It's that standard trajectory any artist has: you get together to make music, you have a sleeper hit, and before you know it, you're playing Europe. We've all been there.
For Shouse, that sort of idyllic existence is a reality, with the pair having gone from humble beginnings to massive global heights in just a decade.
Now, the pair are set to perform this weekend in Melbourne as they rub shoulders with some greats for Lakeside Festival Presented by American Express at the FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2026.
Before that happens though, there's undoubtedly a little bit of reflection taking place, with the Melbourne duo looking back at how things effectively got out of hand so quickly.
First formed by Australian Jack Madin and New Zealander Ed Service in 2015, the Shouse story is indeed one of those admirable success stories that many artists can only dream of.
Coming together and working on a batch of music, the first track the pair penned was one called Love Tonight.
Recording the song with a bunch of their friends, it was eventually released in 2017 as their fifth single. At the time of its arrival, it didn't exactly set the world alight. But things were slowly ticking along under the surface.
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"There was a random YouTube channel that would post the song and that would get millions of streams," Madin recalls to The Music. "This was in 2018, 2019, which seemed to suggest that something particularly seemed to connect in Europe, because I think it was a Lithuanian YouTube channel and all the comments were in different languages.
"Then we got the big David Guetta remix moment, where he was playing it at one of his first post-COVID sets. He's a good weather vane of what's going on, and it's like getting the tick of approval from the prince, or something."
Indeed, the story of Shouse's success can largely be tied to the virality of Love Tonight, which officially managed to break into the mainstream in 2021 – four years after its initial release.
It topped the charts in Belgium, hit the top ten in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany, and ultimately was certified Platinum, Gold, and Diamond in various global locations. On Spotify alone, it boasts half a billion streams. Not too shabby at all.
As Madin notes though, it's all emblematic of the Shouse story that has since been played out, though he admits it's a journey he could never have foreseen all those years ago.
"The story has got a bit of everything," he laughs. "It had the initial underground growth in the tiny Melbourne scene – very fun, but very DIY. It had failure, and then it had redemption.
"There've been surreal moments, but they've sort of been intertwined with the surreal moments of everybody's life thanks to things like COVID, really," he adds. "But it's also been charting this wave of the rise of the DJ, and then kind of coming back to a different kind of reality, which is pretty great."
This success of Love Tonight is an integral part of the Shouse story, but it's also something which has led to pejorative accusations of one-hit wonder status for the duo. But is it really?
After all, it's impressive that something which first came to life in 2015 took hold six years after its conception, with fans still managing to connect to the pair's music and message so far after the fact. Maybe one could posit then that Love Tonight was more of a proof of concept for Madin and Service – a concept they've since expanded upon and brought to the world?
"I think that, being a Melburnian with that tall poppy syndrome, self-deprecating attitude, I would also refer to us as a one hit wonder in the sense that like, it's basically impossible to have a hit," Madin offers. "It's so hard. So for one to get through is sort of shocking and amazing.
"The proof of concept is that we absolutely can have fans that like a lot of our music, and that just feels like a really solid way to exist in the music industry rather than essentially trying to chase that second hit.
"We've stuck to our guns, and the album has kind of been the real culmination of songs that we were making in 2016, 2017, and also songs that we're still making today," he adds. "And I think that feels really good."
The album in question is Collective Ecstasy, a 13-track, hour-long collection of music that showcases the group's strengths. Along with tracks like 2016's Habits and – of course – 2017's Love Tonight, it also features many others, including the Cub Sport-featuring Only You, and the Vance Joy collab Wherever You Are.
It hit the top 20 of ARIA's Australian Artist Albums charts, and proved that Shouse were far more than the one-hit wonder many may have claimed.
"When you get on this level, there is this possibility of an album and it's a bit of a gamble, especially in the EDM or DJ world," Madin explains. "They just don't really do it much or there's not much benefit attributed to it. So it's kind of this risk, and that kind of feels really good from a musical, creative perspective; you want a bit of risk, you don't want to just sink into doing what everyone else was doing.
"So I guess there was a bit of a sense of trepidation, but also excitement because it's a long process. It takes a lot of time and money and resources. But it was great when we worked it out, because there was the thought process of, 'Do we just do a completely new album with none of the old songs on it? Or something wackier creatively?'
"But it kind of became clear that we've got these old songs and then you can tie some of these great old songs like Love Tonight with some of the new singles in the middle," he adds. "So we've kind of got a ten-year journey of music."
But what about the next ten years? Is it already mapped out, or will 2035 bring with it another collection of past and present for Shouse?
"Definitely no idea what's gonna happen yet," Madin laughs. "When you calculate it, it's kind of like a song a year.
"But I've sort of been working on things for a long time, so I think we've got enough in store and we're feeling pretty primed to do a really good second album."
