Sable, aka John Dewhurst, has come far since his days copying bass lines from Jamiroquai's acid jazz – and a subsequent phase concocting “bad EDM”. In 2014 the post-singer/songwriter from Perth is creating jubilant bass house, his breakthrough EP, Feels So Good, launching the local Pilerats Records. This month Dewhurst will return to the Circo Festival to perform live alongside a host of international acts – ahead of his slot at Splendour In The Grass. Soon he, too, might be globe-trotting. Indeed, Dewhurst has already attracted glowing feedback on SoundCloud from listeners across Europe and North America, in addition to blog buzz.
Musos are typically nocturnal, yet Dewhurst has decided to conduct this interview early in the day. “I'm a morning worker,” he says brightly. Accolades aside, Dewhurst is an enigma. There's minimal biographical info on his social media accounts. However, the “musical mammal” insists that he isn't purposely cultivating a mystique to rival that of Slow Magic. “I've always been more about trying to let the music do the work than creating a brand and then selling music from the brand – so I guess it's just kind of happened like that, for whatever reason. But if people ask, I'll answer any questions. I'm not gonna hide anything.”
In fact, Dewhurst didn't mean to pursue music professionally, despite it being a childhood interest. In 2013 he graduated from uni with a degree in Mechanical Engineering (that apparently explains his partiality for early starts). Unfortunately, he realised that openings for mechanical engineers are scarce, even in Australia's mining industry. “The media's always like, 'We've got a skills shortage, we need more engineers' – it's not true. There are no new jobs.” And so Dewhurst switched his focus to music.
Dewhurst's earliest instrumental memories are of him attempting to master Jamiroquai's songs – “all the crazy funk bass lines”. Much later, the bassist-turned-guitarist would compose rock. “I wrote band music, and mixed some band songs, but we could never get a band together,” he says. “I just did some things with a few mates and we wrote a bunch of tracks.” He'd “transition” from writing “acoustic pop songs constantly for a year” to producing electronic music, initially programming drums. “Doing it solo's a lot easier.” Curiously, Dewhurst still sees himself as primarily a singer-songwriter, if an amorphous one.
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Dewhurst submitted his indie-electronica (including cult jams like Holding You) to triple j's Unearthed website – and, from the start of last year, the station playlisted his music. “They definitely helped to get the name out there.” He secured a deal as the flagship for the Pilerats party collective's fledgling imprint, which is impressively backed by Warner, after appearing at the inaugural Circo when a headliner quit “in some kind of diva walk-out” (ostensibly Wavy Spice). “They heard the demos that I had in the works and wanted to release something.” He issued the summery, neon single Feels So Good – its pitched-up 'chipmunk' vocal samples a bit ol' school Kanye West, a bit Burial – which went on to be a triple j smash. Dewhurst, who's never before liaised with a label, describes it all as “a learning experience”. “I didn't really know how to interact with someone who would market my music for me.”
The beatmaker has been variously compared to everyone from Brit down-tempo artisan Bonobo to wonky hip hopper Hudson Mohawke to Sydney's Wave Racer – and his music termed both 'chillwave' and, more aptly given its tempo, 'Jersey club'. “Everyone tries to find a link,” Dewhurst laughs. “But I just make music that I like. Bonobo was one of my first real inspirations for electronic [music]. [But] I made a bunch of really bad EDM and electro and bad club music before I started making this more organic sound. Bonobo and Burial really opened me up to what's possible with electronic – 'cause they didn't have a formula and they incorporated all these different elements. I thought, I'll just try that and make something that inspires me – and from there it all took off... I love Hudson Mohawke's music as well, but I think the producer who's underrated in Australia a lot is [Mohawke's cohort] Rustie. Pretty much all of us are making some kind of derivative of Rustie's sound.” It's to Dewhurst's credit that he 'fesses up to ever churning out bad EDM. “The first real thing I got into was, like, beat-based music – so really early dubstep, Digital Mystikz and that kinda crew from the UK – and then for a while I lost my path and tried to make things that people would like. I thought, 'Oh, people like this sound, so I'll make it.' And that's the wrong way to go. You've gotta make things that inspire you and not other people. I made some tunes that were along that Calvin Harris kinda pop-electro vibe – but I didn't really vibe off any of it, so I just stagnated… If you make things for other people, you end up losing the passion for it.”
Dewhurst continues to plug that aforementioned EP (and its latest ace single, Foolin'), but he is cutting new music. “I'm trying to write another EP that's more singer-songwritery stuff so I can sit down and sing more in sets,” he reveals. “I wanna just slow it down and make some darker, more brooding music for winter.” He has no immediate plans for a full-length project, “because marketing an album's very difficult”. In the interim, Dewhurst has accepted his first major remix commissions – for “big Australian acts” he's reluctant to ID. He's also toured nationally, joining Nina Las Vegas' travelling talent showcase. “That was actually amazing,” he says. “All the crowds were super-receptive and they went crazy.”
On Facebook, Dewhurst tags himself as “that Perth beat making guy”. The city's remoteness has afforded him the freedom to develop his own aesthetic. Dewhurst doesn't belong to a scene, per se. “I'm friends with a lot of the Sydney guys, but I'm definitely 'Perth'. I think the isolation makes a big difference. The Sydney guys are all very tight – there's a huge crowd over there of 20 or 30 acts that interact and hang out and communicate – whereas over here we've got, like, four. So we've all found our own way of doing things and we've kept our sound over here.” He's committed to staying in Perth, close to the Pilerats fold. Dewhurst worries that, were he to move, his style may radically change.
Dewhurst listens to an array of music, citing Arctic Monkeys as his favourite contemporary band. The album he's currently “absorbing” is Melbourne art-rock outfit Closure In Moscow's Pink Lemonade. Nonetheless, Dewhurst still plays Jamiroquai “a lot”. “I'm gonna be a hipster arse here and say I like the early stuff better.”
Dewhurst isn't exclusively about music. “I'm mad into rock-climbing,” he divulges, preferring to do it in a controlled indoors setting. It's a pastime he discovered while at uni. Dewhurst now climbs multiple times a week. “It's just a physical and mental challenge,” he enthuses. “To the average person, it just looks like a bunch of holes and you've gotta get up a wall. When you start doing proper climbs, it becomes a more puzzle-like exercise. You've gotta try to figure out the right moves and, to do that, you've gotta use your body in ways that you didn't think were possible. In that moment, where you're trying to figure that problem out, that's all that matters – so it kinda releases you from the world at that time. In that way, it's very therapeutic.” It's no mere “novelty” to him. Dewhurst adds, “I'm addicted to challenge!”
The show Dewhurst will stage at Circo should again pose a challenge as it's a technological hybrid entailing customised visuals courtesy of VJ COMBS. “It's not DJing – like, most of the tunes I make are my own or I'll do edits of songs. So I'll make a tune and then put the vocals from another song on top of it, but it'll basically be a unique song in itself. I try to keep everything fresh. I like playing things that people haven't heard before. At the moment I'm trying to work in a lot more singing, so I'll sing a few songs at Circo and play a bunch of synths. I think the beauty of a DJ set is you can craft a vibe for the whole thing – I'm a fan of that. I don't really wanna have to stop and change songs and do what a band would do in that sense – but I wanna do songs, live instrumentation and play things. I like it when something can go wrong… The best way you can describe it is it's a live electronic set.” And, with his prospects of an engineering vocation looking dim, Dewhurst has big aspirations for music. “I honestly just want to work behind-the-scenes with different acts, songwriting and producing – like ghost production for singer-songwriters. That's the dream.”
