INTERVIEW: Blu DeTiger on her first ever Australian tour: "The fact that people are inspired by my journey is just the best. It's been the ultimate goal this whole time, and it's falling into place."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Lucas Creighton
Published: 11 November 2024

America’s Blu DeTiger is nothing less than a musical prodigy. After first picking up a guitar as a young child, she enrolled in the New York musical program School Of Rock and as part of her study she performed at legendary punk club CBGB aged just seven.

As a teenager, she performed in venues across New York and also DJed in multiple clubs, becoming a fixture on Manhattan’s club scene. She became known for her bass playing, yet in a genre defying way that never adheres to any expectation you may have of the bass. Her debut single ‘In My Head’ is a deliciously eclectic experimental-disco track, ‘Cotton Candy Lemonade’ is a low key, easy going indie track, while 2023’s ‘Lipstick’ is a dreamy, twinkly electronic pop track.

During the pandemic, DeTiger’s bass covers went viral on TikTok and her streams took off from the still respectable hundreds and thousands into the tens of millions. Her debut EP How Did We Get Here? was released in 2021 and in March this year she released her debut album All I Ever Want Is Everything. It is a impressive collection of music, and features her unique blending of indie, electropop, experimental and bass and includes collaborations with Australia’s Mallrat and electronic duo Magdalena Bay, with Chappell Roan co-writing the new wave inspired 'Hey You'

Alongside her music, DeTiger has become a role model for female bass players and for young girls picking up the instrument. Earlier this year, bass manufacturer Fender revealed their Limited Player Plus x Blu DeTiger Jazz Bass, making DeTiger the first woman to have a signature bass with the brand, with DeTiger saying she is regularly messaged by fans saying 'I started playing bass and making music because of you’. "My motivation as an artist is to help the younger generation discover their passion, pick up an instrument, and find an outlet to express themselves," DeTiger says.

In December, DeTiger will arrive in Australia for her first ever tour of the country, kicking off in Brisbane on 12 December, before playing in Sydney, the Changing Tides Festival in Kiama before wrapping up in Melbourne on 15 December. Tickets are on sale now.

We recently sat down with DeTiger ahead of her Australian tour to chat about what she has planned for her shows, her music and her creative process.

Hi Blu it's so lovely to chat to you again. Congratulations on your first-ever Australian tour coming up in December.
Thank you. I'm so excited. I've never been there be at all. It's gonna be good.

I hope you're gonna go for the full Australian experience.
I know I have to figure out some days to stay extra, because right now every show is back to back, so I got to try and do the full experience. I gotta do the koala thing that I see every artist do, they always go to the koala place - I don't even know what it's called! I've just heard lovely things, and I have a bunch of friends from over there, so I'm excited.

Fabulous. Obviously, this tour is in support of your incredibly delicious and lauded debut album All I Ever Want Is Everything. What songs are you looking forward the most to playing?
Oh, it's hard to say. I think 'Dangerous Game' is always really fun to play, and 'Latency' is the rockiest one on the album and it has been really fun to tour just because of the energy, the live version just hits really hard. There's the collaboration with Mallrat 'Cut Me Down', she's from Australia so that could be really fun. I don't know, as I said, I've never been there before, so I have no idea what the vibe will be like.

I think you're right with 'Latency', it's a very good crowd for that
Yeah, we just want good energy. 'Overdrive' has been really fun at every show, it's the last song we play and it goes hard, goes crazy. So it will be fun, it's a fun show. A lot of peaks and valleys and there's something for everyone I like to say.

I like that. I wanted to talk to you about the title of the album: 'all I ever want is everything', it's so huge, but at the same time, it has such relatability with everyone. How does that title reflect not just the album, but maybe where you were in your life when you pulled it together?
First of all, it took a few years to make, so there was just a lot of stuff happening between the writing sessions I was doing and the touring I was doing. It was post COVID and I moved from New York to LA, there was a lot of traveling and new experiences, and I was just doing a lot of stuff and a lot of living, if that makes sense. It was a lot of change and a lot of new things and I just wanted to do it all, all the time. I realised that you can never really be satisfied with doing it all, all the time and the title came from realising it's okay to be satisfied with never being satisfied. It's relatable, because who doesn't want the world, you know?

I think that's so true. I feel like we're living at this moment in society where there's this sort of almost forced notion of we're allowed to want it all, but women have always been chastised for wanting it all. And I think the way you approach your music, whether it's coming from your old timey love of disco and funk, or bringing in the bass you always bring such a welcoming attitude to 'you can want everything, and that doesn't make you a prick.
Yeah, wherever you're at is okay. If you're in a low point, that's cool and you can learn from that. And if you're at a high point, then that's great, and that can be celebrated and you learn from that too. Life's a roller coaster.

