“Band For Hire” Hollywood Superstar meets with Worldpeace DMT.
Artist Take / 21 July 2025 / By: Sydney Sweeney
Worldpeace DMT is not a solo project or a collective. It's a shapeshifting acoustic project. A brass band. A performance that manifests in differing forms in a variety of venues; a solo acoustic project at Gonzo’s NYC, a seven-person instrumental band at EU; RE at the Cause, and a live brass band at Ormside.
Hollywood Superstar met up with Worldpeace DMT on the eve of their first album release: The Velvet Underground & Rowan. The new album has a happy-go-lucky sound, straight out of the early noughties, repackaged into a self-reflective cacophony of positivity alongside 60s, folky inflections. Hollywood Superstar first saw Rowan Miles - one half of duo The Femcels - perform at The Cause as part of the seven person Worldpeace DMT ensemble. Looking like Michelle Philips of the Mamas and Papas she added a whimsy to the set, a magically careering, sweetened melody that balanced out the night's headliners, EesDeeKid, FakeMink and Bassvictim. Listening to The Velvet Underground & Rowan simulates a serotonin level forgotten in the mire of the post-2016 drainer epidemic. One-and-a-half minute songs like Hey Marshmellow featuring electronic adventure time sounds with screamo vocals - it's post-hyperpop poptimism, or indiepop revival.
In May, Hollywood Superstar saw Worldpeace DMT perform a solo acoustic set at Gonzo's, NYC, a recording studio turned events space in St. Marks Square. The night was a beatnik, new-age, eccentric come absurdist mix of performance, poetry and live music curated by Cormac Mac. It featured performances by Charlie Osborne, Skjold Rambo, Born Weekend and Worldpeace DMT. Before his set, Hollywood Superstar found Worldpeace DMT busking in the badly lit, leopard print carpeted green room to an audience of Londoners and New Yorkers. He bought a welcome aura of 70's cult-leader (I feel like there were girls at his feet?) meets 00s bushwick hipster, or brit-pop frontman, in a time of indiesleaze electro and sadboi bedroom pop.
This interview was conducted at the Worldpeace DMT headquarters - a bedroom in "East Road" - filled by music equipment and a single Beastie Boys poster. The interview started at 11pm after Worldpeace DMT, played 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 quit stripping and believe in herself. The lyrics of the song, X's Defiance ft. Friendo x Soldierr x heavy rain… have a kind of nïave sweetness and an uplifting melody that matches, or balances, the ethos of happiness at the core of World peace DMT.
Phoenix rising from the ashes
but she loves to shake her ass
shake that ass for some cash
throw a stone and break that glass
East Road is a house-come-recording studio, which makes sense, because World peace DMT is way more than a solo project. It’s a collaboration within a scene that lives together, plays together and informs each other's production. Ike Clateman, producer and one-half of Bassvictim joins us mid-interview, coming up the stairs from the bedroom/studio directly below. He tells me that World peace DMT is a conductor, more than anything, he controls the cacophagny.
Rowan Miles and World peace DMT (2025)
Across two hours, Worldpeace DMT tells Hollywood Superstar about his lore, resistance to the Radio 6 Music pipeline and the need for optimistic major chords.
Hollywood Superstar
Do you mind just recapping the last hour? My headphones were recording Aidan and Thomas playing GTA downstairs.
WPDMT
Yeah, that's ok. I really enjoy talking about myself.
The Beach Boys play
HS
You mentioned that the music you used to make was sadder and that now you’ve started making more upbeat stuff - why?
WPDMT
Meeting Rowan gave me permission to make a different kind of music to what I ws usually drawn toward. 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.
HS
You said that Worldpeace DMT is like a wedding band for hire, adaptable, happy to do anything.
WPDMT
It is - it’s a gun for hire. I wouldn’t do anything - but if someone proposed an idea like writing library music, an orchestral performance or a Bassvictim acoustic album, as Worldpeace DMT, then you know - I’d be happy to help facilitate.
HS
To 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.
Worldpeace DMT
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, Worldpeace DMT caught people off guard.
HS
I know people were caught off guard at the cause - they weren't expecting the aesthetic of Worldpeace DMT - it didn’t match what the crowd was looking for after FakeMink and Eesdeekid.
IKE CLATEMAN
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.
Charlie Osborne and Worldpeace DMT performing at Gonzo's, NYC. (2025)
HS
You said you and Rowan would always be the only ones playing retro music at parties, and everyone hated it.
WPDMT
Rowan bought me back to enjoying music I hadn’t thought about for a while. I first met her at Ormside with Ike when I was less confident. I thought she was really cool. Like, someone who wouldn't want to talk to me. Eventually, we got to working together and created this weird universe of our own. While it sounded traditional, it felt exciting and fresh, diferent from the other sounds being out out.
The way in which we work is that if somethings funny then 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.
- Worldpeace DMT performing with Rowan Miles* (2025)
IC
I guess you could imagine it as a meme in the beginning. They were 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. I feel as though its a sense of sincere irony that i've only ever seen americans be able to do.
IC
Anyone in LDN making music right now you wanna flame?
WPDMT
Well, I exist in a complete microcosm of my own friends and right now I’m happy there.
HS
Worldpeace DMT 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.
WPDMT
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 -
IC
Rallied around it. Decided it was a thing that needed to happen.
WPDMT
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 and live action brass performances. I’d like to do everything.
WorldPeace DMT performing with 300skullsandcounting (2025)
HS
How did that play into the album - that mentality?
WPDMT
I'd always been a musician since I was young, but starting Worldpeace DMT I got more confident. It’s almost like a Pack-a-Punch on Nazi zombies in COD, 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.
You know, there are so many fucking projects, like ** REDACTED* like, can you tell me what ** REDACTED’s fucking identity is? I feel like Worldpeace DMT has an identity, I’m proud of that.
HS
Well, can you tell me what Worldpeace DMT identity is?
WPDMT
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. Worldpeace DMT is a crusade against that. I can see them coming for me from a mile off. 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.
HS
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?
WPDMT
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.
