When Cool Accidents picks up the phone to LA-based Thomston, he's gearing up for the release of his dual-EP - Los Angeles and London - shaped to be two sides of the same coin, but juxtaposed in terms of tone.

As you'd expect, songs on Los Angeles are peppy, optimistic and upbeat like Casual, while London boasts darker, more moody offerings like Middle Name. Thomston - real name Thomas Stoneman - is LA-dwelling these days, his Kiwi accent softly littered with Americanisms, but explains that he was born in London and moved to Auckland at a young age. 

He's thoughtful, considered and fiercely honest. With a colossal fanbase in the US, it's time we got to know him better. Meet Thomston.

Congrats on the EPs coming out! How long have they been in the works?

I'm so, so psyched it’s finally happening, it's felt like forever. I realised that one of the songs on there, Guts, is gonna be four years old when it comes out.  

Is that hard to deal with – do you still resonate with the emotions of the song having written it so long ago? 

Weirdly, the songs have had such like a metamorphosis, where they kind of grew alongside of me as an artist. So the demo sounds hilariously different to the final product, which has given me the opportunity to like, kind of keep falling in love with it at every stage. I had the chorus that I did on a writing trip when I was in London in 2015, in March, and then I sat on that for ages. And then it took like, I don't know how many years for me to rewrite the verses, but I kind of just revisited every now and then until it felt right. And then it got reproduced and then mixed and then mastered and so every time one of those things happens, it kind of feels like a new song and it’s able to still resonate which is cool. 

Tell me about Casual, it sounds like it’s based off an experience you had… did you have someone in mind when you wrote that one?

Yeah, it is. It was one of those things where I think I didn't know myself well enough at the time, but I really thought that a casual relationship would be good for me. And what ended up happening was I quickly realised that there are aspects of my personality that prevent me from being in a relationship like that, and I need an outlet for my love and attention. And for that to not be taken seriously affects me. I don't think she was particularly good at being in a casual relationship either, so I think we both entered into it being like, ‘yeah, it’ll be casual’, but then ended up being anything but, it got too real too quick and then too messy and now I have a song!

read more: Thomston Shares London & Los Angeles Travel Guide

What gave you the idea to do two EPs and theme them by city and vibe? Can you talk about the vibe of each for me?

I think that Los Angeles and London are both just such famous cities and people kind of already have a pretty strong idea of what those cities are like and they've got a strong sense of the imagery. So I think when people think about LA, they think about sunshine and palm trees and the heat, whereas when they think of London, they think of like, clouds and it's colder and windier and kind of like, there's something really regal and stately and cool about it. 

So playing off that, I didn't go into writing these things with that in mind. What ended up happening was that I had a song called Los Angeles that I absolutely loved. It's like my favourite song that I've written. And I wrote London heaps later. So at that point, I had all the songs. And I didn't know how to make them fit together. I didn't really know what I was doing with them. I was like, ‘is it just going to be an album? Is this is going to be a mixtape, like, what is this going to be?’ Because I wrote them with so many different people over the span of as long as four years ago. So it's tough.

But as soon as I wrote London, everything kind of just clicked. And I looked back on the songs, I could really easily go through them one at a time and go, ‘that's Los Angeles, that’s London. That’s Los Angeles, and that’s London.’ It really neatly fell into these two different categories. That was like three quarters of the way through the process, and then I spent the last quarter with the ones that were a little bit on the edge, pushed them and make them fit. ‘Be more LA!’ so I wrapped some sunglasses on it and told it to only wear black.

Did you ever live in London?

Well, I was actually born in London so I’ve kind of got this like, soul connection to it, which is probably completely in my head but when I'm there, everything feels right. And that's a really important city to me and so is Los Angeles. So, yeah, it worked out really nicely because they’re both really famous cities, but I wouldn't want to have like an EP called Auckland!

So when did you move from London back to Auckland where you grew up?

