GUS’s single, Out of Water pairs bright, full-bodied production with lyrics that are much more bitter and wounded than the song’s energy might first suggest. What begins as a piano-born reflection on comparison after a relationship becomes something bigger and louder, carried by horns, strings, and the kind of theatrical release that makes heartbreak feel like a collective experience rather than a lone one.
The song is not interested in sounding as defeated as its emotional premise might suggest. Instead, it builds toward something more animated and alive, allowing frustration to turn into release without pretending the feeling underneath is simple.
That same emotional directness also points toward GUS’s upcoming EP, First Times, a six-song project about first loves and their endings. Across the conversation, GUS talks about writing as a way to dramatize despair, process what is happening in real time, and turn difficult experiences into something satisfying, fully developed, and – in his own words – awesomesauce.
In this Creative Spotlight conversation, GUS reflects on Out of Water, the upcoming First Times EP, working with Iain Berryman, and the live performances that continue to teach him how people receive his music!
This interview has been edited for clarity and flow.
Originally published on Creating Romancivity.
Big Feelings, Bigger Production: The Process Behind Creating Out of Water
At the center of Out of Water is a feeling that does not stay quiet. The song begins from a painfully specific post-relationship place, where every possible future connection gets measured against the person who came before, but its sound refuses to collapse under that weight. Instead, the track grows outward, becoming bigger, brighter, and more dramatic as the emotion behind it sharpens. That contrast between an upbeat sound and cynical lyrics is the clearest place to begin.
Out of Water pairs an upbeat sound with cynical lyrics. What compelled you to make the song have that kind of contrast?
GUS: That was a choice we made because this feeling I wrote about (the feeling that no one else would be as good for me as my ex) was so all-consuming, frustrating, and scary that I felt like yelling about it. The song grows with my contempt.
What does your songwriting process usually look like, and do you think about genre at all when you’re creating, or does that come after the fact?
GUS: My process is almost always me sitting at my piano at home and mumbling about things that are on my mind. I started playing the piano part you hear at the beginning of the song, and the rest all came out after I landed on the lyric “you’re why people don’t excite me anymore”. I never really think about genre because when it’s only me and my piano, they’re all kind of just…songs.
Do you tend to write from a place of reflection, or are your songs usually capturing emotions in real time?
GUS: It’s very much a mix of real-time and retrospective. Out of Water was the former.
And you worked with Iain Berryman on this track. What did he bring to it that changed the way you originally imagined it?
GUS: This was my first session with Iain, whose work I am a big fan of, and it was an exceedingly painless and enjoyable process. He brought an energy and life to the song, which was, before, a sad piano thing I wrote. When he went in, adding the horns and strings in the post-chorus, I was just sitting back in awe of how big and beautiful this song was becoming.
First Loves, Endings, and First Times
Because Out of Water was written from the middle of the feeling rather than at a safe distance from it, the song carries the intensity of a thought that has not fully settled yet. That immediacy connects naturally to the larger emotional world of First Times, which is a project built around first loves, their endings, and the growth that comes from having to make sense of both. But before getting into the EP itself, it was worth asking whether writing these songs helps GUS move on or keeps him inside that post-relationship world a little longer.
Gus’s response to the question?
“Writing about any kind of despair in your life helps so much because you kind of have to dramatize it for the sake of the song. You also have to decide exactly how you actually feel so you can pull from it, and that makes you process whatever is going on. Plus, when you write a song that you love, no matter what it’s about, there’s this immense satisfaction that comes from having turned it into something awesomesauce.”
That answer shows the exact emotional function of a song like Out of Water. The despair doesn’t just sit there untouched; it gets heightened, dramatized, and eventually turned into something GUS can understand differently because he made art out of it. That process feels especially important considering Out of Water is not just a standalone release, but part of a larger project where each song seems to hold a different piece of love, loss, and first emotional impact.
You’re currently rolling out toward an upcoming EP. How would you say these singles fit into the larger story or emotional arc of that project?
GUS: This EP is about my first loves and their endings. Every song is a different part of the story.
Without revealing too much, what feels different about this EP compared to your previous releases?
GUS: In the past, my bodies of work were very much focused on me. They were evidence of growing pains and asked a lot of questions about my place in the world. This project is also about growing, but it’s specifically about my first experiences of love.
And is there anything else you can or would like to reveal about your upcoming project?
GUS: I can excitedly share the title, which I have been wrestling with for a long time. The Project is called First Times and will be 6 songs about my first loves and their endings.
Live Performance and What the Crowd Reveals
While First Times is rooted in endings, the songs are not meant to stay frozen in the private world where they were written; they also have to survive the shift from personal memory into shared experience!
If the songs begin at the piano, they take on another life once they reach a room full of people. For GUS, performance is not just a way to present the work after it’s finished, but also a way to understand what is actually landing. The live space becomes its own kind of feedback loop, where the energy of the performer and the response of the crowd start shaping each other in real time. That makes the live show one of the clearest places to see how people connect with GUS’s music.
You’ve built a strong reputation as a live performer! What do you notice about how people connect with your music in a live space?
GUS: Playing live is my favourite thing on the entire planet. It has been such a valuable experience for me as an artist to be able to see firsthand how people receive the songs. I notice that people are really sensitive to the energy coming from the performers. If I am moved by the music, they will be too.
With that being said, is there a song that you’ve come to appreciate even more since performing it live?
GUS: What an amazing question! Yes, yes, yes, I am always surprised by which songs people gravitate to, and it shows me that I know nothing of what the people want. My song ‘Slips Away’ has this ability to capture a crowd in a way I haven’t seen in other songs in the set. I love when I am playing in a room of people who are not familiar with my music and watch the sea of bodies sync up when we play that song. Everyone starts swaying together, it’s amazing.
There is something so fitting about that image! A room of unfamiliar listeners slowly syncing up to a song together, when, across this conversation, GUS describes songwriting as something intimate and private, often beginning alone at the piano, but also as something that becomes bigger once it leaves that first space.
Out of Water may have started as a “sad piano thing,” but through collaboration, performance, and the emotional arc of First Times, it becomes part of a larger story about love, endings, growth, and the strange satisfaction of turning despair into something alive.
That is what makes this era feel so compelling. GUS is not writing from a place where everything has been neatly resolved. He is writing from the middle of the feeling, then letting the songs become the place where that feeling can stretch, dramatize itself, and finally crystallize.
Out of Water by GUS is out now, with the six-song EP First Times on the way.
Connect with GUS
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