As Madin speaks to The Music, he's only a few weeks removed from touching back down after another trip to Europe, where the Collective Ecstasy Live! Tour saw them play nine sold-out dates.
"Poland happens to be the biggest market," Madin points out. "We were playing to 1,000 people in Poznań and about 800 or 1,000 people in Warsaw. It was minus 20 degrees outside, and it's quite an amazingly different way of life in those kinds of places. But they just really connect with the music and seem to have done so from way back.
"But if we can do that, we show that we can connect with these fans of the album and of the band. And there's millions, if not billions of people who have heard the song, and lots of them like it, but then there's these people that have dug a bit deeper.
"It's about trying to connect with them and building it up," he adds. "It does seem like Europe, – particularly places like Poland and Scandinavia and the east – love it, and then we're going to go, you know, around the world, hopefully with the band."
As the Shouse project has grown in profile over the years, so too has the format in which these aforementioned fans experience their music.
As a result of this exposure, it allowed the group to harness a greater choir of voices for performances of Love Tonight, while also providing them opportunities to harness the DJ format – something they hadn't particularly steered toward previously.
"That felt really strange because it was just so different to everything we'd done," Madin notes. "We love DJs, but we weren't ever DJs before, so it was just kind of odd, stepping into a different realm."
So they're a group with options. On one hand, they can deliver stellar DJ sets when they need to, and they can also tour the world, performing with a full band (complete with saxophone and a choir of voices to round out Love Tonight) in the process.
There's certainly not many electronic acts that can boast that achievement. So too are there few acts which are able to boast a selection for this weekend's Lakeside Festival Presented by American Express at the FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2026.
Launching on Friday, March 6th the event brings together a batch of local and international acts for an impressive roster of music. While Basement Jaxx and dameeeela launch proceedings on Friday, the Saturday features Rita Ora and Rogue Traders, while Sunday boasts a line-up comprising Duke Dumont and Shouse.
It might be a nerve-wracking experience for any artist, but Madin admits he's feeling excitement more than anything else – largely since it's an opportunity to showcase their stellar live show on home turf.
"We've got some amazing singers, a sax player, and we've got some choir," he lists. "With most of our songs, we have a choir and we have a lot of singing and it feels good to be doing it live already like we did in Europe, with just a small group of two singers, a sax player, and then Ed and me.
"But when you have the choir on stage as well, it just gives the audience that bit of extra permission to sing along and join in. And that's kind of what our set is all about – it's all of these songs that are simple, anthemic, and repetitive.
"I think a big crowd after a hot day of racing hanging around will love it," he muses. "So we're feeling very confident and excited."
An event like this is undeniably a big addition to the Victorian live calendar, and is another example of the state's connection between live music and sport. Of course, such an event also presents a unique problem not seen in Shouse's headline shows.
After all, a headline affair likely has the audience coming to see them because they enjoy the music and are intimately familiar with the catalogue. This might not be the case at an event such as this. So, how do Shouse go about crafting a unifying set that appeals to both the diehards and the newcomers?
"We love having the new people because they are the ones you see lock in and start understanding that the music is all very enticing, and it's drawing people in to be part of it," he explains. "That kind of clicks pretty early on, and we've got a lot of tracks now, so we've been able to work out a really good set list with big tracks like Love Tonight intertwined with these nice little moments.
"I love it when we play to a big crowd with people that haven't heard much of us before, and I love that moment where – right at the end of the set – you can drop Love Tonight, and most people have heard it. So if the penny hasn't dropped by then, that's when it drops.
"We did a great rehearsal for the set, we've just got a lot of people that we've been working with, and we've got a really good team of different people," Madin adds.
"We're really hoping to expand that team so the set is always a bit different with different people playing and singing, but there's a kind of consistency in the songs."
Indeed, it's this last point which is tantamount to Shouse's success. Their agenda – for lack of a better word – is to ensure that the project keeps evolving, that their communal choir keeps evolving and expanding as they find new voices in different cities.
Ultimately, it's proving that dance music is at its best when it's a team sport is high on their list of priorities, as is revelling in the sense of authenticity that their music provides.
"It's interesting being in the collaborative dance music and DJ world, because so much of that is online," Madin muses. "It's how lots of genres work, they're very global, and that just sort of isn't our background. So we've been able to enter into that space and then actually have real live studio sessions with people, which is, which is always great.
"I would hope that we're able to spread the message a bit, trying to get more live singers, trying to encourage the people we work with to go out, find live instruments, choirs, whatever they can, just to add that element.
"Because that's the point," Madin adds. "There's only going to be more benefits doing that when so much of that raw, AI slop out in the world. "It's about living in that authentic headspace."
Shouse perform at the Lakeside Festival Presented by American Express at the FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2026 on Sunday, March 8th.
