'Stumblin' In' Hitmaker CYRIL: 'I Was Homeless & A Drug Addict'

Darwin-based DJ and producer CYRIL has been commanding the ARIA Top 10 Australian Singles Chart for months, hitting ten consecutive weeks at #1 with the hit single Stumblin’ In on 10 May. He was still #1 last week (28 June) and will likely remain in the top spot when ARIA shares this week’s chart later today.

Stumblin’ In, a remix of the 1978 Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman duet, went viral last year, and its popularity hasn’t let up. But CYRIL’s music journey has been anything but easy.

In a new interview with The Music, CYRIL opened up about the “personal turmoil” he experienced in 2018 and how he turned his life around.

“I went through a period of being homeless and a drug addict and whatnot,” he said. “I went back home and I started working on the farm and did some fencing and cattle work and mustering. [But] I knew that wasn't for me because I was still wanting to produce music.”

At the time, CYRIL was living in Townsville but returned home to the “outback” town of Lake Cargelligo, on Wiradjuri Country in central New South Wales.

As he “got a bit better,” CYRIL finished high school and applied for university scholarships to study music. He was accepted into Charles Darwin University and moved to the Northern Territory. The DJ attended for two years, expecting to become a teacher, but he was restless.

“I felt like I was giving up, in some sense,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, it'd be really nice to teach people how to make music and how to enjoy music, but I wanted to still have my career in performing.’”

The success of Stumblin’ In has seen Steve Aoki collaborate with Aussie hard-dance stalwart Dimatik (featuring Timmy Trumpet) and release a banging EDM remix of the track.

Meanwhile, CYRIL further expressed his love for older music by remixing Disturbed's 2015 cover of Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound Of Silence – giving the heavy metal band a surprise US dance hit and a Forbes article – and has another remix scheduled, this time re-doing America's 1971 track A Horse With No Name.