Andy Bull: Restoring the Vision of People You Love

The thinking person's pop artist has returned to his 2023 album People You Love to restore its original vision, unpacking instinct, identity, and what it really means to finish an album.

Andy Bull is one of our favourite humans. His reputation as a maestro among maestros is long-established, but it’s the way he shows up beyond the stage that truly sets him apart. On social media and in interviews, he remains a genuine and vocal music fan, regularly trading ego for insight, offering wisdom, stray nuggets of gold, and the occasional masterclass in how music actually works. Thoughtful, generous, and endlessly curious, he’s the kind of artist who makes you feel smarter just by paying attention. Follow him closely and you’ll learn plenty.

He’s just released a new version of his 2023 album People You Love, a director’s cut, if you will. A record he was never entirely satisfied with in its original form, this reworked edition now flows with the clarity, confidence, and emotional weight it always promised. The masterpiece, fully realised.

We caught up with Andy to let him explain the idea, the process, and the thinking behind this fascinating re-imagining in his own words.

You’ve called this new version of People You Love a “Director’s Cut”, a fascinating concept that really bears the fruit. What was missing for you in the original release, and what finally clicked when you revisited the record?

Firstly, thank you for these considered questions and for giving me the opportunity to talk about the album. Basically: the first version of the People You Love album came out in 2023. When I first began work on making that album, around 2017-2018, I wanted it to be a very specific kind of album with a clear concept, that is: real people making music in a real space, with an emphasis on songwriting and real human performance. I basically finished that album by 2018, but then it sat on the shelf for a few years. There are different reasons why, partly I was trying to find some industry support to help give it a chance. I had left my label and was finding my feet alone. While I sat on the album, wondering what to do with it, I started recording more songs that broke with the original vision of People You Love.  I hoped that they sounded more “modern” and perhaps like singles that might bridge the gap between People You Love and an audience who wanted a more recognisably “pop” album. Really, those later songs should have just been put a separate LP or EP. The newer songs “broke the spell” of the original vision, and I felt like I lost People You Love. It’s bothered me ever since. The Director’s Cut restoration is basically the original vision. To create it, I cut certain songs, then added the title track and resequenced the whole track list. It includes only the band songs recorded in the room, with none of the “more modern” stuff included (what does that word even mean now?). The title “Director’s Cut” just seemed in the spirit of things, and had more humour and character than calling it “redux”. I think People You Love - Director’s Cut is probably now the definitive version of this album.

What was the original “theatrical release” missing for you?

The 2023 version had a bunch of stuff on it that didn’t feel like it really belonged, so what the album was missing was cohesion. I think you can do anything you like in music, it’s just more effective not to do it all at the same time.

When you revisit a record a few years on, do you hear it as the person who made it or the person you are now? Who was in the room with you while re-duxing these songs? Andy Bull People you love

I listen as the person I am now, with the perspective I have on it now, but I also remember the perspectives I used to hold in the past, and who I was when I held them. I remember why I wanted to make this LP and I remember also why I deviated from the initial vision. One thing I will say that might be useful is that it’s difficult to be objective your own work. It’s especially difficult to be objective when you are presently working on something or have only just finished it. Many times I have misjudged my own work upon its completion, often falling into ambivalence about it. I think many artists occasionally misjudge what they have done and I am one of these people. I have learned this many times. But perhaps over time and with some distance, you get the chance to experience things from the past anew, and maybe even make amends. I feel that way about listening to other peoples records, too. For instance, it’s fascinating listening to music that one hasn’t heard for many years. You perceive all this new detail. Nobody was in the room with me re-duxing these songs. I basically knew what to do before starting. The only person I told about this was my friend Alex, who played guitar on the album. He was very encouraging, as it turned out he felt the same way about the album.  In the spirit of other peoples involvement, I asked Alex to offer his thoughts on all of it, and here is what he shared:  “I was already such a big fan of Andy before I started playing with him. When I first heard the initial demos of the People You Love record - I knew it was going to be a special LP. Being asked to play & work on the album is true a career highlight and I’ lm always very proud to show people the work we did together. It’s so great to finally hear the songs presented in the their original sequence, along with the definitive version of the title track (my favourite of Andy’s).” Thanks, Alex. I’m glad he feels that way, because if there is an audience I’m performing for, it’s people like Alex.

Was there a specific moment where you realised, “These songs still have more to say,” or did the idea creep up on you gradually?

I think this a beautiful album and I’m proud of it and what I managed to achieve with the talents and collaboration of the musicians and engineers. I just needed to remember that it is a certain kind of album and it doesn’t need to be anything else. I have young kids now, and sometimes I catch them listening to my old music. I hear my son and even some of his friends sing 'Dog' and 'Baby I Am Nobody Now'. Some other parents tell me their kids have even been learning these songs in their music lessons. This makes me happy. It reminds me that even old songs keep doing their work as they find new people. Creatively, the last few years for me have been about trying to speak simply and clearly, and learning to be disciplined about the order in which I do things or communicate things. These songs can “speak” more clearly now.

