For the third time today, G Flip is crying. We’re sharing the backseat on a drive from Sydney to Canberra, talking about the first music management deal they were offered: the moment it seemed their dreams were coming true.
“I cry when feelings are too hectic,” the 29-year-old says, declining my offer of a tissue to wipe away tears with their hand instead – but I’m distracted by the car in the lane next to us. A woman in the passenger seat is leaning forward, head cocked and mouth agape, trying to get a proper look at the vehicle we are riding in.
G Flip is heading down Australia’s east coast not for a live tour but a series of fan meet-and-greets, to promote their upcoming second album. And instead of a regular tour van, we are travelling in a bright red Jeep that has been wrapped in G Flip promo: a loan from one of the three corporate sponsors backing this two-week trip. The name of their new record, Drummer, is etched on both sides; the cover is on the bonnet.
Our day on the road is full of moments like this: big feelings and wet cheeks, punctured occasionally by reminders of the very conspicuous vehicle we are travelling in.
This meet-and-greet tour is a homecoming of sorts for G Flip. The Australian musician, who was born Georgia Flipo but came out as gender non-binary in 2021 and now goes simply by G, moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles after the success of their 2019 debut album, About Us. A collection of instrumental-driven indie-pop songs, it showcased G Flip as a rare kind of multi-talent: a drummer first and foremost who also sings, plays guitar and piano, and produces their own music. For the few hundred fans who line up to meet G Flip in each city, their appeal lies not just in that breadth of talent but also in their charismatic, quintessentially Australian personality: a party animal covered in tattoos (Flipo estimates they have about 80), who addresses people as “legend” and rides hard for AFL team Collingwood (“Go Pies!” is etched on their upper arm).
For another – and perhaps greater – group of people, G Flip is known for something else: being the partner of Chrishell Stause, one of the stars of the Netflix reality program Selling Sunset, who until meeting Flipo had only been in relationships with men. The romance hit gossip blogs like a bomb when the pair went public in May 2022; since then, the couple have made out in one of Flipo’s video clips, enjoyed a spread in Vogue, and appeared together in episodes of the latest season of Selling Sunset (“So awkward,” Flipo says of the filming).
Stause is not part of the convoy this time but she makes her presence felt, at one point sending a series of texts – “I love you, you’re so hot, I wanna make out with you and kiss you forever” – that Flipo reads aloud with a loving laugh. “This schedule has been so demanding that we’ve only been able to talk on FaceTime for like, half an hour to an hour.”
A day? “Yeah,” Flipo says.
It has certainly been a demanding schedule. Flipo is a self-described perfectionist and workaholic, who “likes spreadsheets and being organised” and doesn’t like days off. Today they will spend close to six hours on the road, spending most of the drive completing interviews (including mine), or on a call to discuss their upcoming performance on Australian TV’s Logie awards. Almost as soon as we get to Canberra, they have the next meet-and-greet before heading to the local gay club, lured by the offer of free drinks. (“Tonight is going to be a big night,” they said as I hopped into the G Flip Mobile – but the day took its toll, and they ended up asleep by 8pm.)
The story of G Flip is often told as an overnight success: they uploaded their first song to Triple J Unearthed in February 2018 and it got played on the national station that same day, landing them a record deal within the week. But there was more to it than that, they tell me: a detailed strategy executed with laser focus.
In 2017, after exiting their rock band Empra, Flipo set a goal of just one year to make a solo career happen. First, they set about amassing Instagram followers by posting videos of them drumming – great engagement bait at the time. Then, once they’d hit about 20,000 followers, they switched the handle over to the solo moniker they’d picked – @gflip – and started posting about the songs they had been writing in their bedroom.
Their Instagram now had a five-figure count – which for newcomers made it seem as though G Flip’s songs were generating buzz. So Flipo emailed that account, along with their 10 best demos, to every address on the spreadsheet they’d compiled: “Everyone that worked at Triple J, everyone that worked at [the record label] Future Classic, everyone that worked at every single management label in Australia”. They fronted up at every music industry event they could find a way into, where they would walk up to streaming service heads and introduce themself. They researched and picked which publicist and booking agent they wanted to work with, and eventually got both – plus a Future Classic deal. “I manifested so hardcore, that whole year – it’s all I thought about, it’s all I dreamed about.”
That storied week where “everything blew the fuck up” ended with “me sitting in my room, crying and being like, ‘Oh my God, I think this is gonna work,’” Flipo says, fighting back tears again. About Us, their debut album, enjoyed three platinum-selling singles and set Flipo’s sights on LA, where they moved in September 2021. A month after landing in the city they met Stause at a gig and, by the end of 2022, the couple were married in an impromptu ceremony in Vegas.
“Everyone thinks that because we told people in May [of 2023], we must have done it, like, that day. But no, we’ve been married for a bit longer than that,” Flipo says, showing me their silver, skull-shaped wedding ring. The pair want to renew their vows in small ceremonies every year. “We believe we will be together forever and we are each other’s person.”
One day the pair hope to buy the house behind Stause’s – previously it belonged to Lizzo – to create a “compound”: they may spend almost every night together when they’re in LA but they don’t actually live together, nor do they want to. (Flipo needs room for their guitars; Stause for her clothes.) When they have children, which will “definitely” happen one day – “we’re open to adoption and we’re open to surrogacy” – the kids will likely live at Stause’s home.
For now Flipo still lives with their bandmate Fernando in Los Feliz, where they regularly jam out on the 20-odd guitars they have lined up in their living room. They like being surrounded by instruments – in fact, that’s part of what inspired the new record. After the move to Los Angeles, Flipo would be in studios with producers who expected a pliant pop act, providing the vocals only. In response, they told their label they never wanted to be expected to make music without their drum kit again, and set about making “a pop record that’s thinking of drums first”. Drummer will be released on 11 August.
With more guitar as well as the drums-first approach, the new record feels louder and punchier than their first. One track, the screeching Kevin, sees Flipo take on the homophobic trolls who DM hateful scribes about their sexuality and gender: “A lot of people hate that I’m non-binary; that’s the main thing that I get,” they say. But many of the songs are about love and about Stause – like lead single Be Your Man (“I’m not what you planned / But I’ll be your man,” Flipo belts out in the chorus) and Real Life, lamenting the time apart dictated by a life on the road.
They won’t be apart for much longer. Stause, who came to Australia three or four times last year, will be coming back out for some of the upcoming tour (though importantly, she must be back in September for Beyoncé). She has taken so well to the Australian way of living, Flipo says, that she once ate three chicken parmis in a day.
After our three hours distracting other motorists on the Hume Highway, we make a quick pit stop at Flipo’s hotel, where they have just enough time to call Stause, eat a room service burger and change shoes. As we drive to the event, Flipo shows me the birthday surprise they have surreptitiously been putting together for Stause: a calendar and coffee table book composed of highly stylised photos of Flipo and the couple’s dog, a terrier-mix rescue called Gracie, in matching outfits. “Because what [else] do you get the girl who has everything?”
At the Canberra meet-and-greet, Flipo will sign records, pose for photos and chat to a parade of fans – including the handful of non-binary people who come to every event to tell Flipo that they inspired them to come out, too: “And then, fuck, when you hand me a non-binary kid, then that’s like straight away tears,” they say, voice breaking and now really, truly, crying – for the fourth time today.
Katie Cunningham is a freelance writer from Sydney
Drummer by G Flip is out 11 August
