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Luke Steele walking on a dream in LA
Simon Collins - The West Australian on June 3, 2016, 6:56 am
Luke Steele walking on a dream in LA
Luke Steele has written a song with Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham for the next Empire of the Sun album.
Perth musician Luke Steele was toiling away on the third Empire of the Sun album in Los Angeles recently when he heard Paul McCartney was recording at the same studio.
“I happened to get to the front door and Paul McCartney held the door open for me and said ‘After you, mate’,” Steele says from Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, where he met the polite Beatle.
The Empire of the Sun and Sleepy Jackson frontman arrived prepared, giving Macca a limited edition vinyl copy of Empire’s 2008 debut Walking on a Dream.
“It was a pretty surreal day,” Steele laughs. “It took me about three hours, no exaggeration, to stop shaking.”
Meeting McCartney isn’t the only reason the 36-year-old muso — who resides in LA and New Zealand with his wife Jodi and kids Sunny Tiger, 7, and Cruz, 2 — is living the dream.
The title track of that debut album is currently riding high on the US charts, eight years after being released on the same week Sunny Tiger was born, thanks to the blissful electro-pop song featuring in a Honda car commercial.
“It’s so great,” Steele says. “We’ve lived here (in LA) for years now and you’d hear it in elevators, clubs and cabs but it never got the commercial radio play.”
American radio stations have finally embraced Walking on a Dream, which topped US Billboard’s dance club charts last month.
Steele has been in hot demand for interviews and he joined Empire band mate Nick Littlemore for a memorable daytime TV performance on The Ellen Show in April.
“Like the Beatles, it’ll last forever,” Steele says of Walking on a Dream. “You can put it on 50 years for now.”
Empire of the Sun have gone for the same classic feel on the follow-up to 2013 album Ice on the Dune.
Steele and Littlemore are putting the finishing touches on their third album, written and recorded with Littlemore’s Pnau band mate Peter Mayes and collaborator Donnie Sloan.
Empire of the Sun pair Nick Littlemore, left, and Luke Steele performed on The Ellen Show in April.
The foursome worked at Henson and the Empire Compound in LA, as well as Island Studios in Hawaii where Kanye West recorded 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak.
Working in Hawaii, where around half the album was born, created “this whole summer breeze, blue wave” vibe according to Steele, who adds that “it’s definitely a lot more relaxed and oceanic” than Ice on the Dune.
The yet-to-be-named album, pencilled in for October, features a very special guest — Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham.
Steele explains that when he and Jodi have “late night music parties” at their Santa Monica or Coromandel Peninsula homes to a soundtrack of classic pop and rock,
he often emails his manager asking for a hook-up with one of his heroes.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the time they never get back,” he laughs. “I’ve always wanted to work with my favourite guitarist Lindsey Buckingham so I reached out.
“He got back and said ‘Fleetwood Mac are off the road, I’m in LA, I’d love to come down’.”
Buckingham joined Empire of the Sun in their Downtown LA Compound where he played guitar and sung harmonies on a track called To Her Door, which the 66-year-old rock god also co-wrote.
“It’s such a classic song,” Steele gushes. “It’s just been a dream come true.”
The dream run continues for the star, who will soon start work on the first Sleepy Jackson album since 2006 with drummer Malcolm Clark and guitarist Ben Witt, plus LA session players and Rihanna, M.I.A and Santigold producer John Hill.
“I’ve been touring Ice for the past two and a half years, it’s time to push some new music out there,” he adds. “Get ready.”