{"id":1961418,"date":"2026-05-29T08:25:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961418"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:25:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:25:30","slug":"up-from-down-under-how-new-zealands-zane-lowe-became-the-rock-star-whisperer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961418","title":{"rendered":"Up From Down Under: How New Zealand\u2019s Zane Lowe Became \u2018The Rock Star Whisperer\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tWhen Zane Lowe speaks into the mic, his audience outnumbers the population of his homeland.<\/p>\n
\n\tLowe hails from New Zealand, a 5 million-strong nation with a rugby obsession and a seriously healthy music scene. Like many of his countrymen and women, this Kiwi is well travelled. Now based in Los Angeles, Lowe has served as Apple Music\u2019s global creative director and lead anchor of Apple Music 1 since 2015. <\/p>\n
\n\tPrior to joining Apple in the United States \u2014 the world\u2019s biggest company by market cap \u2014 he called London home, with stints at BBC Radio 1, XFM and presenting \u201cGonzo\u201d on MTV 2.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\t\t\t\t\tAriana Grande, Labrinth, aespa & More: New Music\u00a0Friday\u00a0Guide\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\t\t\t\t\tAfter a Prolonged Absence, Boards of Canada Fires-Up With ‘Inferno’: Stream It Now\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\t\t\t\t\tAriana Grande Unveils ‘Hate That I Made You Love Me’: Stream It Now\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tApple doesn\u2019t publicly release real-time or exact daily listener numbers for Apple Music 1. The platform does, however, boast over 112 million paid subscribers globally, and the station, is known to be one of the largest continuous radio broadcast networks in the world. <\/p>\n
\n\tWith that, Lowe is a flag bearer for NZ. In the worlds of music and broadcasting, his is the most recognizable Kiwi accent on earth, and his guests are the biggest artists in the business. None of it is a fluke. The likes of Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, RAYE and countless others have experienced Lowe\u2019s relaxed but well-researched interview technique.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe\u2019s the Rock Star Whisperer.<\/p>\n
\n\tLowe recently visited Australia, where he participated in an exclusive on-stage conversation last Sunday, May 24, with triple j\u00a0Mornings\u00a0host\u00a0Lucy Smith\u00a0at\u00a0Sydney\u2019s City Recital Hall, part of Vivid Minds\u2019\u00a0Creative Trailblazers\u00a0series. His tips for a life in music and media? \u201cNever expect the talent to be happy to be there,\u201d he told Smith. Also, \u201cnerd the f*** out,\u201d \u201creally care,\u201d and most importantly, \u201clisten to the music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billboard.com<\/em> also caught up with the broadcaster, talent-spotter and artist, for a glimpse at a career that has taken him from the Land of the Long White Cloud to the one of the biggest gigs in music. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Billboard: Do you remember when the door opened up for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Zane Lowe:<\/strong> Yeah, very clearly. I was at working at Max TV in Auckland, and, you know, we were doing shows and having a great time making this free-to-air music channel. It was really fun. I was beginning to wonder what else there is. Is there something else I could keep doing for a long time, you know? And I got this email from a guy called Brent Hansen. An email was so new back then. It was the strangest; the way he said it was like, \u201csaw your tape. Love, dad?\u201d We\u2019re good friends now. To this day I don\u2019t know why he finished his emails \u201cdad,\u201d which I thought was really endearing and really cool. But it probably was an acronym for all I f\u2014ing know. It was just funny. And I just remember thinking, \u201cwhat tape, how, who? What?\u201d It was just so short and open-ended. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThat was the moment, the first time I felt that feeling of, like, the unknown and what was possible really grabbed me. Dude, this could be a life-changing moment if you let it and focus and nurture it.<\/p>\n
\n\tSubconsciously, I think that\u2019s where I was like, you can do it.<\/p>\n
[Hansen went on to serve as president of MTV Europe.]<\/em><\/p>\n
Who are the top Aussie and Kiwi bands lighting you up at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tNinajirachi. Australian is really exciting right now. I feel like for every single style of music or whatever you want to call it these days, there\u2019s somebody who\u2019s got a place in that room really effectively. Nina\u2019s crushing in the dance space, I love what Genesis Owusu is doing. I love the whole coming out and taking a look at the wider world and taking his approach at it.<\/p>\n
\n\tI love Way Dynamic. It\u2019s a very uniquely tasteful Australian experience to me in the sense that the sound design is so impeccable. It\u2019s got that Kevin Parker attention to detail, like it\u2019s got to sound so authentic and rich and warm before you even get drawn into the songs, which are beautiful.<\/p>\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\n\tKiwis wise, I love Mokomokai. I love what Manu and those boys are doing on a rap level. I really like the Beths, Vera Ellen, and that kind of Flying Nun-inspired, in some cases affiliated, sound. And Office Dog, a very cool kind of indie that feels familiar to me from when I grew up, but it feels very modern and very great. And I love, obviously, the Payments. <\/p>\n
\n\tThese bands mean a lot to me. I love that feeling of very tasteful looseness. So I\u2019m really into that. <\/p>\n
\n\tWe\u2019re really good at pop, man. We\u2019re really good at really weird pop. I mean, there\u2019s before-Lorde and after-Lorde. There\u2019s pop music before Ella (Yelich-O\u2019Connor), and pop music after Ella and Joel (Little). Since then, Benee and the Ratbags (have emerged). <\/p>\n
