The Eora/Sydney pop-soul phenom Ruel van Dijk is contemplating when, in 2018, as a self-possessed 15-year-old, he accepted the ARIA for 'Breakthrough Artist' from presenter Troye Sivan, becoming the ceremony's youngest-ever recipient. The star just wishes that he had enjoyed that "surreal year" more as a young'un.

"You don't have to always pretend to be the adult and pretend to act like one of the guys," van Dijk says. "You can be a kid, you can mess around – like it's really not too much of a big deal.

“Not everything is the end of the world, you know. It might feel like everything's so serious, and you've gotta learn how to put on a sort of persona. But I felt like sometimes I would go back and just reassure [myself] that you could still be a kid – which I was."

A lot has transpired since then, with van Dijk unveiling his debut album 4TH WALL and moving to Los Angeles, all while coming of age. Now he's re-emerged with a sophomore, Kicking My Feet, which is being heralded as "the start of a new era" – the title an auspicious flashback to INXS' 1987 blockbuster Kick. But van Dijk is reminding himself to be present.

The towering van Dijk, about to turn 23, is easygoing for a global streaming sensation with a cache of plaques plus a fervent fandom ('Ruelettes') who sells out world tours and attends fashion parades. This morning, he's Zooming from the "beautiful" city of Amsterdam in his father's ancestral homeland and admits to fatigue – his blond hair at once very bedhead and coiffed. "It's only 9.30 but, you know, jetlag!"

In fact, van Dijk is travelling to perform viral pop-up shows with Q&A sessions to publicise Kicking My Feet – and is impatient for its release.

"It mainly just comes down to excitement and eagerness to get out and play these songs live, really. I think that's the main thing in my head now that they're finished and done, and I've listened to them a million times for mixing and mastering. You start to get bored of the songs a little bit." He quickly corrects himself, "I'm not bored of them yet!"

Van Dijk is merely restless to hit the road and appear in larger spaces. "I cannot wait to have this [chance to play] to a big crowd and just share the music in a different way, 'cause that's where you get that first-hand reaction to the music."

Born in London but raised in Eora/Sydney, van Dijk was precocious musically – strumming guitar, singing, and even busking. He had a champion in his dad, Ralph, who presides over the Eardrum advertising agency. The businessman circulated his son's rendition of James Bay's Let It Go, with artist manager Nate Flagrant running it by Australian super-producer M-Phazes (aka Mark Landon). Landon was struck by the tween's preternaturally soulful voice.

Hailing from the Gold Coast, Landon began as a beatmaker, scoring an ARIA for 'Best Urban Album' with 2010's Good Gracious. The underground stalwart teamed with Kimbra on her breakout Vows, but his career accelerated when he contributed to Eminem's Grammy-winning The Marshall Mathers LP 2, enabling him to secure a US visa.

Landon mentored van Dijk – the pair first collaborating on 2017's Golden Years, the minor necessarily anonymous. Landon was named 2018's 'Producer Of The Year' at the ARIAs (beside Dann Hume) for his work with Amy Shark, the same evening van Dijk won 'Breakthrough Artist – Release' for Dazed & Confused, which he'd helmed.

Landon is still van Dijk's chief studio partner – the prodigy describing him as "truly family". "It's kind of surpassed a working relationship now." They create almost "telepathically," which, van Dijk laughs, "makes it easier and harder in some ways 'cause, when we're both so close to the project, both of us get really into the weeds.

“Working with [Landon] is the only time I really try to become a perfectionist, 'cause I feel like we know that we can get exactly what each other wants, but it just takes that time – and it can cause that friction a little bit more."

Van Dijk was signed by Tunji Balogun to RCA Records and developed a sonic aesthetic, synthesising vintage soul and progressive R&B – Frank Ocean a touchstone – on 2018's EP Ready. He was personally selected by his hero Tyler, The Creator to play Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in LA. Along the way, van Dijk quit school, struggling to balance his pop career with his studies. In 2019, he followed with the Free Time EP, presaged by Painkiller – his biggest song, a remix featuring Denzel Curry.

Like Usher, Beyoncé Knowles and Jessica Mauboy, van Dijk grew up in the spotlight. He's similarly navigated the transition to adulthood with grace. "I definitely feel like I'm a reasonably chill person." Even early, van Dijk assumed control of his own narrative, disavowing media training.

