Ones to Watch: SIPPY - Left Australia with Nothing - Now Headlinig EDC

Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel: hosted by @kylierebeccaaa

Hanging at a friend's boyfriend's house when someone pulled up a UKF playlist and "Eyes on Fire" by Zeds Dead came on. Never heard anything like it, didn't even know dubstep was a thing.

What hit wasn't the hardest version of the genre, it was the way that track crossed over with the bands she already loved. Music you could drive home to, feel something in, actually live inside. That moment at that random house is still one she remembers specifically, years later.

WHY EVERY SIPPY TRACK HITS DIFFERENT

Every track needs "ammo" behind it. Something fueling it, whether that's something deep and heavy or completely silly goose. Never random, never just to stay active. Started doing this purely for personal reasons and over time fans picked up on it and started expecting it. Every release carries a story. If it doesn't mean something, it doesn't get made.

THE FEAR NOBODY TALKS ABOUT WHEN YOU GO ALL IN

Moving to the US was everything on the line. Family, home, the life she knew in Australia, all of it left behind. The weight of that sacrifice turned into real fear. The kind that makes you stop trusting yourself and start playing by other people's rules. Not doing things because they felt right anymore, doing things out of terror of failing after giving up so much. That fear mode quietly started pulling her away from the artist she actually wanted to be.

Nik Cherwink is a life coach specifically for artists, and working with him was the thing that broke the fear cycle. He got her back into the headspace of trusting herself, doing things out of love and intention instead of anxiety.

When a headline show came up with a tight budget and no room for big production, old Sippy would have accepted the constraints and moved on. Post-Nik Sippy asked herself: if I had unlimited money and no limits, what would I actually want this to look like? Then figured out how to get there anyway. That shift in thinking changed everything.

THE DIY SHOW THAT PROVED INTENTION BEATS PRODUCTION

Artificial grass from Home Depot, stage built from scratch, logo stencils cut by hand. They dragged everything down into the New York subway just to spray paint it outside, then brought it all back to the venue. Chaotic, fun and completely theirs. At the end of the night instead of packing it up, grabbed a box cutter, cut out all the spray painted pieces and handed them to everyone in the crowd. You were there, you were part of this, take a piece home. One piece is still on her apartment wall.

EVERY SHOW MATTERS NO MATTER THE SIZE

Playing the same city circuit over and over can make shows feel like just another stop. That's never the goal. Even a small club show in Cleveland recently had a moment where a guy in the middle of the crowd was doing this dance to one of her songs, completely in his own world, and she locked onto it from the booth. That one moment made the whole night.

Every city, every room, every show deserves its own weight. That's the standard, not just the big stages.

THE GLASSES THAT MADE HER ICONIC WERE FOUND ON THE GROUND

Her photographer Hoku found a pair of fuzzy oversized glasses on the floor at Base Canyon festival. He asked everyone around if they were theirs, nobody claimed them, so they just became a thing they passed around and wore for fun that weekend. Sippy eventually gave them away to a staff member who was having a rough day.

Months later, with zero communication between them, she and Hoku both showed up to Lost Lands with new pairs they had each bought separately. Neither of them had mentioned it. That coincidence is what made it real. The glasses became a symbol because when they are on, she stops being self-conscious about being silly on stage and just lets go completely.

SHE TRIED TO HIDE IN THE CROWD AT LOST LANDS IT DID NOT GO AS PLANNED

A fan crocheted a bunny hat and it arrived the day before Lost Lands. The plan was to wear it in the crowd and blend in completely. People figured it out almost immediately. The hat stuck anyway, and alongside the glasses became part of the visual everyone now associates with Sippy. No branding meeting. No strategy. A handmade gift and a failed incognito mission that accidentally became iconic.

THE PART OF TOURING NOBODY POSTS ABOUT

Eight consecutive weeks flying somewhere new every weekend, sometimes multiple shows per week, only home for a couple days at a time. The hard part isn't the partying or the drugs. The hard part is zero routine and the way that compounds on your mental state without you noticing.

Watching other artists get torn apart online by people who have no idea what's actually happening behind the scenes makes it worse. That gap between the public persona and the actual human is one of the realest parts of this life and nobody talks about it honestly.

Leave the phone behind. Go to a coffee shop. Ask the barista how their day is going. Ten minutes of being a regular person. The online world makes everything black and white, nuance disappears and anger finds the wrong targets.

Writing Scars in Stereo was the bigger version of that reset. So many feelings about the world and her own life, and instead of letting it out in ways that didn't feel right, an album came out of it. Cathartic, honest, entirely on her own terms.

THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT

The best part of shows is watching people who would never normally talk to each other become genuine friends. Different backgrounds, same floor, just pure energy like kids again.

That is what the scene is underneath all the noise. A space where the outside world stops mattering and strangers actually see each other. In a world this divided, that is genuinely important.

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