Up From Down Under: How New Zealand’s Zane Lowe Became ‘The Rock Star Whisperer’
Categoria: Musica
Billboard caught up with Lowe for a glimpse at a career that has taken him from the Land of the Long White Cloud, to the BBC in London and now one of the biggest gigs in music with Apple Music.
Por Billboard | 29/05/2026
When Zane Lowe speaks into the mic, his audience outnumbers the population of his homeland. Lowe hails from New Zealand, a 5 million-strong nation with a rugby obsession and a seriously healthy music scene. Like many of his countrymen and women, this Kiwi is well travelled. Now based in Los Angeles, Lowe has served as Apple Music’s global creative director and lead anchor of Apple Music 1 since 2015. Prior to joining Apple in the United States — the world’s biggest company by market cap — he called London home, with stints at BBC Radio 1, XFM and presenting “Gonzo” on MTV 2. Apple doesn’t publicly release real-time or exact daily listener numbers for Apple Music 1. The platform does, however, boast over 112 million paid subscribers globally, and the station, is known to be one of the largest continuous radio broadcast networks in the world. With that, Lowe is a flag bearer for NZ. In the worlds of music and broadcasting, his is the most recognizable Kiwi accent on earth, and his guests are the biggest artists in the business. None of it is a fluke. The likes of Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, RAYE and countless others have experienced Lowe’s relaxed but well-researched interview technique. He’s the Rock Star Whisperer. Lowe recently visited Australia, where he participated in an exclusive on-stage conversation last Sunday, May 24, with triple j Mornings host Lucy Smith at Sydney’s City Recital Hall, part of Vivid Minds’ Creative Trailblazers series . His tips for a life in music and media? “Never expect the talent to be happy to be there,” he told Smith. Also, “nerd the f*** out,” “really care,” and most importantly, “listen to the music.” Billboard.com also caught up with the broadcaster, talent-spotter and artist, for a glimpse at a career that has taken him from the Land of the Long White Cloud to the one of the biggest gigs in music. Billboard: Do you remember when the door opened up for you? Zane Lowe: Yeah, very clearly. I was at working at Max TV in Auckland, and, you know, we were doing shows and having a great time making this free-to-air music channel. It was really fun. I was beginning to wonder what else there is. Is there something else I could keep doing for a long time, you know? And I got this email from a guy called Brent Hansen. An email was so new back then. It was the strangest; the way he said it was like, “saw your tape. Love, dad?” We’re good friends now. To this day I don’t know why he finished his emails “dad,” which I thought was really endearing and really cool. But it probably was an acronym for all I f—ing know. It was just funny. And I just remember thinking, “what tape, how, who? What?” It was just so short and open-ended. That was the moment, the first time I felt that feeling of, like, the unknown and what was possible really grabbed me. Dude, this could be a life-changing moment if you let it and focus and nurture it. Subconsciously, I think that’