"The whole idea of it just kind of weirded me out – 'cause I didn't wanna script myself," he explains. "I feel like I've got a pretty strong sense of who I am and how I wanna be perceived. [But] I think that's only really come recently, in terms of finding more certainty into who I am and who I wanna be."

In 2023, five years on from claiming 'Breakthrough Artist' at the ARIAs and behind an EP trilogy, van Dijk delivered his highly anticipated debut 4TH WALL – reaching #3 on the ARIA Top 50 Albums Chart.

The project surprised with its indie leanings and guitar-rock anthems, van Dijk earning comparisons to Harry Styles – although he was surveying cult indie hero Elliott Smith's discography. 4TH WALL had an intriguingly meta concept, with themes of stimulated reality, public scrutiny and detachment inspired by Peter Weir's film The Truman Show.

Soon after, van Dijk left Sony and aligned himself with the independent Giant Music in the US, prompting a permanent relocation to California – less of an adjustment as he'd spent time there. "Moving to LA was just the most productive thing to do," he states. "I kind of got to a point where I was like, 'OK, I'm just gonna get out there for this album and fully make the jump.'"

Indeed, van Dijk reckons that, had he stayed in Australia, Kicking My Feet would have taken "another year or so." And making the jump proved "the right decision," he reflects. "I'm very happy I did. I'm loving it out there right now."

Van Dijk has an expat Australian crew but visits family at home often. "I feel like every time I have a vacation or just a few weeks off for a holiday, I'll go straight back to Sydney." Between LPs, he aired two buzzy numbers with the Eora/Sydney guitar band DMA'S that originated during the 4TH WALL writing sessions – What A Life, a treasure.

Van Dijk has consistently been praised for his remakes – memorably reviving Lenny Kravitz's It Ain't Over Til It's Over on Like A Version in 2021. For his inaugural release on Giant, the wunderkind presented a covers collection, Adaptations, which he respectively considers "an exercise at the start of writing [Kicking My Feet]." Van Dijk "reimagines" an unusual array of songs – among them The Weeknd's Call Out My Name, an old live rave, Miley Cyrus' country Malibu and Sixpence None the Richer's chart-topping '90s ballad Kiss Me.

"We were just trying out different stuff." Crucially, he wanted to have a stopgap while labouring on his sophomore. "I knew how long this album was gonna take," van Dijk rationalises. "You try to give yourself as much time as possible – 'cause you've got your whole life to write your debut album and then you've only ever got, what, like a year or two for your next one."

Liberated, van Dijk built on the experience of recording 4TH WALL – Kicking My Feet led by the romantic country-pop I Can Die Now, its video premiered on the New York Times Square billboard via MTV. He's settled into an artistic identity, but is also expressing his authentic self lyrically. The album is autobiographical, as van Dijk marvels over the innocence of young love and the comfort of intimacy – unabashed about any sentimentality.

"I definitely approached writing from a lot more of like, I guess, a literal and personal sense. I think for 4TH WALL, I was really in the mindset of, 'I can't write anything good if I can't write anything sad or overly dramatic in a negative sense.' I was trying so hard to find parts of my life that slightly connected to something terrible or negative. I was writing a lot of songs as well from a perspective of other people, movies, and books – and that was fun as well as an exercise. 

"But I think, for this record, I was like, 'What's going on in my life is good enough. I can pull things from everyday life, from other relationships, and just be really honest about it. You don't have to over-dramatise things – just be really specific.' I think that the main difference, lyrically, was just really getting to the weeds of what actually means something to me and what's a part of myself that I haven't been vulnerable about yet. I hadn't been vulnerable too much about the idea of love, in a way of being in love and being very earnestly vulnerable in love. And I think that's what this whole album is about."

The singer/songwriter has sought cohorts aside from Landon in the past. Julian Bunetta – renowned for his output with Sabrina Carpenter – co-produced GROWING UP IS _____, the lead single from 4TH WALL, and I Can Die Now.

But, this album, in "a nice kind of break," van Dijk experimented with more luminaries – such as the veteran Dan Wilson, whose credits include The Chicks' Not Ready To Make Nice (winning 'Record Of The Year' and 'Song Of The Year' at 2007's Grammys) and Adele's Someone Like You, and Lorde's old associate Joel Little, who co-wrote the finale dst (outro). "I just think that's the beauty of LA," van Dijk rhapsodises. "I think that's how that stuff can happen – proximity to opportunity."

