G Flip describes Dream Ride as a queer ‘cinematic road trip’ across the desert

Imagine cruising along Route 66 on a warm summer’s evening, Bruce Springsteen crackling through the radio as the desert stretches out before you, the sun beginning to set and the sky changing from a dusky orange to an inky purple.

Perhaps you have a destination in mind: a 24-hour diner with a flickering neon sign, a lonely motel or a dingy dive bar on the edge of a tumbleweed town. Or maybe you don’t – the road itself is the destination. That is the vibe of G Flip’s new album, Dream Ride.

Released on Friday (5 September), Dream Ride the is the Melbourne-born, LA-based musician’s third studio album following About Us (2019) and Drummer (2023). It is a ten track collection which includes previously released singles “Disco Cowgirl,” “In Another Life,” and “Big Ol’ Hammer”. 

“Imagine a cinematic road trip,” G Flip told PinkNews ahead of the album’s release, “like all those eighties movies like Thelma and Louise, that you’re on the road traveling across America.” 

The road-trip inspired record – a “dream ride” as per its name – begins with the sound of a car driving up, and then the last song sees that car drive away, whilst the tracks in-between play around with the time of day on a journey like that. 

““Disco Cowgirl” is definitely a night kind of song, like singing outside a bar and [wondering] am I ever going to see her again? “Let’s Take This Show on the Road” is the sun coming down in a little diner in the desert. 

“The eighties is such a dream, nostalgic, cinematic, and dramatic – it’s all of those things.” 

Back in June, off the back of performing at Mighty Hoopla, the artist told PinkNews their new album has been sonically created around the theme of “Butch Springsteen and masculine Madonna”, exploring the eighties but also the country genre which G Flip is not the only LGBTQ+ artist to dive into given the recent releases of Chappell Roan’s single “The Giver” and Julien Baker & Torres’ album Send A Prayer My Way.

“Disco Cowgirl”, “I Don’t Wanna Regret” and “Bed on Fire” are the songs “channelling that world” the most, according to G Flip. 

“There’s a little bit of it all round, but those three [are] definitely at the top,” they said. 

“It comes across in my vocal delivery because I realised that when I sing falsetto [G Flip’s higher range], like say in the song “Lush” for example, I feel a bit more femme. 

“In my language in the studio, when me and Aidan [Hogg] are writing and recording and producing everything, I’d be like ‘no, I need to deliver it more like Butch Springsteen’ – like a more guttural, screamy yell kind of thing. I found how [Springsteen] delivers some vocals, he is yelling little kind of staccato rhythms with space in between – it’s passionate. 

“So, I was just trying to write melodies and lyrics in that Bruce kind of way on some of the songs.”  

As a lesbian non-binary artist, queerness is absolutely inherent in G Flip’s Dream Ride, from detailing their first time with a woman in “Bed on Fire” to their love for their wife, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause, in “Lush” and “Let’s Take This Show on the Road”. 

“There’s the lovey dovey songs on the album which are very much inspired by me and Chrishell’s story, and just her in general,” G Flip explained. 

“Let’s Take This Show on the Road” was a fun one to write because I imagined me and Chrishell in this movie 80s dreamscape. Chrishell loves scrambled eggs and cheese, it’s like her favorite thing to eat every morning so I wanted to slip that in a little lyric in. There’s cute little hints of her personality through a lot of my love songs, you know,” G Flip said, adding it is “great being in love, helps you write songs”.

“’Lush’ is more of a sexy song, but it’s definitely about Chrishell because I always think she looks the best just coming out of the shower. She doesn’t need to sit in the makeup chair and do her hair, like ‘babe, you’re so hot just coming out the shower!’. That’s one of the main lyrics of ‘Lush’.”

“It’s a good time for us to wrap our arms around our trans friends”

The second track on the record is the fist-pounding, soul-affirming “I Don’t Wanna Regret”, a song about being unapologetic and taking life by the horns, which could be a powerful anthem for the artist’s massive LGBTQ+ fanbase. 

“One line in that song is: ‘You came out trans and you can finally breathe’. My plan in that song was that I wanted to tick off everyone in the audience so that everyone can sing that chorus together and feel seen and heard,” G Flip said, saying just the little teasers they had posted on Instagram had garnered a really positive response from the trans community. 

“A lot of the trans community have commented [and said] ‘oh my god, that line. That hits so home and that resonates so much. Thank you for putting that line in the song’.”

They continued: “The trans community is so close to home. There are so [many] hateful and disgusting things that are going on in the world and it’s a good time for us to wrap our arms around our trans friends and family and support them, because they’re going through a really tough time now with what’s going on in the world. 

“I always want to make my trans audience and fanbase feel seen and supported. I love them all.” 

Dream Ride is out now.