US singer Gallant may be one of the most exciting new artists in the world in 2016 but his music follows a pretty traditional formula. He takes his experiences and feelings and externalises them with a voice that could shatter bullet proof glass. That sort of sonic aesthetic doesn’t work if you’re not a brilliant musician with an intimate ability to connect with your audience, in fact it’s boring.

Gallant’s far from boring. His debut album Ology is one of the year’s most confident, emotional and self-exploratory releases of the year and the best part about it is it’s not perfect. He’s still growing, working on himself as a person and a musician, and it’s that journey that shines through and makes the record human.

He’s about to stun Aussie audiences for the first time, bringing his powerful brand of R&B to the country for Bluesfest plus a couple of sideshows. We spoke to him from his home in LA where he was spending some rare time relaxing to chat about his mental year, which included collaborating with Seal and Elton John, and about using these experiences to keep getting better.

I suppose you haven’t had to spend a lot of time at home this year?

Yeah not at all. I’m cherishing the time that I have here. The little amount of time.

When you get home do you use the time to record and write or do you just chill out?

It depends on what is going on. Since I’ve been touring a lot I’m not really writing and recording for anything right now. Maybe doing a couple one offs, doing a little collaboration. But most of the time it’s relaxation so to speak.

Is it interesting to go from spending so long writing your record to taking it out to the world and taking a timeout from creating music?

Yeah it is but I think that it’s all contributing to a balance that’s really necessary. Once you get sick of one world, you will have the other world waiting for you to get back to it. I guess it makes everything a little more sustainable to have those two sides.

Do you feel like touring your songs, they’ve taken on a new life and have expanded since you started performing them?

A little bit but nothing drastic. There was an example of this one song that I wrote maybe like two or three years ago called Jupiter and I ended up doing a version of it with my band because it took on such a different meaning after performing it for a couple of years. The version of that song then ended on my album. There’s definitely room for any interpretation to come back and influence how it sounds on a record.

I’m interested to know how you see the year you’ve had. Do you have time to sit back and think you’ve performed with Seal and Elton John and played Coachella?

It’s definitely a blur but I’m honoured to have had those opportunities. I’m really excited for what is next. I’m just so honoured that those people took the time to listen to music outside of their own world so it’s inspiring to see them still at the forefront of what’s going on. And also to think about it a little too much would completely freak me out. I’m just really honoured to have worked with those guys.

Is it interesting for you to step out of your own musical world? The collaboration with Sufjan Stevens was one that on paper didn’t make much sense but it was a perfect match.

Definitely. Getting outside of your comfort zone inch by inch can only lead to incremental growth. I’m really stoked to have had those situations come my way.

Have you listened back to your album, apart from playing it live?

No, I haven’t.

Do you think that would be difficult to do? I know a lot of people find it hard to accept it’s finished.

Yeah, it’s kind of past the point...before I put it out granted I didn’t really have a lot of time to sit with it because I was working on it up until an hour before it was released. You can obssess over something so much but once it’s there, it’s there. It’s like performances, it’s healthy to listen back to it every once and a while to try to improve and try to make it sound better but I don’t think it does you any good to watch it over and over again thinking about what could’ve been.

Do you like to finish the music and get it out as soon as possible because once upon a time you’d finish an album and sit on it for four months but now you’re dropping it an hour after your finish it?

Yeah. I didn’t really have the luxury of finishing the album and sitting back while some team thinks up some sort of strategy. It wasn’t really that type of album. Mostly for me and the people that ended up working on it were a result of me meeting genuine people and sharing ideas. It was very organic and definitely not meticulously crafted in that sense.

Your whole career even from the early EPs has been very organic. Does it feel for you that’s it’s been an eventual growth where your hard work has paid off?

Yeah I think so. I think it’s gradual because I’m really focussing on myself as a human being and it’s just about really excavating myself as thoroughly as I can, it’s how I learnt to open up and interact with the world around me. Focussing on that and making that the focal point of everything else that I do has really helped me not only become a better human being but the byproduct of that is the music that I feel is really accurate and vulnerable. It all goes hand in hand but I’m definitely making stuff to help me progress.

Has travelling the world and coming into contact with a lot of different people opened up your eyes in terms of how you interact with the world and yourself?

Yeah definitely. First of all, I’m not the kind of guy to be the centre of attention. I’m very, well I’m not now, but I used to be very to myself and I didn’t talk to anyone outside of a certain circle. To break that area between how you see yourself and how other people see you and have to kind of meet people at all these shows and these random places I’ve never been...I don’t wanna say it’s overwhelming but it’s definitely an olympic sized swimming pool of new experiences and it feels great to use that every once in a while.