Ruel

While rest lives in some foreign land, having rapidly emerged into fame at just fourteen, his instincts follow wherever he goes. During our conversation, he breaks down the process of making his new album, Kicking My Feet & Screaming, which dropped in June following his 2025 album Kicking My Feet. Our conversation instinctually circles back to the idea that the first choice is often the best choice. And after creating an instinct-driven album, he is excited to see what life the songs take on in sold-out crowds of impassioned fans on his headline European tour in October. He will, however, miss playing main character when the album was just his while driving down LA highways.

And even though being on the road is familiar, we chat about moments of surprise, including the crowd energy he didn’t expect, his unironic love of Strava (Yes, Strava got Ruel, too.) The next surprise is yet to come as he continues to write, and hopefully relax again at some point within the next decade.

Ruel’s album, Kicking My Feet & Screaming, is out now.

Hey, Ruel, how are you doing today?
I'm very good. I'm very relaxed. I've just come off two weeks of holidays for the first time in my career. I feel pretty energised.

I'm actually in Dublin right now. You were here recently, right?
Yeah, I was just there a couple of weeks ago for the Katy Perry show.

I've been following your Instagram. You've been living your Dua Lipa summer, I see.
Yes, absolutely. I just had that show in Dublin with Katy Perry. I'm supporting her on a few shows, and then I had twelve days in between the next show, and I was like, “This is perfect. I can have a holiday.”

Living the dream.
I didn't really know quite what to do with myself. It was very strange having to relax.

What did you get up to? Where did you go?
I was all around Greece. I went through three or four Greek islands. I was just doing what anyone would do on a Greek island - swim, drink, eat, swim. I don't know. It was incredible. I did absolutely nothing.

I love that for you. And where are you now then?
I'm in Luxembourg right now. I'm about to play my last show with Katy. I'm very excited, and then from here, I will go to New York for the World Cup final.

Oh, now that'll be fun.
I'm not going to lie, out of all the months, I think this one could be my favourite I've ever had.

Yeah, you're owning a summer right now. How has the tour with Katy been? When you get the call to go on tour with the Katy Perry, is that surreal?
It's definitely a tough act to prepare for. I'm happy I don't have to follow her. These sorts of gigs with twenty or thirty thousand people each night with such an iconic headliner are such a dream. I grew up with all of these songs and know every single lyric. She's been amazing, and the crowds have been incredible.

I wanted to ask about your latest album Kicking My Feet & Screaming. How has this last month been since you let it out into the world?
When I put something out, I kind of just close my eyes and let it happen. I try not to look at every comment or see what everyone is saying. The best way to know how the album is doing is on tour. I notice who is singing back certain songs or what people seem to like on the set list. That's my favourite way to take in the feedback.

This show for Katy Perry is different because it is not my fans. So I'm trying to win people over on the spot, which is fun, and a little game in and of itself. I come back to Europe for my headline tour in October. That'll be the first time playing most of the album. I still really love the album, and I'm definitely not sick of it.

Is it right that you started writing songs for the album back in 2024?
Yeah. That's when I knuckled down and started writing for part one and two. Both parts were being written at the same time. So I knew two bodies of work had two different lyrical worlds, but were in the same sonic world. And there were more songs I wanted to put out, but I didn't want to release a 20-song album. I much prefer having two 10-song albums over a span of eight months. There's a song called “In Your Mind” on Kicking My Feet & Screaming that I wrote back in 2021. That was originally for my first album, so songs came from anywhere at any time.

Where did you record the albums?
Most of it was in LA and Nashville. Then I did a tiny bit in London and Sweden.

So it’s an international album; how cool. What is the collaboration process like behind-the-scenes when making an album?
It’s funny, for both records, a lot of the released songs came out of the first collaborative session, whether it was a mix of a certain producer with a writer or meeting a producer for the first time. “Don't Say That” came from the first session I ever had with Joel Little and Sean Douglas together. And then “Hate Myself” came out of the first time I met Kenny Beats and Jackson Morgan.

When it comes to collaboration, I'm very much just like, “We're all professionals here.” I've got no boundaries in the studio when it comes to talking about personal things, which might bite me in the ass. There are secrets that all these writers know, but I think that that's kind of how I've always found writing to be the easiest - giving yourself completely.

Did you have to adapt to being so open when you started your career all those years ago, or does that come instinctively to you?
I’ve always been that way because I didn't really care when I was a kid. The topics I wanted to write about felt far less personal. I kind of knew how insignificant my experience was at that point. It made it easier to be like, “This random guy in LA in this session is not going to blabber mouth back to my friends or my crush back home. So I might as well just use this as a little free therapy session.” That's why it's easy for me to do it now because I don't really know anything else. I've never been super closed off in sessions, especially if you work with the right people.

