Like many busy couples, the non-binary, award-winning, globetrotting Australian pop star and their Selling Sunset reality personality wife Chrishell Stause have organised their hectic schedules so they are never separated for more than two weeks.

Stause was in the middle of filming the eighth season of the Hollywood elite real estate reality series as Flip ventured home to Australia in February for Mardi Gras celebrations, gigs and to indulge their fandom at a couple of Taylor Swift shows in Melbourne.

“I like the two-week rule. There’s been a few times where it’s been like two weeks and two days, because we both have something on that we can’t work around,” Flip, 30, says at their Sydney hotel during a break in a hectic Mardi Gras schedule.

“We once went three weeks and we were both like, ‘No, f--k this.’

“Chrishell’s right in the thick of (filming) … I’m feeling crazy for her. I don’t know how she does this. But, yeah, she’s awesome. And I can’t wait to see her in less than two weeks.”

The Aussie indie pop star and big gig specialist is on a first-name basis with the crews who staff the Australia to Los Angeles flight route. Flip was the ambassador for the Qantas float at this year’s Sydney Mardi Gras parade.

The multi-instrumentalist and stage slayer had already committed to commuting between their hometown of Melbourne and Los Angeles before falling in love with Stause in early 2022. They first met at a Halloween party thrown by fellow Aussie pop star Tones and I at her LA home in October 2021.

Their marriage at a Las Vegas chapel last May, celebrated by an Elvis impersonator of course, added another celebrity dimension to Flip’s growing global pop culture status.

The Australian entertainer’s cameos with Stause on season six of Selling Sunset also contributed to boosting Flip’s profile in the vast American entertainment media and on Hollywood red carpets.

Yet it is Flip’s genre-defying, deeply personal songs, their electrifying performances, and their one-of-a-kind presence as a pop star who drums which have done the hard work of establishing them.

“I’ve always just wanted to do this so bad, there was no other option. I’ll never stop because I’d rather die trying than not try that hard and end up miserable like, ‘Oh, I wish that could be me up there.’ I wanted to just give it everything,” Flip says.

By any measure of success, G Flip has had a watershed year since releasing their second album Drummer in August 2023. The record debuted at No. 1 in Australia, one of a handful of local albums to achieve that result on the ARIA charts last year.

Their songs have 240 million streams on Spotify alone while their videos across social media have racked up gazillions of views.

They won the publicly-voted 2023 ARIA Awards for Best Video (for Good Enough) and Best Australian Live Act in November. They broke the record for the highest number of entries in Triple J’s Hottest 100 with seven songs making the world’s biggest music poll in January, with The Worst Person Alive coming in at No.2. That song and Be Your Man were both short-listed for the APRA Song of the Year to be announced in May.

The American leg of Flip’s Drummer tour is almost sold out with tickets to the UK shows in September also in limited supply. Their US tour last September and October was completely sold out. “I’ve just found this audience in this community that really gets around me and is very supportive. I find the queer community is always so supportive. And, you know, a lot of my fan base are queer,” Flip says.

The secret to G Flip’s trajectory, as much as sheer talent and will, is a lesson learnt when they were plotting to strike out from playing drums in the bands of their adolescence to become a solo artist. All it took, in those nascent years of social media when fans struck a direct connection with their favourite artists via the DM, was one of Flip’s idols to message back.

Now before the pop star gets out of bed, they start most days by replying to or acknowledging 200 to 300 DMs from fans. G Flip would be one of a handful of artists who builds fan interaction into their daily schedule.

“I go to the extra effort and I put a lot of time and work into replying and building a fan base. I remember before G Flip even started, I was a big fan of Meg Mac, and I messaged her on Instagram. I remember buying a ticket and just being so invested in this human because I loved her music. And then she replied to me – I couldn’t believe it. And I realised when I became an artist, I can make someone else’s day by simply replying to them. I reckon I get about 200 to 300 that I just reply to as soon as I wake up. I’ve done it since day one because I remember being a fan.”

