Dean Lewis knows what moves him. It’s the call that never came. It’s the cruel act of betrayal, the hope that fades, the moment of bliss recalled in darker days when all is lost. Most of all, it’s finding the turn of phrase, the tone and the melody that brings all this brimming to the surface of every heart that’s ever felt the same way.

“When I create music, I don’t just want to connect to the ears of the listener, I also want to connect to the heart. But when I can connect to both, it’s even better,” says the Sydney-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter. With his heart-breaking second album, The Hardest Love, “if anything, I’ve gone further into myself, trying to zone in on the little niche I’m good at, really figuring out my voice, my reason to exist.”

That “little niche” has accounted for more than 7.5 billion streams and 3.8 million album and EP sales since Waves and Be Alright got under the skin of a smitten global audience circa 2016-2018. Dean’s #1 album, A Place We Knew, sealed a surreal trip from his grandma’s spare room to Jimmy Kimmel Live! touring Europe and the US three times and winning ARIAs for Album of the Year, Best Male Artist and Song of the Year (7 Minutes) along the way