So what does your songwriting process actually look like? Are you somebody with a notebook, voice memos, notes app, or a bit of everything?
Yeah, a bit of everything. I think it's all pretty standard. I don’t have a weird secret weapon in my process. I'm not reinventing the wheel. I love just writing things down throughout my life. I write titles and lyrics in my notes app. I like finding little melodies in my voice memos. But for the most part, when you get into a session, you only really use those things if you hit a roadblock. For the most part, when I'm in a session, I like to let whatever's in the room that day appear. If you can ride that flow for as long as possible, you usually get the best stuff because it is completely new and everyone is on the same page.

What was the hardest song on the album to get over the line?
That’s a hard one. There are a couple that come to mind, but they're all production-based. With lyrics, I am a massive believer that the first iteration is the best. When I try to overwrite things, it feels like I'm trying to outsmart myself or my audience or try to sound more intelligent. Sometimes I cringe when I rewrite.

“What it Sounds Like” took a long time because of how different the final product was from the demo. I knew that song was going to be the last song on the record, but I always want my last song to be quite sombre or an epic down moment. The lyrics felt like the end of something, so I didn’t want the production to feel like the start of something. It was hard finding that balance.

You're going to be starting your tour for the new album in October. Does beginning a tour for a new era make you nervous at all, or is it all excitement?
Touring has been so much fun this year, and I missed it a lot. Before this year, I hadn't been on the road for a few years. I'm excited to tour Europe because I've spent a lot of time in Europe this year. I really feel like it is a place that’s so much easier to explore and get lost in. The crowds are always so different. It could be only an hour or two drive away, but the people and the way the crowds react can be vastly different. The songs they connect with can be vastly different. I always really enjoy that. I'm excited to even see how [the songs] feel on the stage. But for the most part, seeing the fans is what keeps me coming back.

Was there a city you performed in where the crowd really surprised you?
It was one on the US tour. Most of the East Coast is known to be pretty crazy. We went up to New York, and then South America, which is also known to be pretty wild. We did Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. I remember going back to the States after that, and being like, “Well, nothing's going to beat that.” All I had left was the middle of the United States and the West Coast. We stopped in Salt Lake City, and I didn't really know anything about Salt Lake City. I thought it would be a pretty stock standard show. But the energy of that show was one of the craziest shows I've ever played in my life. It was ten times more intense than any other American show and on par with the South American crowds. I was like, “What has happened? Has Brazil flown to Salt Lake City just for the show?” They were going so hard.

I need to go there now! What albums have you had on repeat recently?
Ryan Beatty's Sweet Fortune. I've been listening to that from front to back. I love this artist called DERBY. He put out an album or mixtape last year that I can't stop listening to. I love Holly Humberstone's new album, Cruel World. I'm trying to keep up with the new stuff.

Are you one of those people who makes a lot of playlists?
I’m a big playlist guy. I really enjoy making playlists for other people, but I also always have to make pre-show playlists. I also sometimes make playlists for press. A lot of people want playlists. I thoroughly enjoy it. It does not take me long at all to snap together a 50-100 song playlist that is specific or connected to one thing.

I think that's a love language, to be honest.
I do think it's a love language.

Random segue, but I saw on Owen Thiele's In Your Dreams podcast a year ago that you said you're really into Pilates. Is that still going strong for you?
That was definitely an era I was in! [laughs]

What era are you in now?
What replaced it is the bane of everyone's existence: running culture. I did Pilates for a few months in LA, and I was loving it because my girlfriend was into it. It was great. Now I've just got the Strava bug. I’m just racing my friends back home. It's like everyone's just racing each other like a child. You're just posting how fast you are. [laughs] The most popular kid is always the quickest of all the boys. We've reverted to that. I love it.

Would you join a run club? I swear they’re everywhere now.
No, I’m not part of a run club. There's one back at home that my girlfriend's brother started. It's like four people. It’s not trying to be too much. I can't stand the ones where there's like fifty people, and they're all just there to mac on with each other. I'm just like, “What are we doing, guys? Just keep it to Hinge.”

I'd be at the back of the group walking.
It’s twenty people just charging towards you. What is going on?

Exactly. Do you get to go back home to Australia often?
Yeah. I grew up doing that flight. I was born in London, so I would travel from Sydney to London every couple of years. So 24-hour flights are no big thing to me now. I go home maybe too often for where I live and where I'm usually touring.

As someone with a lot of fans, what are you a fangirl of?
I'm a pretty big fan of Liverpool FC. I am a massive Liverpool fangirl. I truly think that's the best comparison - how I am with sports is how a lot of fans are with artists. I definitely fanboy over artists, too, and can be really intense with looking for interviews and trying to go to each show and get merch.

Do you have a favourite spot to listen to music?
In the car. I do love driving; especially driving in LA is very main character energy. I love that feeling on the highway after a session, and listening to music that I just made or got sent back from a couple of days ago that I don’t remember. That is pretty special. I like throwing on an album because anywhere in LA takes an hour or so to get to in traffic.

From now to tour in October, what are you going to be doing with your break? Will it be a break?
I think I've just had my relaxation for the year or decade. I want to start writing again for the next record. It'd be nice to go back to Australia. And I can figure out what is happening next.