How did you decide what stayed, what shifted, and what needed re-imagining? Were there any hard calls where sentimentality had to lose to instinct?

It was mostly very obvious what had to go. Sentimentality wasn’t really such a problem, my annoyance firmly guided me! The only contentious song was 'Dying Star', which in the end I decided to cut. The big addition was the full version of the  title track People You Love. I had brutalised the version of that song on the 2023 version - looping the drums rather than using Ryan Strathie’s live take, trimming the structure to half the length to make it more economical- and it just fell flat as a result. What should have been a main set piece became an almost incidental, unremarkable recording. It never had the chance to bloom slowly, to fully unfold. Thankfully now the full, “real” version is out, and it’s much better by a long shot- billowing and warm and dreamy, it has the opportunity to go on the full journey. It’s not a pop single, but it’s an involving story, its central to the album. My guitarist Alex says it’s now one of his favourite things we’ve done together. To make sure I was really committing this version, I put it up front as track one of the Director’s Cut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=OLAK5uy_mF0IcEvvSRRvXT6SXQ5dVV0U3x5GB63rM&v=At4RbbF_KpI

Did you treat the Director’s Cut like restoration work or more like a remix culture exercise, pulling things apart to see how else they could live? Were there any songs that surprised you by resisting change? Ones that politely said, “Nope, I’m already finished”?

For me it was just a thorough restoration. I’m glad that, as the owner of these master recordings, I can do what I like with them. I did very little to individual tracks. It was the album as a whole that shifted dramatically.

People You Love is already a record deeply concerned with relationships, distance, and emotional perception. Has your understanding of those themes changed since its original release?

No, my understanding has not changed dramatically since. The songs for this album were written during a major turning point in life, a period of great change- the understandings came out of a huge shift in identity and responsibility. Throughout this time I was very reflective. I think the insights that emerged from that time were hard earned and still feel very true. 

Do you think artists get better at editing themselves over time, or just braver about trusting their first instincts?

This is a really interesting question. I want to give a very long answer but Im going to try to be simple. I think basically, when artist get better at trusting their instincts they naturally get better at editing themselves. This is because editing yourself well takes instincts and it takes trust. Editing becomes overwhelming and inconsistent if you are doing it academically, or trying to chase the moving goalposts of the culture around you.  If you are mostly operating alone as a creator, it’s a matter of survival that you develop those instincts in yourself as strongly as you can- you cannot rely on the world to tell you who you are. Some people have these whole self instincts from the beginning, which is always so impressive to witness. Sometimes the instincts are enabled by youthful naivety and idealism, bravado and pure drive. But these things can also develop for artists over time, the ones who keep creating. Along the way an artist’s instincts invariably get tested. Too much concern about external validation can muddle a person and cause all kinds of blockages and burn outs.  Eventually everybody goes through tough times and loses the path. You have to pull yourself back together eventually, sometimes after a reckoning, and to learn how to bring internal ideals through the fire of real world logistics- how to trust yourself even without forthcoming outside validation. 

There’s something quietly vulnerable about reopening old work. Did this process feel exposing, comforting, or strangely neutral?

It felt vindicating and relieving. I’m very glad I did this. I had a brief, imaginary conversation with my past self, the one in 2018 who was writing these songs, and I said to him “you did it, man.”

How do you hope listeners approach the Director’s Cut? As an alternate universe, a companion piece, or a more accurate reflection of your original vision?

To me, this is the definitive version. I hope people listen to this as if it’s an entirely new work, without precedent.

For fans who’ve lived with the original album for years, what do you think they might notice first: sonic detail, emotional shading, or absence?

Well. I don’t think they’ll miss anything. They’ll feel a new kind of through-flow and cohesion without the illusion breaking. Like watching a movie without advertisements.

Have you noticed your audience ageing alongside these songs in the same way you have?

It’s hard to say. I thought more about ageing when I was making the album to begin with, because I was aware that I was moving out of, let’s say, the Australian Triple J demographic with the sonics of this album, and Triple J was where my public career first really took flight. Although 'It’s All Connected' was played on air, Triple J, who had been my main media champions for a long time, sort of stopped supporting my work (even though I think 'Slipping Away' would have made a very good radio song), but it makes sense, especially given that they began to skew in a TikTok adjacent direction after the COVID period changed peoples behaviours.  I knew eventually I would have to find a way to exist credibly beyond any single platform, and keep growing with my audience, because one way or another, we all have to grow (grow older, grow artistically), and I didn’t want to play-act as a 28 year old living in 2015 forever. There’s more to do! I mean, thinking cynically, I guess if I could have my time again, I would have tried to play act just a couple more years, pump out some more smash hits, do a few more big festival slots and make serious bank first before going off on this tangent. I think I could have afforded to be a bit more cynical and commercial about things. There’s always time for integrity later, when nobody’s watching, ha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=OLAK5uy_mF0IcEvvSRRvXT6SXQ5dVV0U3x5GB63rM&v=vjeR318jtaA

You’ve always felt like an artist who values process as much as outcome. Do projects like this change how you think about the idea of a “finished” album?

