Artist Take / 19 July 2025 / By: Sydney Sweeney
"Band For Hire" Hollywood Superstar interviews WPDMT
WPDMT INTERVIEW

WPDMT stands for “World Peace Dimethyltryptamine”. It’s not a solo project or a collective, but a shapeshifting band that manifests in various forms across: a solo acoustic project at Gonzo’s, NYC, a seven-person instrumental band at EU, RE at the Cause, a live brass band at Ormside.
This interview was conducted at the WPDMT headquarters (aka a bedroom on East Road, Plaistow) filled by music stuff and a single Beastie Boys poster. The interview started at 11pm after WPDMT played me a rap song that he and his housemates had mixed earlier that day. It’s a half uplifting, half comedic rap song about how their friend should leave the strip club and believe in herself: Isobel’s Defiance ft. Friendo x Soldierr x heavy rain… ”phoenix rising from the ashes/ but she loves to shake her ass/ shake that ass for some cash/ throw a stone and break the glass…”.
It’s a house-come-recording studio, which makes sense, because WPDMT is way more than a solo project. It’s a collaboration with a scene that lives together, plays together and informs each other's work. As Ike says, mid-interview, between breaks of him and Maria working on a new album on the floor directly below: “Leo is a conductor”.
Across two hours, WPDMT tells Hollywood Superstar about his lore, resistance to the Radio 6 Music pipeline and the need for optimistic major chords.


Q&A
Lydia:
Do you mind just recapping the last hour? My headphones were recording Aidan and Thomas playing GTA downstairs.
LEO:
Yeah, that's ok. I really enjoy talking about myself.
The Beach Boys play
LW:
You mentioned that the music you used to make was sadder, and now you’ve started making more upbeat stuff - why?
LEO:
Meeting Rowan gave me permission to make a different kind of music for me. A lot of the music we both loved and grew up on I’d kept shelved for a long time, she gave it a new context which helped me find a way to approach it. When I was younger everything had to be moody. Songs come out much brighter now.
LYDIA : You said that WPDMT is like a wedding band for hire, adaptable, happy to do anything.
LEO:
It is - it’s a gun for hire. I wouldn’t do anything but if someone proposed an idea, writing library music, an orchestral performance, Bassvictim acoustic album, as WPDMT, then you know - I’d be happy to help facilitate.
LW:
Too generalise pop music is often seen as more optimistic and upbeat while music coming from the underground proportionally feels darker and more aggressive. Your music is fun and bright but a far cry from the mainstream.
LEO:
I’m not trying to whitewash everything with happy clappy music. I like dark music. I just think that at this point, in this scene, for whatever reason, WPDMT caught people off guard.
LW:
I know people were caught off guard at the cause - they weren't expecting the aesthetic of WPDMT - it didn’t match what the crowd was looking for after FakeMink and Eesdeekid.
Neighbourhood Announcement Squad
IKE:
It’s just a melodic sensibility that's very foreign to contemporary ears. Right now, Leo’s sound is happy dub reggae mixed with weird space sounds. He uses cowboy chords and Rolling Stones like major rock chords that people don’t do nowadays. I don’t know why that sensibility went out - Leo’s sound is very rock and roll in its sensibility - but after that, emo and RnB and other kinds of black music and shoegaze took over. Something's not so imitates rock and roll chords. You know? That went out of fashion.

LYDIA:
You said you and Rowan would always be the only ones playing retro music at parties, and everyone hated it.
LEO:
Rowan bought me back to enjoying music I hadn’t thought about for a while. I first met her at Ormside with Ike, I was less confident then. I thought she was really cool, someone who wouldn't want to talk to me but we eventually got working together and created this weird universe of our own where we were making this music that was, in a sense, traditional but to us it felt exciting and fresh. The way in which we work is that, if somethings funny, its good - if we laugh, then we use it. Whether its a vocal take, an idea for a song or a lyric or a cover or whatever. We are always just trying to make each other laugh- once we’ve done that we’re like lets do it.

IKE:
I guess you could imagine it as a meme in the beginning, they were just making music and if it made them smile it was good. It doesn’t mean its comedy rock. It’s honestly surprising your able to do this as a British person because, I feel as though its a sense of sincere irony that ive only ever seen americans be able to do.
IKE:
Anyone in LDN making music right now you wanna flame?
LEO:
Well, I exist in a complete microcosm of my own friends and right now I’m happy there.
LYDIA:
WPDMT is a product of its environment - the way it was created was from everyone around you, right? You guys are always working on each others projects, producing etc.
LEO:
Yeah well it came about from a last minute name I decided on for a show we did in Glasgow. I made some songs and Ike was hyped about it and suddenly people were into it also - there was a collection of ten or so people who really helped. I do the work, write most the songs and do my best to make it happen. But for some reason everyone -
IKE:
Rallied around it. Decided it was a thing that needed to happen.
LEO:
Sometimes i feel like i’m just a conductor, for others. I’ve got one album coming out with Rowan and we’re working on a second at the moment. Who knows what will happen. I want to do film scores, live action brass performances. I’d like to do everything.

LW:
How did that play into the album - that mentality?
LEO:
It’'s almost like a pack a punch on nazi zombies in COD, once I got that confidence, the gates were open, and I just could make whatever music I wanted. Finishing it was hard cause I had to mix it, but once I found the root of it’s identity it more or less wrote itself. I knew the character, I just had to play him I guess.
You know, there are so many fucking projects, like ** REDACTED* like, can you tell me what ** REDACTED’s fucking identity is? I feel like WPDMT has an identity, I’m proud of that.
LYDIA:
Well, can you tell me what WPDMT’s identity is?
LEO:
I can tell you what it isn’t. I don’t want to be part of the landfill of BBC 6 Music. Like the thumbs up, verified, whatever. I live in a house with three American people. I have few English friends and an irrational disdain for the music scene in the UK right now. WPDMT is a crusade against that. I can see them coming for me from a mile of, they're like, oh, this guy. He should join the crew. Fuck that. Fuck all that. Fuck it. I’m speaking like that to ward myself off because that's the stream, the kind of road that is most likely to try absorb me and I’d rather be out on my own.
LYDIA:
What do you want your music to be? How do you want people to feel when they listen to it? If not BBC Radio 6 coded - then what is it?
LEO:
If I can make music which has a function in people's lives, so that they can listen to it when they have a bath, or wake up in the morning, on the bus home or with their friends, then I'm happy.
Worldpeace DMT’s debut album The Velvet Underground & Rowan made with Rowan Please was released earlier this month