"I Don’t Ever Wanna Become A Dickhead"

19 March 2015 | 1:53 pm | Sally Anne Hurley

"I don’t surround myself [with] bullshit people."

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"I don’t ever wanna become a dickhead. Fuck that shit!” Aussie DJ and vocalist Alison Wonderland is straight-up when speaking ahead of her debut album’s release. The Sydney-bred artist has enjoyed plenty of hype lately, particularly through her collaboration with The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne on single,
U Don’t Know
, but Wonderland maintains her feet remain firmly planted on the ground.

“I guess I haven’t seen other people kinda lose themselves when they get more and more attention. And because I’ve been doing this for so long, I think I’m quite aware of not letting that happen to myself. I still have my friends from when I started. My manager is my best friend. You know, we’ve been best friends since we were kids. And I don’t surround myself [with] bullshit people and when I come home I make sure I have some alone time and I make sure I see my family.”

If anything, the hype makes for a more nervous Wonderland, especially with the impending release of first LP, Run – “I haven’t really been sleeping much, I’ll be honest with you” – and a forthcoming Coachella appearance.

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"I don’t surround myself [with] bullshit people."

“It didn’t hit me for a while,” she admits of Coachella. “And I couldn’t tell anyone so it double didn’t hit me and then I guess eventually when I started telling people and I saw the poster I just literally kind of like cracked and then it hit me. Now when I talk about it I feel nervous [laughs].”

Wonderland seems a mix of brimming confidence and uncensored honesty, both qualities coming across when she speaks of the very low-key back-story behind Coyne’s guest spot on U Don’t Know. While “stoked” about the collaboration, the artist isn’t taking any credit for it. “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t approach him. My label sent it around and he heard it and wanted to be on the track. And it was probably the least involved I was in any of the process, which is why I feel weird talking about it.”

The experience hasn’t inspired her to change her stance on approaching other acts to collaborate either, preferring for things to come together naturally. “I don’t really like seeking out artists. I get really shy about it and every time I’ve been asked to do it, I have not done it because I feel like if someone wants to work with me or I wanna work with people, it’ll happen organically. I feel like approaching is not real. It weirds me out,” she laughs.

Wonderland, while nervous for how it’ll be received, is confident Run is her best work yet. “I wrote a record which was hopefully the next step from the EP [2014’s Calm Down] that I wrote, which is a mix, you know, between club and songs and I still kind of kept that going but pushed a little bit more. I’ve pushed my vocals a little bit more; I’ve become very honest with my lyrics. I just like decided to not worry about what people are going to think and just do it. And I wanted to make a really honest piece of… a really honest record.”