The involvement of Kenny Beats in the Dominic Fike-ish Destroyer will impress hip-hoppers – van Dijk revealing that their collab "just came up kind of out of the blue." He went with the flow. "I didn't know how that was gonna go – and we just really got along with that first session." Widening his circle was educative, too. "It made me write different songs as well – when you take yourself completely out of the environment you're so used to."

Initially, van Dijk was styled as a slick R&B artist, but on 4TH WALL, he embraced a rebellious alternative sound. Kicking My Feet is equally expansive as van Dijk traverses indie, blues and country (he was vibing to '80s chart rock!). Yet he found himself rediscovering soul.

"I don't think I'll ever kind of sit down and start writing an album thinking, 'I'm gonna write a rock album,' 'I'm gonna write an R&B album or soul album…' I bring references to the table every day from a different timeframe, from a different decade, from a different genre – and then it's all just trying to make it feel cohesive in your voice and the way you write a song and the way you construct melody.

"But I definitely do think I was open to referencing more R&B stuff again and that was a really fun exploration, 'cause I kind of, not turned my nose up at it, but the last few years, at least for 4TH WALL, I wasn't listening to R&B at all – [because] that's all I grew up listening to. I kind of fell down the rabbit hole of only listening to indie-rock and singer/songwriter folk and stuff – and I think those are the main influences on 4TH WALL. But now I kind of came back to my roots, in a way."

Van Dijk remembers a creative and personal epiphany in the songwriting process that culminated in the Motown-stamped title track. However, he had to convince Landon.

"He wasn't that into the song when we first wrote it," van Dijk chortles. "He was like, 'I don't know – you're talking about being a little kid and being a little boy and that's not sexy.' He's like, 'That's not cool – you're talking about how you're in love and you're just being like a little bitch.' I was just like, 'Come on, dude – it's being vulnerable.'

“And then I kind of got him around to it, and then it ended up being his favourite as well. But I think that line, 'kicking my feet,' just how that song sets up that line – that was a breakthrough for me, 'cause that was the first time I'd kind of written about love in that way."

In 2025, van Dijk's top song on Spotify is that iconic hit Painkiller. Is there a track on Kicking My Feet that he hopes will replace it? "I don't set those goals in my head like, 'This is gonna dethrone Painkiller,'" he demurs. "I look at the success of Painkiller as like, 'This is incredible, that might not ever happen again, but I will keep writing music that I think is better or just as good.'"

But van Dijk does predict that the exhilarating Wild Guess, recorded with Wilson, will be a future fan classic. "I feel pretty strongly about that one. It's been my favourite of the singles and favourite of the 'up' songs that I feel like can be played in any context – you know, a sort of 'crying while dancing' song, which was what I've been trying to write for a while."

Spotify is fostering homegrown music with its Turn Up Aus initiative – van Dijk's recent grentperez duet Dandelion listed in the Global Impact Report. And he has his own recommendations. "I'm really into [Northern Beaches band] The Rions," van Dijk enthuses. "I'm really into Nick Ward – obviously, he's been around for a minute, but I've known him for a little bit and I'm still loving everything he's putting out. I know Genesis Owusu is coming back with a comeback album – and I can't wait for that."

Stellar live, van Dijk toured internationally from the get-go. Notably, he cameoed alongside peers SG Lewis and Omar Apollo, respectively, at Coachella pre-pandemic. Last year, van Dijk was booked for Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Closer to home, he'll next join Harvest Rock in Tarntanya/Adelaide on the same bill as Jelly Roll. But van Dijk will host a "grand opening" of Kicking My Feet in December with a spectacle in the Sydney Opera House's Forecourt – his first local date since May's Red Bull Symphonic, where he previewed material, Ruelettes camped out from 3 am.

"Obviously, after the album release, the plan is to just get back straight on tour – but that might not happen 'til the New Year," he says. "But I'm just gonna gear up for a really hectic show in Sydney."

In the meantime, van Dijk is focused on plugging Kicking My Feet. "I'll just be doing more of this [publicity] – head back to the US, do some promo, kind of do some signings... That'll be fun, being able to hold the record in person and talk about it with fans. Yeah, just keep kind of banging the drum."

Kicking My Feet is out October 17 via Recess Records/Virgin Music. Ruel will perform at Harvest Rock Festival and On The Steps at Sydney Opera House Forecourt. This feature has been published in partnership with Spotify's Turn Up Aus - the next-generation evolution of Spotify Australia’s music DNA, as they continue their 13-year commitment to championing local music.