“Reading is fucking huge!” G Flip exclaims, widening their eyes. “There are heaps of people. I just went out, and even the little stages are going off. But I feel like, in the UK in general, everyone’s rowdy.”
The Aussie multi-instrumentalist’s first-ever Reading Festival is an eye-opener in more ways than one. When they catch up with NME backstage after their performance on the BBC Radio 1 Stage, they’re still recovering from how many people turned out to see them. “I always come over to places I don’t live, and I’m always so surprised,” G Flip – aka Georgia Flipo – says. “I’m like, ‘I don’t think anyone knows who I am here’, and then I rock up, and there’s thousands of people. I’m like, ‘What the fuck? How did these people find me?!’”
NME caught up with G Flip about their first Reading, the first anniversary of their album ‘Drummer’, and their mum starting a petition to get them on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
NME: Hi G Flip! It’s your first Reading – how does it compare to what you were expecting?
G Flip: “I didn’t expect it to be so huge! It’s mega and there are so many installations and things going on out there. It’s awesome. It’s really, really cool. I’m very fortunate to be here.”
You were surprised at how many people came out to see you today – do you think you’re always going to be expecting no one to turn up?
“Yeah, for sure. Every festival overseas, I’m like, ‘Who knows me over here?!’ And then I’m always like, ‘Holy shit, there’s people crying and singing in the front row’. It’s wild. It’s the coolest thing ever.”
Is that maybe the most rewarding thing about putting out music for you – seeing that reaction in the front rows?
“Definitely. Playing shows is a feeling like no other. That’s definitely one of my favourite things. Also travelling the world and just trying to make an impact on the community, especially the LGBTQIA+ community and my fellow non-binary humans out there.”
You recently celebrated the first anniversary of the ‘Drummer’ album. How has your relationship with that album changed over the last year?
“Well, I’m still touring it. I’m playing shows the week after next – the very last shows of the ‘Drummer’ tour, which ends in Glasgow. So we’re still rolling on that album, and then I gotta fucking write the next one and get stuck into it. But this album’s changed my life, and I’ve had such a good time touring it. It had such a good reception, and I’m just so lucky to have people that fuck with me.”
What’s the biggest way you would say it’s changed your life?
“I’ve just got to go places that I haven’t been. I’ve got to play Reading and Leeds Festival. I’ve got play festivals in the States that I’ve always wanted to play and go places that I’ve never been before. So it’s allowed me to see the world and connect with a whole bunch of new people that had no idea who the fuck I was and now roll with me, so it’s cute.”
Earlier this year, you gave us a different look at some of ‘Drummer’’s songs on the ‘Drumless’ EP. What was the idea behind that EP and how did it make you look at the songs in a new light?
“I just like making versions of songs – I made a cover of a Taylor Swift song [earlier this year], and I really love interpreting the song in different ways. So, I made covers of my own songs. When I made the ‘Drummer’ album, it was all centred around drums and kit. Some of the songs are quite deep and meaningful, and if you share them in a different light, it’s pretty cool – making them slower and changing the tempo and key, totally changing the production. So that’s how ‘Drumless’ came about. It was just for the fans, I guess – giving them something else while I’m touring so much til I can get the third cheeky album out.”
You said on Instagram recently that you’ve already started the third album – how deep into it are you?
“Very early stages. Very, very, very early stages. After my UK tour, I’ll go to Australia for a little bit and then back to LA to really get stuck into it.”
Do you have anything that’s been influencing or inspiring you lately that might feed into what you’re going to do on that album?
“Not really, it’s all so early. I’m constantly inspired by shit around me and writing lines of lyrics or song title names on my phone or singing ideas into voice memos. I’ve written a few songs already that I just have on voice memos. Whether they get used or not, I don’t know.”
You mentioned your Taylor Swift cover earlier. Your mum started a petition for you to join Taylor on the Eras tour in Australia…
“She did. It didn’t work, but it was cute, and it was very sweet of Mum to do that.”
What was your reaction when you saw that she had first done that?
“It was a pretty dodgy website! It’s like she Googled how to make a petition and just picked a random [site] – it wasn’t one of the known petition websites. It had pop-ups everywhere, it was a shitty one. It was funny, it was just really cute. She posted it in my hardcore fan group that she’s talking to – she talks to them every day.”
You did get some approval from Taylor on the ‘Cruel Summer’ cover, even if you didn’t get to join the Eras Tour. What was it like to have that approval from Taylor Swift?
“It brought me to tears. It was the coolest thing. Covering any artist’s song and getting the tick of approval from them is beyond my wildest dreams. There we go! The Swiftie fans will get it. But it was something that I didn’t ever think would happen. I never thought she’d see it.”
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