The artist’s earliest memory of wanting to play music was when they were three years old. A toy guitar was their prized possession, inspired by their musician father Marc Flipo, who is known as Mr Flip to his child’s fans. At a Christmas party at the local lawn bowls club, the toddler demanded their father grab the guitar from the car so they could join the band on stage.

Flip got their first drum kit at nine. They felt the pull of music but couldn’t see themselves in the world of pop. “When I’d watch music videos, I never really clocked it … I was too young … I just didn’t see anyone that I wanted to be like,” they say. “I knew I wasn’t Beyonce, I knew I wasn’t Christina Aguilera rolling around in water and sand. I knew I wasn’t going to wear a mini skirt and shake my booty like that. I knew that wasn’t me.”

In high school at Brighton in suburban Melbourne, Flip found their lane via their mentor, drum teacher Jenny Morrish, who taught them from years 7 to 12 and remained invested into their Bachelor of Music studies.

Flip tears up immediately on mentioning Morrish, who died in 2015. The apprentice took on some of their master’s students after her passing. Flip is a big crier. They unashamedly share their emotional reactions online including the flood of tears when they were nominated for six ARIA Awards last year, and again when they broke the Hottest 100 record in January. They cried on the morning of our chat while watching the trailer for the Take The Steps documentary about their beloved AFL team Collingwood in an airport lounge.

Morrish was the person who lit the fuse in the teen musician and songwriter to chase the dream of being the pop star they didn’t see in the music videos. “Jenny made me fall head over heels in love with drums. That’s when I realised ‘Holy shit, there isn’t anyone like me out there in the world that is a female drummer or a queer drummer or non-binary drummer.’ I didn’t really have an idol besides her. There’s no bigger (idol) than Jenny,” Flip says.

“When you’re an adolescent and you’re learning about yourself … sometimes a teacher or idol or someone you’re watching can really shape what your future and what your life is going to be. Jenny, for me, moulded my little brain and made me who I am.”

The musician’s desire to launch themselves as a solo artist, after immersing themselves in vocal training with as much determination as pounding the drums, aligned with their coming out. Flip first came out to their family and friends as gay and queer, and in 2021, shared online they identify as non-binary, with they/them pronouns.

“I feel like a big part of me jumping from being a session drummer and a drummer for other bands coincided with me coming out,” Flip says. “Once I was out and proud, then I had more confidence to share the stories of all these queer songs that I’d been writing in my room for years and years.”

Their debut single About You, uploaded to Triple J Unearthed in early 2018, quickly blew up on the alternative music airwaves and social media, and caught the ear of festival programmers around the world.

G Flip played their first solo gig at the influential SXSW festival in Austin in March 2018 and then debuted at Splendour in the Grass that July.

Songs like Drink Too Much, Be Your Man, Gay 4 Me and The Worst Person Alive are live favourites while Flip is also adept at the big TV gigs, like the New Year’s Eve concert and AFL and AFLW grand finals, with their mesmerising spin on covers.

One of the new songs likely to wrestle its way on to the live circuit is their viral cover of Taylor Swift’s smash Cruel Summer for Triple J’s Like A Version in January which has more than 11.5 million TikTok views and four million Spotify streams.

Flip lost their mind when Swift liked the cover on Instagram. The artist’s mum Lisa Kempton started a petition for the Aussie drummer to open at Swift’s Eras Tour shows in February. While that didn’t eventuate – Swift and her fans’ loss! – Flip was invited to the superstar’s family and friends’ box at the MCG.

“Her publicist pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, just want to let you know Taylor loved the cover.’ And for me, that’s enough. I didn’t need to open up (at the shows).

“I can’t believe that she liked it or that she even watched it and thought it was good. She liked my work and my arrangement and the time that I put into that.”

