South African-born Australian singer Troye Sivan toured the US twice last year.  Before the album, there was the Blue Neighborhood Tour, and then came the Suburbia Tour, which was quite bigger.  “Last time it felt like ‘Hi, I am Troye, let me sing a few songs for you,’ and now you’re coming to a show.”

Troye credits YouTube with much of his success, having started “throwing videos into space” when it was just a year old.  His audience grew quickly and he realized that “more people had seen my video in two days than I had ever sung for” and “this is the way to get things done.” 

Expanding from the freedom of YouTube into the conservative world of pop radio can be a challenge.  He says he is “lucky with my record labels, they are chill and let me do what I want” but, “radio is a whole different ball game.”  Writing the right song at the right moment and being in the right places at the right time is really difficult.  “I take my hat off to anyone who has done it successfully.” 

His duet with Alessia Cara, “Wild,” grew out of a series of cover versions.  Troye covered “Here” on the Elvis Duran show, and Alessia covered “Youth” on her euro tour.  Troye texted her saying “we could keep covering each others songs or we could do something properly.”  Alessia sang a verse for (her favorite song of Troye’s) “Wild” and it was added to the album version.

The fashion world has also embraced Troye.  He walked the runway for Yves Saint Laurent (which he described as living in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”) and was on the cover of V Magazine.  When asked about being draped with a nude female model he said he was totally fine with it as it was fun and art.  “Part of being gay for me is liberation and being able to do whatever you want.  Doing things to shake people up and remind them that none of this matters is an important thing.”