Dean Lewis has built a successful career off writing sad boi music. But is the musician actually happy?

Dean Lewis’ music has been the soundtrack to countless break-ups. His emotion-laced lyrics and soothing melodies have made people sob on repeat. A series of TikTok videos that captured his dad’s cancer journey — from the diagnosis that predicted he wouldn’t live for longer than a year to reuniting with him after he beat the cancer — went viral. Cue more crying. The song Lewis wrote about the experience, How Do I Say Goodbye, has been played over 500 million times on Spotify. His most popular song Be Alright, a heart-tugger that paints the aftermath of a partner confessing they cheated, sits at close to 2 billion plays. Dean Lewis’ successful career has been built off writing “sad boi” music. It’s a self-dubbed moniker he likens to Matthew McConaughey’s “McConaissance” — a term coined by the actor to mark a new period of his career. For Lewis, it’s a fitting description of his chosen genre: raw and relatable lyrics delivered through his recognisable Aussie twang. “They’re easier to write,” Lewis says of creating sad songs. “There is more of a reason to write them, writing happy songs is such a one-dimensional thing … sad songs for me, the emotion is strong and the songs connect to the heart.” With 13 billion streams on Spotify worldwide, there is method to Lewis’ sadness. In a career sense, the musician has been on an upwards trajectory since releasing Waves in 2016 (which has since featured on Grey’s Anatomy and Suits) while he was living with his Nan. Over the past eight years Lewis has been touring and recording across the world, he’s collaborated with major artists — Kygo and Julia Michaels — received a slew of awards, and regularly sells out his shows. Yet given his sad boi alias, is Lewis … happy? The answer is complicated, and ever-evolving. “I’ve given up so much of my life to this pursuit of what I’m doing,” he tells STM from Sydney. “I missed my best mate’s wedding, I’ve sacrificed so much in terms of relationships or the things that my brothers have now (kids and long-term partners) … I’ve lost friendships because it’s been hard to keep in touch with people. “I wanted to give all that I have to this craft and pursuit and to be great at one thing in my life.” The road to success and happiness is rarely linear — nor does it always happen in unison — and for Lewis, his journey towards both resembles a racetrack rather than a highway. Despite objectively ticking boxes that quantify success, Lewis finds himself hoping his next lap will be better than his last. “I’ve had, I think, three songs that have connected over the space of eight years which is one every few years after hundreds of songs,” the singer-songwriter says. “But every time you do it (get a hit song) it’s the same thing. After a certain period of time you realise you’re sort of like a NASCAR race driver lapping yourself. You’re racing yourself, and then you start to look around and you just see that there are other things that are important in life. “But when you’re stubborn and you have a dream, people can give you that advice, they’ll say, ‘it’s not going to make you happy, having hit songs won’t make you happy’. “And then you go ‘yeah right, it’s going to make me happy’ but those times actually brought about the most stress in my life.” Lewis has spoken openly about his anxiety, and admits that he doesn’t really enjoy being the centre of attention. Yet on the other side of the double-edge sword: he’s stubborn and writing music is who he is. “I’m so obsessed and happy and passionate and excited about what I get to do,” he says. “But I am sort of seeing that if you focus that hard for that period of time, the wheels start to fall off a little bit in terms of stress and anxiety. “And by the nature of it, you don’t really build up a lot of life skills because when you’re so focused on one thing, one small thing, like writing songs and you’re so obsessed with it, you don’t have a lot of life skills to build up on the side … “With musicians, if things are good you’re just touring and you don’t stop and there is no defining line between your life. It’s all just a big blur … and fighting to get what you want.” Lewis says he’ll give it 10 years before he begins to reevaluate how wholeheartedly he throws his life into his music, yet thoughts of balance and what it might be like on the other side have begun to filter in. Much of his free time is going into self-improvement and getting into a healthier mindset. He journals and dabbles in hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He’s also embarked on the next lap of his career — a world tour that includes a show in Perth on November 23 — which follows the release of his third album, The Epilogue. “I find every time I’m in Perth I love it because it feels like a big city that’s very chill,” Lewis says. The Epilogue was pieced together through hundreds of voice notes which ultimately came together during sessions in the Hollywood Hills and Hawaii. While his second album The Hardest Love went in a more pop-oriented direction, this collection of 12 songs went back to his raw and acoustic roots. Grab the tissues, it’s break-up anthem galore. Its name represents a culmination of the past eight years of vulnerability, sacrifice, hard work and hope for a bright future. “The Epilogue is at the end of a book and it hints at what’s to come in the future and sums up some of the questions you had … It all kind of made sense, the end of a book for me of eight years of doing this and hinting of what’s to come.” Dean Lewis — The Epilogue Tour is at Kings Park on November 23.