Dean Lewis Generic Pix (2)

The Howling: Meet Dean Lewis

It’s no secret we love great new acts. And we love sharing these acts with you as much as possible. That’s why we’re doing The Howling, a series of features dedicated to showcasing the best emerging acts out there. This week we wanted to introduce a favourite of ours, singer Dean Lewis. Dean has just released a massive hit Waves, and is soon to release an EP. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s time to correct that now!

Given name and instruments: My name’s Dean Lewis. I write songs and play guitar and piano!

Hometown: I grew up in Sydney

Three fast facts:

If I hear a good song, it inspires me so much that I HAVE to pick up my guitar and start writing. I love English music. I’ve been taking cold showers for a year now – Really sets your day up well!

How long have you been in the game?

I’ve been writing in my room for about 5 years. But only started taking it seriously in the last 2 years.

Who are your biggest influences?

Noel Gallagher from Oasis. He taught me everything I know about how to write a song and that it doesn’t have to be complicated. At the moment I’m pretty obsessed with Catfish and the Bottlemen and Van’s conversational lyrics… I feel like we need more of that these days!

Any local influences?

My dad bought me Frogstomp and it blew my mind. I was hooked on Silverchair for a long time.

What were the core themes or inspiration behind Waves? 

I was in England last year and was kinda living “my dream,” so to speak. Things were starting to kick off a little bit. But I was confused as to why I wasn’t really excited. Then I started thinking about how everything felt like an adventure when I was a teenager. I was like “here I am in England doing something I’d always dreamed of and it just felt so normal.” So I wrote Waves about trying to get that feeling back – coming to terms with that.

How’s the EP coming along?

I’m off to Melbourne in a week to finish recording some of the songs with John Castle, who is producing it. I always put a lot of pressure on myself because I want it to be great, but it’s also really fun at the same time. We spent a few days in his studio, in Melbourne, a couple of months back to test the waters and see how we work together. And the song we recorded has turned out to be the EP – it’s called Lose My Mind – I’m really pumped about it!

What has been challenging and rewarding so far? 

The most challenging thing is mainly dealing with expectations from other people, and myself. I’m learning to just keep doing what I’m doing. That’s really all I can do! I just try to write good songs that mean something and put them out. The most rewarding part is creating this world in a song (then a video) and putting that out in the world to see people actually react to it. Its incredible.

What are some of the most important things you’ve learned as an artist so far?

I make sure I ask a lot of questions. And that all I can really control is what’s in front of me, which is really just writing good songs and the creative fun aspects of it.

And what’s next for Dean Lewis?

I’m off to Germany, Amsterdam and London in 2 weeks. I’ll be back just in time for Christmas. Theres about 150 songs already written so I just can’t wait to start putting more out!!!

Waves is available to buy on iTunes, as well as available to stream on Spotify. His debut EP will be out sometime early 2017.

Image: Dean Lewis