\n\tWe do pop music in a really unique way. It\u2019s weird. We do good weird pop. I just went to Split Enz. They are our No. 1 pop band of all time, and they are the weirdest f\u2014ing pop band of all time. You can\u2019t tell me \u201cSix Months in a Leaky Boat\u201d is not one of the weirdest pop hits of all time. Or \u201cDirty Creatures,\u201d it\u2019s just so weird and spooky and odd. We tried growing up during a time when that\u2019s all over the radio. You\u2019re just instantly in Weirdland. You feel like you\u2019re in another planet. <\/p>\n
\n\tWe do we do. I think we lean into our isolation in that regard in a cool way, and we use the space that we have away from the rest of the world and away from trends and whatnot. And we use that space wisely. We push into areas that are really weird. We just always have.<\/p>\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
What is your tip to fellow Antipodeans who might want to follow in your path?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tIf there\u2019s inspiration in that, then that\u2019s beautiful. Grab that. My life is really only designed from the vapors of inspiration that I\u2019ve been lucky enough to inhale? I just hyperfocus on what moves you on what is like the No. 1 thing. There\u2019s been on my mind a lot recently. Philosophy reasons, generational reasons, my mom, and also our kids, a lot of swirling change and the order of things, right? And it\u2019s made me really think about, like, at this point in my life, where did it start and how am I here? And in a really nice way.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd I boiled it down to something that\u2019s like a pin prick, the smallest little dot of something that is yours. It moves you, it speaks to you more than anything else. That is the closest thing to the beginning of purpose that you can think of. And the only thing I know that works in life, and this just is, for me, to create as much space and grace to expand on that as you can, to make that dot as big as you can. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
And how does that speak to your work ethic? Do you feel that you\u2019re a workaholic?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tYeah, well, I was a workaholic. I\u2019m not a workaholic anymore. I try to work smart, smarter, than harder, but I work hard, you know. <\/p>\n
\n\tBut if you enjoy it and you\u2019re not wasting time by only working hard, then it doesn\u2019t feel like hard work. <\/p>\n
\n\tIf I\u2019m tired or I\u2019m over-travelling or I\u2019ve got too many things going on in my brain, I recognize it\u2019s a byproduct of loving what I do, not a byproduct of doing something I don\u2019t want to do, or wasting time.<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m also really conscious of time because, again, I\u2019m in that really interesting transition of the changing of the guard. With my parents getting older and now in the final phases of their life, and watching our kids kind of starting to really go on their journey in earnest. Realizing the importance of acknowledging and appreciating time in a different way. And I don\u2019t really want to be beholden to it anymore the way I used to be. But also I don\u2019t pretend to try to control it either. So I just I\u2019m trying to make the most of it.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve made some cracking records with Breaks Co-Op and Urban Disturbance. Is there any more of that to come?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\tYeah. I\u2019ve actually made an album, man. We\u2019ll announce it soon, my first album in 10 years. It\u2019s not a Breaks record. It\u2019s a me<\/em> record. I won\u2019t go into describing it too much because, in this particular case, even though I do that for a living, I think I\u2019d better let the music speak for itself. But I\u2019m really proud of it. I will say this just to offset any assertions that maybe I\u2019ve decided to create kind of, you know, a big collaborative montage of relationships in music. <\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s just me. There are no guests and no one else on it at this point, on this particular album. And I\u2019m really excited to share it. And it definitely is the best thing I\u2019ve ever been a part of, so I\u2019m really proud of.<\/p>\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
\n\tI get energized creating. So, for me, I actually find that if I\u2019ve got a few hours at the end of the night, or into the night, or in the weekend or whatever, to be able to create some music or create some space to create, that is doing the opposite of expelling energy. It\u2019s like when you\u2019re driving an electric car and you pump the brakes and it adds more to the battery. That is what making music is for me. It\u2019s actually adding battery life. It may take time, but it puts all the right energy in the bank for me when I\u2019m making music. It\u2019s a very happy place.<\/p>\n
Vivid Minds\u2019\u00a0Creative Trailblazers is part of the broader\u00a0Vivid Sydney\u00a0festival, which runs through June 13, and is owned, managed and produced by the New South Wales government, Destination NSW and Feel New Sydney.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/zane-lowe-sydney-city-recital-hall-2026-1800-cr-destination-nsw.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard When Zane Lowe speaks into the mic, his audience outnumbers the population of his homeland. Lowe hails from New Zealand, a 5 million-strong nation with a rugby obsession and a seriously healthy music scene. Like many of his countrymen and women, this Kiwi is well travelled. Now based in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-1961418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1961418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1961418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1961418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1961418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ariana](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ariana-grande-htimylm-press-billboard-1800.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Boards](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/media\/boards-of-canada-press-photo-Warp-Records-2018-billboard-1500.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Ariana](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/P103MIQU-e1769785590553.jpg?crop=0px%2C0px%2C1800px%2C1116px&resize=237%2C147\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/charts-static.billboard.com\/img\/2013\/03\/lorde-me3-344x344.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n