I think it’s really useful to have a decent idea of what “finished” means before you even begin a project. Before you go down the rabbit hole, have an exit plan. If, like me, you tend to move through a lot of ideas over time, then perhaps try setting really strict time parameters for a project. For instance, in 2024 I made an entire album, Collapse In Bliss, in 40 nights, and it conjures quite a coherent experience as a result and doesn’t feel laboured. Eventually you will want to move on and do something else, you will have some new and exciting idea that starts to inspire you- so make sure you have a plan to wrap the current thing up fully before you embark on a whole new thing.  Reduce the scope and scale of your projects, set a time limit, create clear guidelines around logistics and themes. Create meaningful constraints. Get it done, let it be, and go on with your life.

Does revisiting People You Love give you any clues about where you’re heading next, or is it more about closing a chapter cleanly?

All the albums I’ve ever made, all of the shows I’ve played, right from leaving school until now; they all kind of live concurrently now within me, without time. There are songs I first wrote when I was 16, such as Like A Flame' that I only finished and released in 2024, for example. There are songs like 'Keep On Running' that I think sound just as fresh as they did in 2014.  I don’t want to sound whimsical and pretentious, but I will anyway: there is this sort of, I don’t know, something like a palace in my imagination, where all of these things live together in different rooms at the same time. Chord progressions that came to me in the 9th grade are still intermingling with songs I haven’t yet written. Everything goes in there, in this imaginary place. There are memories of shows I played to five people that are just as vivid as shows I played to 5000.  All of this to say, there is no closed chapter on anything. It all lives. You can go into these rooms in your imagination any time. I think you just spend some time in one, you visit another, you come and go as you please. I have always had the instinct to try going to different places, to see what I can find. Once or twice, lots of people have come with me, but not always. But I feel that I am quite free, and when all of this is done, I will have the most good and beautiful palace I could have made, a place worth visiting.

Finally, if this really is the Director’s Cut, should we expect deleted scenes, commentary tracks… or is that a dangerous promise?

I’ve been trying to find as much content as I can—footage, demos, rehearsals, just to have the archive. Time moves so fast and I don’t want the events to disappear from history. I did something I’ve never done before and put together a month’s worth of social media posts that I scheduled - snippets of video with little bits of story. It all came out over December, but most of it I have taken down now. I don’t know if I want to share my personal stories in that format in the name of content, I’m not sure why but it doesn’t feel quite right. Perhaps because I’m giving people information when I feel they haven’t even asked for it. My life is not “content”. There may be a better way to share all the things I’d be very happy to talk about with people who want to know, but for now I don’t know. I’m always happy to talk about it with people at length if they ask…Like now!

What's next? We saw you feeling like you might want to "have another go" at making a record, or taking on potential success? 

I have an album of interesting new instrumentals that I made after finishing Collapse in Bliss, built around live drums and synthesisers. It’s semi-electronic, and draws inspiration from certain film and computer soundtracks and even a bit of dungeon synth in moments. I will put that out at some point.  Aside from that I also have a bunch of songs that are quite lively and colourful which could become an album. They’re full of the melodies and grimy, wonky synths and bombastic drums and rhythms that people tend to associate with me with after Sea Of Approval. I think this is what I would do next.  It’s been curious to see, since the rise of TikTok maybe, what seems to be a kind of temporary creative conservatism appear in indie pop music- as in even for artists who aren’t on major labels, which is most people. It’s almost as though people aren’t sure who or what they should be appealing to, and so go to the middle ground. We may not experience singular zeitgeists as we did through, say, the indie sleaze years or the folky years, but what we have done as independent artists is A&R ourselves as though we’re all going to be mainstream pop stars. It’s easy to mitigate risk by vocal tuning, clinical editing, generic production and songwriting, and by meticulously copying the styles set by others, often overseas. Even people who are using risqué imagery are making pretty normal music. I want to stress that there is no “normal time” in music, no “normal way”. Because of our place the culture, our relationship to social trends and changing technology, the music world is in a constant state of disruption and uncertainty. I am very sympathetic to people who really want to make music into a viable career, and are trying to make a product that works algorithmically in order to facilitate that. Sometimes there is a line to walk.  But, and this might make a decent pull quote, in the creative arts, it’s often far better to mitigate financial risks but take creative ones, rather than to mitigate creative risks but take financial ones.  When people ask me for creative advice, I sometimes encourage them to draw a Venn diagram : in one circle write “what I would do if I were guaranteed to fail” and in the other “what I would do if I were guaranteed to succeed”- and whatever is there in the space they overlap is a good place to start. 

PEOPLE YOU LOVE (DIRECTOR'S CUT) OUT NOW INDEPENDENTLY