Interview: Troye Sivan talks bringing The Bloom Tour to New Zealand and Australia this September.
"It truly is just a big party that everyone is welcome to come to. People get dressed up, they scream at the top of their lungs and dance - I’m super proud of the show, and we’ve been doing it for a while now and I feel like it’s really dialled in. It’s just a really good time," says Troye Sivan excitedly about The Bloom Tour; a jubilant experience that the popstar is bringing to New Zealand and Australia this September.
Ahead of Sivan's upcoming return to his home continent, we caught up with him on the phone to discuss everything you need to know about The Bloom Tour, as well as answer some questions submitted by fans...
...it’s a cliché, but you are as young as you feel, and I’m not really as scared of growing up as I once was.
COUP DE MAIN: We’re so excited that you’re finally bringing The Bloom Tour to New Zealand and Australia this September! Having done the North American Bloom Tour already, what would you say people can expect from the show?
TROYE SIVAN: I think there’s been a real shift. I don’t know when it happened, but the environment at the shows is just unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, and it truly is just a big party that everyone is welcome to come to. People get dressed up, they scream at the top of their lungs and dance - I’m super proud of the show, and we’ve been doing it for a while now and I feel like it’s really dialled in. It’s just a really good time.
CDM: You posted recently saying that you were thinking of creating themes for each show where people can come dressed up. Do you have any theme ideas yet?
TROYE: Oohhh... I’m still kind of mulling it over. A definite one is gonna be ‘1999’, so everyone comes dressed up as something from the 90s, or maybe even 1999 the year, specifically, that would be great. And then another one that I’ve been thinking about, that I think I want to do, is a cowboy/cowgirl vibe. I think the yee-haw theme is necessary. The other ones I am still workshopping, it’s not as easy as I thought it was going to be.
CDM: We are in support of a Nash-themed show for New Zealand. Nash could appear via hologram!
TROYE: Ooohhh! All right, I just have to get that hologram technology set up real quick, and then I’ll do it.
UPDATE:
#TheBloomTourBloom lol pic.twitter.com/M4eDvbGgJm
— troye (@troyesivan) August 15, 2019
CDM: Are there any particular parts of your live show that you enjoy the most?
TROYE: Confetti - I really, really love confetti. It feels just so dramatic and extra and fun. Also for me, doing ‘My My My!’ live - I think when we wrote that song, I knew that it was a song that I was really excited to play live, and it just surpasses my expectations every night. I get to strut around the stage and pretend I’m Naomi Campbell or something like that, and everyone knows it, it’s a really fun one.
CDM: I’m really excited to see ‘Seventeen’ live! What’s it been like putting together a tour with so much more music to pull from now?
TROYE: It’s really fun because you get to play your favourites, basically, so I think it makes for a better show. The show is theatrical - it has it peaks and valleys, so having the material to pull from to be able to put in these little moments, like something a little bit more intimate for a second, then something that goes really wild, it’s fun to be able to play with it in that way.
CDM: A lot of fans want you to play ‘Suburbia’ on the Australasian tour, so you need to consider bringing that song back.
TROYE: Okay cool. I’m gonna talk to my band about that because we haven’t played that one in a while, but you’re right - I’m coming home to Australia and I feel like it’s necessary, so I’ll consider it.
CDM: You should get your mum to do some home-cooking to have outside the venue, so you can have "mama's good eats"!
TROYE: Yes! Oh my god, mum should do a food truck which is ‘Mama’s Good Eats’. Wow, you’re full of good ideas, I need to get you on the team.
CDM: I have such fond memories of your first shows in New Zealand at the Town Hall in 2016 after we did our cover shoot, and you still had the glitter make-up on! Do you have any anecdotes/memories from that tour?
TROYE: I just remember how - excuse my language - fucking beautiful and amazing New Zealand is. It’s so similar to Australia in so many ways, but then it just has this insane landscape. I remember those shows being the best and just so much fun. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get back, but I’m very excited that it’s finally happening.
CDM: Your Twitter bio reads: "Almost writing new music." What do you mean by that? Have you already been thinking about ideas for new music?
TROYE: Yeah all the time. I’m constantly plotting. With touring, I’m not one of those artists who can write on the road and stuff, it’s two different brains for me. So I need to hole up and really sink my teeth in. I’m probably going to get started on that real soon. We’ve been working on some studio time and stuff like that. I’m excited, I have a lot of ideas and a lot that I want to say, and a lot of sounds that I want to try, so who knows what’s going to happen?
CDM: You contemplate youth in a lot of your music - I really like the line in ‘What A Heavenly Way To Die’ when you sing, “When our prime has come and gone / And our youth is all but melted.” Do you think of youth as something we willingly choose to give up as we get older or something inevitable that happens to everybody?
TROYE: I think it sort of just fades away, but in the same breath, in L.A. I’m surrounded by people who are maybe a little bit older than me, and it’s made me a lot less scared of growing up. I think it’s really in your control - that’s another thing about being gay, I think the template of life sort of gets thrown out the window a little bit. I have no idea if I’m going to have kids when I’m 30, like the kids from my school are probably going to do, or if I’m going to be, like, 45 when I adopt a child. It’s really anything goes, and that’s really liberating for me. So I think, it’s a cliché, but you are as young as you feel, and I’m not really as scared of growing up as I once was.
CDM: I really love ‘Running Shoes’, one of ‘Bloom’s bonus tracks. What was running through your mind when you were writing that song?
TROYE: That song was actually written specifically for ‘Boy Erased’, the movie that I was in. It didn’t end up making it into the movie, but if you dig into the lyrics and then you re-watch the movie there are a lot of specifics and little nods to Garrard’s [Conley] story, who wrote the book.
CDM: It’s interesting because the line “carved his name in the carpet” reminds me of in ‘Lost Boy’ when you sing, “There's a heart stain on the carpet”?
TROYE: Right! I think my brain just sometimes works in similar ways, so I end up giving myself unintentional shout-outs <laughs> and little references and stuff. They’re completely not planned - I’m no Taylor Swift, unfortunately.
CDM: These are some quick-fire questions from fans who wanted to know these facts: When will you release a Christmas album?
TROYE: I’m Jewish and I never celebrated Christmas growing up, so I only know one Christmas song and it’s Mariah Carey's - whatever is on the radio, those are the ones I know. I don’t know if that’ll ever happen, but maybe one day. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, but we’ll see.
CDM: Why didn’t you release ‘Last Night’?
TROYE: Because I felt like I had better songs on the album, and I knew that I wanted a ten-track album, so it got the boot.
CDM: With songs like that, would you ever repurpose them again in the future?
TROYE: The only way that I can kind of imagine them being repurposed is if a film or TV show were to come along or something like that where I feel like it would really fit. For example, ‘Strawberries & Cigarettes’ is a song I wrote for ‘Blue Neighbourhood’ that never made it on, and then when ‘Love, Simon’ came around I was like, “Oh, this is perfect.”
CDM: And any update on the candle project you were talking about?
TROYE: Oohhh. Not that I can say or anything like that, but I am excited.
Troye Sivan will play Spark Arena on September 13th - click here to purchase tickets now via Ticketmaster.
Watch Troye perform live below...