I was like, really young. Like a kid. I definitely consider myself a New Zealander, I’ve got the accent, and I’ve grown up here, but every time I've gone back to London, it's really special.

What are your thoughts on the album prospect nowadays? You last dropped Topograph in 2016 and have since dropped a lot of singles and EPs, do you like working to that model better? 

I mean, it's weird. I find that I would like to release music more frequently and the whole EP process is a way to do that. But weirdly enough, it's still taking me just as much time as it would have taken to write an album and these two EPs are enough material to be an album. I just think that the whole idea of making an album feels like something that I need to go into the headspace of writing an album with. And so, after the first album that I made, I kind of just said, ‘you know what, I don't know what the next thing is going to sound like. I don't know what I'm doing with it. And all I know is that I want it to be brighter than happier and more uplifting.’

I spent a bunch of time trying out different things, and just seeing what worked. And then by the time I had enough songs to make an album, I didn't feel like I'd made an album, I just felt like I made a ton of songs. And for me, the album process is a really start-to-finish “you're making an album” feeling and I have a clear vision. So I think that's what I want to do next, I want to do another album after these EPs, that's the plan at this point.

So next time you’ll go into the studio set on making an album and focusing on cohesiveness.

Absolutely, I think being cohesive is really important to me. And that's why grouping these EPs into these two different sides has really helped me feel good about this release and helps me feel like everything is intentional. Even if it is only intentional in hindsight. That's important to me because I don't want people to listen to something and be like, ‘well, this is all over the place.’ But yeah, that's kind of, that's the vibe moving forward. I just want to spend some time like, trying to figure out what I want to do. And then once I've locked onto the thing, that's what I'm going to get into album mode. So I'm kind of in that phase of trying to figure out what I want the next thing to sound like now.

You’ve spoken about your mental health at length, particularly about The Heights. Do you feel an obligation to speak out about these things given that so many fans' eyes are on you?

Yeah, I do feel that. I kind of had this long-standing belief prior that I was able to be really closed off and distant and mysterious. And that was the way that I was just going to do it. But then I started getting more like, DMs and just like personal messages from people, where I was like, ‘Oh wait, these people are really like, these people share something in my music that relates to them so wholeheartedly that they feel like they know me.’ And some of them did, like, some of them knew me before they talked to me. And they reached out and they’d kind of share their own experiences and I was like, ‘oh yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly what that song was about. And I'm sorry that you went through that.’ And then you know, they see me as someone who, because I've written about it, I’ve processed it, and I'm able to give them advice. 

Sometimes I feel qualified to do that. And sometimes I really don't. But I think just making myself more accessible and more transparent and open to a certain extent on the internet has really helped me reach people that probably would not feel comfortable reaching out to me. And there have been people that have told me that them connecting with me has been really important for them. Just knowing that I can help someone is like, really, really cool for me. So I want to do that as much as possible.

I saw you post a photo with Kehlani! Were you writing with her? 

I wasn't. I wasn't. That would be really fun and I hope that's something I get to do. She knows how much I love her music and yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. She told me where to eat in LA though.

Are there any artists that have influenced your sound for these EPs? I feel like your vocals are very soulful on these EPs, almost like old Justin Timberlake, but is there anyone that we wouldn't think of that influenced this body of work?

Justin Timberlake is definitely one of them vocally. I love how he does the octaves double-tracking on all his vocals, which is a cool sound. I love doing that. 

Frank Ocean as always is a big musical inspiration to me. But other than that, I never really consciously, while I was in the studio, was thinking about an artist and being like, ‘oh, I want to sound like this.’ I think it was more I was just listening to a lot and then at the studio I try to check the influences. I just try to create without referencing too much because I find that if I'm listening to tons of music, the referencing kind of happens subconsciously. And when it’s subconscious it’s always the best. If I go into a session and say ‘I wanna write a song like this’, it never really turns out turns out right, it kind of just feels like a worse version of the song!