major-label deal with Sony Music Australia in 2013, the Sydney group released their debut album, The Positions, in 2015, which debuted at No. 5 on the local Albums chart and earned them a string of ARIA Award nominations, including Best Live Act and Best Rock Album.
The follow-up, 2017’s Go Farther in Lightness, took the band from scene favourites to one of the country’s biggest acts. The record debuted at No. 1 in Australia and dominated that year’s ARIA Awards, claiming Best Group, Best Rock Album and the coveted Album of the Year.
Not long after that, the band was selling out arenas throughout the country and making waves internationally. But despite all of that success, Gang of Youths refused to rest on their laurels or lean into the glitz and glamour. It would be five years before they released their third effort, Angel in Realtime, which steered away from Go Farther in Lightness‘ anthemic rock sounds to softer territory, and sonically and lyrically about the loss of Le’aupepe’s father.
Listening to “Things Take Time,” it’s obvious that Gang of Youths’ next chapter will be unlike anything that has come before.
“A lot of the anthemic stuff came from, maybe, a reaction to what I’d personally perceived as the zeitgeist sound of indie rock,” Le’aupepe says. “And being a born contrarian, as I’ll admit, I just couldn’t resist doing that whole thing. I was also really influenced by the Springsteen influence on me, which is that blue-collar sort of sound. Indie-rock bigness was really interesting for a young band in my twenties.
“I started this in 2011, so that was kind of a whole thing, and it was often misconstrued as artless or whatever, which I don’t really mind, I get it. But [‘Things Take Time’] is not necessarily smoother; there’s just more space for the influences we have to take a new shape, do you know what I mean? I’d say I had a holy trinity of lyricists: Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits — and Joni Mitchell’s in there too as a lyricist. And as an artist myself, since adolescence, really late teens, I was really into Arthur Russell and Serge Gainsbourg — vocally as well, I think that was a good chunk of it.
“A dear friend of mine, Connor, said to me, ‘Have you ever thought about actually singing?’ I was like, ‘What the fuck do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘Well, you kind of just croon and talk — maybe you should try actually singing.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.’ And obviously, being Polynesian, there’s a history of soul and R&B in that kind of vocal tradition, so I thought I’d give it a go, and it turned out to really feel comfortable and suit the vibe of the music. I think I can still tickle the underbelly of my own contrarian fascination – my need to not do the thing that’s in the mainframe – while also catering to a pop sensibility… I was also really into a lot of Latin music… the brass, that kind of sunlit energy. I found that really cool and interesting, and I felt that was the path I wanted to take, and it really suited me, honestly.”
And that speaks to the magic of Gang of Youths. There is a world where this band could chase the same sound and get the same impressive results. But chart success and playing to sold-out arenas have never been the goal. The music and the artistry are always the priority.
How else could one of Australia’s best bands disappear for four years without any concern?
“If we’d done three albums that sounded the same, that would have been a miserable thing for us to keep doing and playing,” Le’aupepe answers.
Gang of Youths @ Sydney Opera House. Image: Jess Gleeson/Sydney Opera House
“The difference between Go Farther in Lightness and the third album, for me personally, because I was like, I’ll just make some drum and bass with orchestral shit on it, that’d be fun, and how about we use loads of samples, it was enough to burn the effigy of what had come before us, and I was really infatuated with the idea.
“So this is about burning the effigy of the past, again. That’s really important.”
“It’s just our tastes and proclivities always change,” Kim explains. “Not to be on the nose again, but with the whole sentiment of things take time, things are always in motion, things change, tastes grow and decay, and new things are born.”
The obvious question now, with the release of “Things Take Time,” is this the first cut from a potential fourth Gang of Youths album?
Both Le’aupepe and Kim look at each other and smile.
“I cannot confirm or deny — corporate will not allow me,” Le’aupepe smirks.
