Rufus Du Sol’s Live from Joshua Tree is a vision of what music will be like in 2020

It started out as a joke, but Rufus Du Sol’s Live from Joshua Tree is a vision of what music will be like in 2020.

And it all started with a joke.

Inspired by a two-day writing trip at California’s Joshua Tree, dual Grammy Award-nominated electro trio Rufus Du Sol returned to play a live show in the desert in September last year. To absolutely nobody, apart from a film crew and a few cacti.

The group had previously visited the iconic landscape to find inspiration for their third album, 2018’s Solace.

The trip was fruitful — they discovered the genesis of album highlight, Lost In My Mind — but it also planted a seed which would take two years to bear fruit.

“We started joking about putting together a sunrise set in the desert where we would play to no one,” drummer James Hunt has said of that trip. “People talk a lot of shit in the desert at 5am, but walking around this alien world at dawn, we definitely felt there was something calling us back out there.”

With arts industries dissolving and tours being cancelled all over the globe, Rufus’ 45-minute gig is an eerie look at what the future is going to be like in 2020, for all musicians.

“I thought that actually the other day… it’s a funny thought,” frontman Tyrone Lindqvist says. “In the middle of nowhere, to no one.”

At the time Watch spoke to Lindqvist, the virus’ global spread had not yet seriously entered Australia’s collective consciousness.

But even then, there was a hint of pessimism when Lindqvist spoke of the band’s chances of touring this year. There could be a big silver lining though: expect a new Rufus record in 2020 with the group forced to stay indoors. The band already had a “whole bunch of time to write this year” anyway, Lindqvist says.

“We are always are a little bit… naively hopeful that we’ll finish a record sooner than what we do, and it always takes a bit longer,” he says.

“We were hoping to put something out this year.”

The Joshua Tree experiment, however, was a lot harder thing to pull together than a standard studio record. Originally intended to be a live-stream, the goal was to play in the desert, somewhere, and during the sunset, while touching on lesser-played tracks from three outstanding records (Atlas, Bloom and Solace) so far.

Over an 18-month period of scouting locations, the group originally considered the salt flats in Death Valley.

But it proved to be difficult to get equipment there or attain the necessary permits. They eventually circled back to Joshua Tree, which “held a special place in our hearts”, Lindqvist says, after that two-day writing trip.

“It was serendipitous for us to film something out there,” he says.

Apart from Innerbloom, the band purposefully shunned signature live songs like You Were Right, Like An Animal and Brighter, preferring the likes of Underwater, New Sky to No Place.

Lindqvist admits the gig was a something of a left-turn for the group, too. “It’s super unique,” he says. “Doing that in the desert in front of no people, was definitely bizarre. We’d never really experienced that.”

At least some of it was familiar, though. Preferring to play the sunset shift at music festivals, the time slot was commonplace, despite the lack of a crowd.

“That’s our favourite set time,” he says. “It’s the most immersive for a light show. There’s something magical that happens with the crowd when you go from daytime and you shift into night time.

“They get wild, it’s like a longer journey too. It might only be 40 minutes, or an hour … but they transition with you.”

Strangely, Lindqvist feels more exposed in front of a camera than performing to fans.

“It’s very revealing actually,” he says. “Sometimes the crowd gives me life and helps me be me. But when you remove them… there’s an understanding the people are going to watch it, and I’m thinking about that (and) how am I performing? How’s my hair look?’

“All these really, really, very shallow and insecure thoughts flow around in my head. I definitely had to get out of that sh...y space by looking around at the environment. I was grateful to be in such a beautiful place.”

As the frontman of one of the country’s most popular acts, of any genre, it’s hard to fathom Lindqvist is actually an insecure soul. He admits he cares “too much” about what people think of him and how he’s perceived. “I have these little layers, like masks, in front of me,” he says. “I don’t want to have them, I just want to be me ... be OK with being me. I definitely felt insecure doing it (at Joshua Tree), and I’d love to feel more secure and maybe in a few years I will.”

Lindqvist says no particular song taps into this anxiety, though.

Rather, each album is something of a sonic diary entry over a two to three year period, while still being specific to each member’s experiences. It’s more like a reflection of a time. Each album has a timestamp on it,” he says. “I listen to those songs and it takes me back there. Whatever we do next, I’m sure will be a timestamp for me of being comfortable with who I am, being authentic. I imagine that will come out inherently.”

One song in particular, New Sky, reflect Lindqvist’s darkest period, and ultimately, his relationship with himself. While each member would have a “separate, personal answer” about the song’s meaning, for the singer, it’s clear cut.

“For me, it’s drugs,” he says. “I consider myself as having had a drug problem. It’s been a long process for me. I’ve had sobriety for … a month short of two years. That’s been a really big thing for me. It’s been really challenging and hard and I was scared. Some things were harder than other things to let go of than others.”

But with a fiancee, and an eight-month-old son, life has improved vastly for the singer away from the stage. “Even though it’s been difficult,” he says. “That (New Sky) feels like a preamble for me… before all of all those things happened.

“It just feels like those parts of my life are little gifts in being willing to go into the unknown and saying bye to what I know.”

All musicians will be forced to do the same as the world faces a once-in-a-generation pandemic.

Rufus Du Sol: Live from Joshua Tree is out now