Conrad Sewell On His Upcoming ‘Firestone’ Anniversary Tour And His ‘Love-Hate Relationship’ With The Track

When you think of Conrad Sewell, it’s impossible to not think of Firestone. The four-time platinum-certified hit, released by Norwegian producer Kygo in late 2014, was written by Sewell, who also featured on the track - catapulting him into international stardom.

“That was sort of the launch of me as an artist, you know?” Sewell tells The Music. “Well, as far as the world knew.”

The Brisbane-raised singer had actually been hustling in music long before then, auditioning for Australian Idol in 2004, and eventuslly landing a spot as the frontman for early 2000’s pop-rock band Sons of Midnight, who gained a decent amount of recognition in their time - but nothing would compare to the fame that Firestone brought.

Despite that, Sewell has a somewhat complicated relationship with the track that jump-started his solo career.

“It's kind of like a love-hate relationship with Firestone, because the song did change my life in many ways, but it also put me on this sort of trajectory. I ended up travelling the world with Kygo for a long time supporting that record, which was cool, and led to some amazing experiences. But it also sort of took me off course a little bit with my own music,” Sewell admits.

“I mean, I didn't listen to dance music before I wrote that song. I was just writing songs. I was writing for my own project. I was signed in the US, and then somebody asked us to write a bunch of dance toplines, you know? Swedish House Mafia, or just EDM, was sort of picking up. Kygo really hadn’t put any music out, he was just on Soundcloud doing remixes. So Firestone - he needed a single, somebody told me about him, and we sent it to him, and then, yeah, that was it. It became the first single, and we created the tropical house movement.

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“I think ultimately, because it was a Kygo song - I mean, I wrote the song, but, you know, it was his song featuring me - I feel like maybe I did a little too much around the song. But then, at the same time, it's the song that bought me my house. So it's an interesting one for me, but ultimately, I'm grateful for the song. It's a blessing. People love the song, and at the end of the day, you gotta be grateful when you get songs like that, that amass as big as that song was. That song changed my life.”

So, to commemorate a decade of that “life-changing” track, Sewell is going on tour. The Firestone 10th Anniversary: Acoustic Sessions Tour is set to take over regional Australia this April/May.

“10 years is a long time, you know? A lot changes, and there's been a lot of music since then, and people love that song - that song's changed a lot of people's lives. It means a lot to people. And celebration of that is why we're going back out on the road,” Sewell says.

And, as for what punters can expect on this tour, he promises a “special” performance.

“A lot of the first album will be played. We're also going to play a bunch of new stuff. But I guess it's more about me being able to play these songs in small, intimate venues. I wrote all these songs on a piano or on a guitar, and so we've made it an acoustic tour, because that's sort of how they were all written.

“I grew up singing in pubs like this, so there's something very organic and at home for me when I come and do these types of shows. So I think it's gonna be special. I think it's gonna be super intimate, you know, very much like a storytelling process. And I'll be sort of talking about each song in between the songs throughout - where they came from, where they were written, who I wrote them with. I like it to feel like you're all just hanging out together in a pub, singing some songs. So I feel like the audience and the fans should get a bit more of an understanding behind a lot of the songs.”

Conrad Sewell’s ‘Firestone 10th Anniversary: Acoustic Sessions Tour’ kicks off soon. Tickets are on sale now. Find details below.