You've inspired the shit out of a lot of people, particularly your female and non binary fans to pick up bass. I don't know how it was in the States, but in Australia, for a very long time, there was just wasn't room for women. Even though lots of them played instruments, you weren't allowed to see them, they were never in the front. And I feel watching your career trajectory and reading comments and listening to fans, you've really opened up a window where people can now see it, and so they're wanting to be it. How has that been for you?
It's been the most rewarding, special thing ever. When I started playing bass, I didn't really see many female identifying people play bass, sing and produce and write and all of that stuff. There wasn't really a clear role model for me for what I wanted to achieve in my career. So I just became that, and tried to pave the way and be the role model that I wanted when I was younger. So the fact that it's working, and people are inspired by my journey is just the best. It's been the ultimate goal this whole time, and it's falling into place. It's awesome. It's so awesome.

In your live shows, you famously invite the crowd to come up and jam with you. Talk to me about that, because I can imagine your team were like, 'oh, fuck, what?'
My musical director was like, 'I don't know if that's like, a good idea'. He was pushing back on it, and I was like, 'No, trust me, this is going to be awesome, it's gonna be sick'. And it was great, it was so cool. Often times it was people on the younger side, younger kids, which I thought was really cool, because they're going to remember that experience forever, and that's going to be one of their core memories. If they get into music, or do music for a long time, that'll always stay with them and I think that's really special. It just goes with my whole motto of trying to inspire the younger generation, empower them to play music, or use music as an outlet to express themselves. I got to bring it back. I didn't do it on this last tour, maybe I'll bring it back for the Australian tour.

You could get a new School of Rock together. It'd be amazing.
Yeah, and I've been doing that. I've been going to different School Of Rocks around the country, and talking to the kids.

Speaking of collaborations, what I love about All I Ever Want Is Everything as a debut album is there's just so much collaboration on it with, much like your music, such an eclectic array of artists. There's Mallrat, Magdalena Bay, Chappell Roan, we're huge fans of all of them. How did these partnerships shape your sound?
I mean, there's so many friends on this record, which was really special. Working with people you've known for a long time and you can hang out with and get along with really well, the music always turns out good because you trust each other and just, like, get it. So that was what was cool working with my friends, like Alexander 23, and Chapell Roan and Mayer Hawthorne, there's so many people, they're all friends of mine that I've just been homies with for years and we're fans of each other. They understood the vision and just helped me bring my vision to life instead of imposing their own, in a cool and special way. All the collaborators were awesome and brought their own taste to it, but didn't try to make my thing their thing, which I really liked, and thought was really cool about them.

That's the thing it doesn't sound like an album with a collection of collaborators. It very much sounds like your songs in this element, which I think probably shows how strong your own sound and your confidence is, which I think is really beautiful. I wanted to ask you, how has your relationship with bass evolved over time, if ever? Because it's an interesting instrument, I believe, to write a song on. How does it play into your songwriting process these days?
I think for me, the way I hear music is through the bass. Always. It's the first thing I hear when I hear a song and everything kind of comes after. So naturally that's what comes to me first when writing a song. The bass has to make me feel a certain way for me to continue with the song. If the bass line and drum groove is not popping, is not grooving, I can't do it. I'm just like, whatever, next song. My relationship with the instrument has evolved so much because of my collaboration with Fender, where I had my signature bass come out. That was a really, really big deal for me. Like, biggest bucket list item. I feel like I made it as a player by doing that, I've wanted to do that since I was seven when I started. It got me more in touch with the technicalities of the instrument, because I got to go to the factory and see how everything gets made. I really got into the specs and all the nerdy stuff that no one ever talks about and most people don't get the opportunity to see. I got the opportunity to get really involved in there with the Fender team, and be like, 'I want it to sound exactly like this, and if I want this sound, then it has to be this pickup configuration and this tone and this shape' and all that stuff. Really getting into the technicalities of how an instrument gets made was just so sick, because I saw there's this whole other world to the instrument that goes beyond just playing. I got to see that whole process start to finish and it was amazing. I feel like I know so much more now.

Obviously bass is the heart of disco, where your roots are and your old timey funk. But your music has gone into electronic pop, you were DJing for years, and you can totally hear that in the music you write. Being such a fan of many genres, anything with a filthy bass line, are there any other genres or musical rabbit holes you're excited to explore?
Yeah, I'm making more music right now for the next album, which is exciting. I've been getting back into the disco funk roots and boogie roots. I've been listening to a lot of house music, specifically French house music, because the bass lines are really punchy and crisp and well crafted for the dance floor. So I've been getting really into French house elements which has been really fun. Also Brazilian disco, Brazilian funk, and stuff like that that I haven't really delved into as much in my own music. Right now, I'm going even further into disco, funk, soul, soulwave. I'm really deep in that, and the French house wave. That's my zone at this moment.

This is a great zone to be in!
Yeah, it's popping. It's popping over here in my head!

All I Ever Want Is Everything is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Blu DeTiger you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

BLU DETIGER 2024 AUSTRALIAN TOUR presented by Destroy All Lines with special guests Juno
12 December - Valley Loft, Brisbane, QLD
13 December - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW
14 December - Changing Tides Festival, Kiama, NSW *
15 December - Stay Gold, Melbourne, VIC
*Juno not appearing at Changing Tides Festival