Flip is methodical about their songwriting and production. They have turned their home in Los Feliz in LA into a studio with instruments set up in every room and ready to go when inspiration strikes. Their Australian co-producer Aidan Hogg now lives in the studio house while Flip shares Chrishell’s home.

“I work so great with Aidan because I’m the maddest scientist and I’m throwing shit at him the whole time, and he can keep up with me. My brain works really quickly,” they say.

Not everyone is a fan of hearing Flip’s creative process. Just as those living near the Flipo family home in Melbourne would complain about their father practising his music when they were growing up, so Flip is in a constant text battle with their LA neighbours during recording sessions. And this is a town where every third house has a home recording studio.

“The day I get some neighbours who don’t
f--king hate me … I remember my dad saying to me at a really young age ‘G, if you’re anything like me, you’ll never have a neighbour that likes you a day in your life,” they say.

“I remember doing the last track on the record Made For You and at the very last minute, the day before I had to give in the mixes, I was thinking about how would Jenny want to finish this album.

“Made For You is a drumless song about my love for drums, and I was up all night thinking about it and realised I had to put a big drum solo at the end.

“And as soon as I started drumming, to get this last bit done, at 6pm the neighbours texted, ‘You didn’t tell us you were going to drum.’ It was 6pm, they weren’t going to sleep! Every time we drum, we have to get (their) f--king permission.

“I spent like over 10 grand soundproofing that room as best as I can.

“You can barely hear the drums over the traffic. And then they text me, ‘If you were a real musician, you’d be recording in a studio.’ I wish I could tell them, ‘This f--king album with all the drums I recorded in this house went to No. 1 in Australia and won some motherf--king ARIAs. So shove it up your arse.’”

This proud advocate of the LGBTQIA+ community is equally direct in their music. Songs like Gay 4 Me and Be Your Man struck a resounding chord with the community as Flip joined a wave of brave, uncompromising Australian artists, including Troye Sivan, Peach PRC and Tash Sultana, to usher in a new Aussie music era with queer culture at the fore.

The Drummer album features the electro-pop song Kevin, an unbridled and furious take-down of the homophobic trolls who spew their hate in their DMs.

“Kevin wants me dead, in my DMs, he’s a homophobe. And he wants to get me arrested ’bout my gender roles,” they sing.

Flip’s voice is all sweet pop sugariness while shouting out the Kevins and Karens.

The song reflects Flip’s frustrations as to why these people feel compelled to express their hate speech online.

“I get a lot of hate and a lot of homophobic people, people that are just straight up saying, ‘You’re a woman, you’ve got a vagina’, just saying crazy stuff,” Flip says.

“I know who I am. I know I’m non-binary, I know I’m queer, through and through. I can’t change this, this is who I am.

“So I feel like a lot of those comments don’t hit any part of insecurity in me, I’m very secure in myself.

“I just find myself giggling and then write songs like Kevin.

“There are so many factors involved like why the f--k is this person messaging me at 8pm on Tuesday night? Why the f--k are they following me in the first place? What’s going on in their life that they care so much? How did this make them so angry?

“Whoa, it’s hectic that there are people like that in the world. But it amuses me … there’s always going to be somebody who hates you for something, and if you’re in the public eye, they’re going to come at you.”

Flip filters out the noise to live in the moment of all that is happening for them right now. The frantic UK and US ticket sales, with some venues upgraded to meet demand, point to an artist taking their career up a level.

The next song or the next scene-stealing gig could be the tipping point to much bigger things. But it is Flip’s plan for the end of 2024 which illustrates how they are determined to have fun while trying.

The pop star drummer threw the best ARIA Awards after-party at Sydney’s live music pub, the Lansdowne last year, and is hoping to make it an annual event.

“I think I’m going to do my after-party every year. It wasn’t fancy, just a house-party vibe. People are still saying it was the best after-party,” they say. “That’s what I want to do with everything. Throw the best party.” ■