Rose Pink Cadillac

“I wanted to make this my love record,” DOPE LEMON—Angus Stone—tells Apple Music. “With all the impending doom and the anarchy of everything happening around the world, I wanted to put positivity back into the world. I think it’s what we’re all looking for. To fall into these different worlds, these stories of love, that glow you have when you're in the twilight of meeting someone.” The singer-songwriter’s third album as DOPE LEMON comes at a time when, almost two years into the pandemic, many will indeed cherish something positive and uplifting. Brighter and bouncier than his first two DOPE LEMON records, Rose Pink Cadillac is, Stone says, “a combination of my dreams, experiences, observations, and stories from other people, all about love.” For Stone, music is the outlet through which he can explain love—it’s the place where he can create, explore, tell stories, and create characters that depict it, in all its forms. “I'm able to sort of disappear on these expeditions of my imagination,” he says. Read on as the Australian artist talks through each track on album three.

“Rose Pink Cadillac”
“It’s about that feeling when you're in the twilight of meeting someone new. It's almost like you see this glow around a person, and you can see it happening to yourself in the same way. It’s those simple things, just looking at them and the way they move. At the same time, there's also a destructive part of it where you might love somebody but they don’t allow themselves to be loved in the way that they should. I think we all have that—those stops that can block good stuff happening. And we might want that chance to show them, to unlock that part they're stuck on.”

“Kids Fallin’ in Love”
“It’s one of those songs that happened really smoothly. Within a few hours we had a structure and a song, it was just firing in all cylinders in the way of flow. I’d been listening to a lot of Bill Withers and Al Green, and I love how once you hit those harmony parts of the song, you sort of lock in, and you can really feel it in your heart. I met someone in a bar when I was in Colorado, watching them sip on a drink—it’s in the lyrics. It's about those first interactions where you start to do the dance of eventually walking up to each other and being like, ‘Hey you're cool, I like you,’ and seeing how the night unfolds.”

“Howl With Me”
“It’s a story I wrote about a girl raised by wolves. One day she wants to escape the forest and start a new life. So she builds a raft, pushes it out into the river, and floats down the stream. She’s got a bottle of moonshine, and she sees this big bear on the shore. She waves at him, she waves the bottle at him. He swims up and jumps on and then they float downriver together, and they sort of form a relationship. It's about them sort of falling in love and then coming to a fork in the road where they have to decide whether to stay together or go their separate ways.”

“Stingray Pete”
“I wrote this with Brad Heald; he toured with The Vines for ages and he’s been with DOPE LEMON since the beginning. The setting of the song is out in a desert, and Stingray Pete is one of those guys in the bar that you see down the end of it and he's just sitting there drinking, and you know he's full of stories and wild adventures. So it’s tapping into his life, about where the night leads him, where he ends up.”

“Sailor's Delight”
“It’s a really sweet song. It’s about new love, falling into each other's universes, that honeymoon time. You’re with them on an island, walking under the stars, along the beach. The lyrics in the chorus go, ‘Should I take your hand and put it in mine, baby?’ And it’s more kind of asking yourself whether you should you take this hand and make it a forever love, whatever that means.”

“Every Day Is a Holiday” (feat. Winston Surfshirt)
“It’s about how every day just comes down to your perspective, your outlook on life. Waking up and looking around, and knowing that no matter what situation you're in or what you're going through, it can change if you allow yourself to see the simple things. And to recognize the beauty of what it is to be here and be alive. It’s a bloody miracle. Sometimes, the simplest things you're missing are right at your feet. And it’s about just looking down and being humbled and blessed by that.”

“Lovesick Brain”
“It's about young love—about finding that high school sweetheart and how cool it used to be when you’d just be like, ‘Let's meet at the water tower and just kick around together, have a smoke, have a drink.’ You're just doing really simple kid stuff, but you're in love. When I see it now, you can tell that some kids know it, but some don't really appreciate it. It was so simple, and looking back, we’re like, ‘Holy shit, that was so special.’ Everything is better when you're together, you’re just kicking around. You either know it or you don't—and maybe you learn the hard way as you get older.”

“High Rollin” (feat. Louise Verneuil)
“I wanted a French singer on the track, and through the label we went back and forth until we found Louise Verneuil. We chatted on the phone and everything was cool, just instantly, she just got it, she loved the song. She's an amazing all-rounder—actress, singer, songwriter. It's interesting how English translates into other languages. Sometimes there's a poetry that happens just in itself, with a very, a simple line. It can just flip into this really cool way of saying things.”

“God's Machete”
“We’re getting towards the end of the album and the mood has changed. It’s about those times where you have the darkness. We all feel when it creeps up and gets the best of us. It’s about how, instead of trying to push it down and hide it away, you can let those monsters have their day, let them run wild and get it out of your system, let it do its thing and fuck you up and then learn from it. Or don't, whatever. It’s how I deal with mental health, sometimes. Just let it fucking rip and ride and own it and then destroy it, or just put it away for a rainy day.”

“Shadows in the Moonlight”
“When I picture this song, it’s such a strange image, but there’s a guy. He’s sort of creeping along a branch outside this girl's window. He's kind of a Grim Reaper-type character, and he’s dancing to the tune. He's kind of evil, and the girl is scared, but she also wants to take his hand and go with him because she's curious. There’s some really cool imagery in this one. It was fun to record. It was very Halloween-y.”