As the midday sun illuminates Vancouver’s skyline, Angus Stone, better known to some as Dope Lemon, has just arrived in town. “Yeah, we just got here in Vancouver and it is a beautiful city,” he said, sounding as if the calmness of the place was rubbing off on him. His tour, in support of Golden Wolf, has him zigzagging across North America, eventually landing in Montreal on June 7 for a performance at MTELUS. Despite the usual frenzy of touring, Stone carries an ease about him—a gentle self-assuredness that colours everything he says.
For fans, this latest chapter of Dope Lemon feels more intimate. Golden Wolf is introspective, raw in places, and brimming with Stone’s unique take on love, mortality, and that liminal space between dreaming and waking. But ask him if that personal edge was deliberate, and he offers a shrug only an artist with nothing to prove could manage. “You know, every record is a sort of window into the next chapter of your life. It’s cool that people get a bit of an insight on your social commentary and what’s happening personally through your lyric and storytelling. So it’s always, you know, the closest thing to date.”
It’s this blend of deep emotion and sonic looseness that defines Dope Lemon. A project born from a desire to separate himself from the spotlight he shares with his sister in Angus & Julia Stone, Dope Lemon has always allowed Angus to drift into more mysterious, playful territory. The lyrics often read like riddles, just enough revealed to lure you in. “For me, personally, when I hear a song that is open to interpretation, I feel like that’s where the magic’s at,” he said. “They’ve come up with their own version of what it possibly was that I was saying. And I’m always so stoked just to hear someone has gone into it that way and that far. It means that, you know, they felt something, which is cool.”
That kind of response, he admits, is one of the greatest rewards. “It’s like when someone comes up to you in the street and they’ve connected with the music through an experience—meeting someone or losing someone that’s special in their life. You’re almost living this sort of parallel life with the people that are listening to the music. You let go of it and it flourishes alongside you, living its own life. And when you have those moments, it’s special.”
Stone writes constantly but loosely. He’s not the type to map out a record in advance. “I’m sort of a shoe box sort of [guy],” he laughed. “I put all the different things I see through the day down and never have a real solid plan when I walk in the studio. But I think it’s good because you can let the music guide you into places you wouldn’t necessarily go if you had it all planned out.”
When the moment hits, he simply follows. “I think it’s the music. It gives it that motive to want to go to whether it’s some sort of psych storytelling or something that makes your heart sing. What you’re going through in your life, the energy the world is putting out—all those things bottleneck, and when it comes to writing a song, it just happens.”
Unlike some songwriters who write with the stage in mind, Stone lets performance come later. “It’s pretty rare that you’ll be thinking ahead and live. When you sit back at the end of however long you’ve been working on a track, you start to picture it being perceived and how it’s going to feel playing that song to a large crowd. And it’s only then that I start to visualize what that will be like.”
But playing the songs live does alter them. “Each day, you hold something new and the story changes. There’s always a shift.”
He’s not precious with where songs land, either. Whether it’s Angus & Julia or Dope Lemon, Stone follows his gut. “I’m always a true believer a song exists when you… I don’t really hold onto things for too long. If you’re in a project or in the time that that project exists, I feel like whatever you’re writing exists then and then only. And you let go of it. Only then can you move on.”
That in-the-moment ethos extends to the studio process. “We never really demo. It’s always, you walk in that day, and that day you walk in is when you’re going to record that song. I think there’s some sort of mantra to it.”
And as for what he hopes people feel at a Dope Lemon show? “I want them feeling high when they walk out of there, and take that for what it sounds like and what it could be. I like just having a good time.”
Still, it’s the crowd energy that makes it for him. “You can internalize how it’s going, but when you get that surge of energy from the crowd, it changes. It’s this alchemy of everyone sharing the night and love. And when you feel that in the room, it’s this really beautiful moment.”
With five Dope Lemon albums now behind him, plus a stack of collaborative successes, you wonder how he defines success at this stage. “There’s the reward of when you’re refining your skillset, and along with your skillset are your tools. Your tools can vary into a larger perspective—being able to take a day off when you couldn’t before. You get to explore different towns and you’re not constantly on edge. The reward is savouring being in different cultures, enjoying the architecture, the energy of the city, meeting wonderful people, having fun. I think as you get older, those luxuries—which they are—I think time is the biggest luxury, the biggest commodity that you can get your hands on. That is what I think success is.”
He’s not listening to much music on tour in the traditional sense, but finds inspiration in visuals instead. “We’re gamers. We’ll put music on in the background and be playing 2K25, basketball. Just as a team, we like having beers, playing PlayStation, watching movies. Visually I’m more inspired now. We’ll watch some old Coen Brothers films, a bit of David Lynch. Sonically I’m definitely inspired by artists, but more so I like the visual element. It gives me that kick to want to write something.”
Asked if there were any new artists he’s excited about, he gave a sheepish grin. “New artists… It’s funny. I’ve just got playlists that go on and on. I’m such a sucker for the oldies. We just go down to the pub and if there’s a local act playing, we listen to the local crew. I couldn’t tell you any names, but just anyone that gets up there really and is doing the thing.”
So for anyone new to Dope Lemon, where should they start? Stone recommends two tracks. “There’s a cool old song we wrote called ‘The Way You Do.’ It was just a cool memory. We had this little shack by the beach and we were just having a really fun night. The pianist was playing like a Buena Vista-style bubble on the Rhodes, and this old honky piano, and then we got into this Cuban sort of shuffle and groove. That came about.”
And something more recent? “‘Golden Wolf.’ Conceptually, I was writing about our finality and mortality and what happens when we reach the end of what this is, where we go next and what we take with us.”
It’s a fitting reflection for an artist whose music often drifts into the unknown, refusing easy answers. With Golden Wolf, Dope Lemon hasn’t just opened up more of himself—he’s extended a hand to listeners, inviting them to do the same.
Montreal, he’ll see you June 7.
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