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It’s been four years since Melbourne-born musician G Flip moved to the USA in the hope of turning ARIA-award-winning success into global recognition. What they didn’t expect to find in LA during that time was love. But sometimes life happens when you least expect it.
Inside G Flip and wife Chrishell Stause’s $US3.3 million Hollywood Hills mansion, there’s a neon sign on the wall which reads “Welcome to the Madhouse”. The sign was a gift to Stause, a star of the real-estate TV show Selling Sunset, from Australian singer Tones & I on the night Tones launched her debut album in LA in 2021.
Since Stause and G Flip tied the knot in Las Vegas in 2023, G Flip has been adding pieces to the ranch-style home. There’s a custom-made cabinet with all of G Flip’s vinyl records, for instance, a piano centre stage in the lounge room and guitars hung on walls like artwork.
“The home is very beautiful – a wide, open-plan living space with a dark-blue kitchen that feels quite feminine,” says the 31-year-old. “We tried to blend a little of me in the house when I moved in. There are some retro mid-century armchairs which are very me.”
Bassike jacket. Venroy T-shirt. Zara pants. Timberland shoes.Credit: Bec Parsons
All this feels a million miles away from the humble beginnings of a musician who thought session work would be the only path to recognition.
G Flip, born Georgia Claire Flipo, grew up in Cheltenham, Melbourne, and spent their high school years at Star of the Sea, a Catholic girls’ school in Brighton. They started playing drums aged nine on a kit their uncle gifted them. As a child, they watched father Marc play guitar as he gigged around town. Those weekends watching him hustle laid the foundational rock ‘n’ roll footsteps G Flip would eventually follow in.
G Flip’s parents split when they were a teen. Their mum, Lisa, remarried and G Flip inherited five stepbrothers on top of their older sister, Samantha.
Unsurprisingly for someone who has turned the drum kit into a stage centrepiece, G Flip says they never lacked confidence as a child. “I was always extroverted and never shy speaking publicly. Talking in front of crowds or improvising on the spot came naturally to me. I loved theatre, but once I started to learn instruments, I wanted to show people I could play them and I got more comfortable being in the limelight.”
Courtney Zheng boiler suit and belt, Venroy T-shirt, own jewellery (worn throughout) and boots.Credit: Bec Parsons
Initially finding a degree of fame via Triple J’s Unearthed platform after studying music performance at Box Hill Institute, a debut album, About Us, arrived in 2019 and scored three ARIA nominations. G Flip took out their first ARIA win in 2023 for Best Australian Live Act, followed by the 2024 Song of the Year for The Worst Person Alive.
Their latest album, Dream Ride, follows G Flip’s award-winning second album, Drummer, which debuted at No.1 on the ARIA charts in 2023. The anticipation has been huge – and G Flip made sure fans didn’t have to wait too long, even giving some a chance to hear new tracks on old-school Walkmans at a Melbourne listening party as part of the rollout strategy.
G Flip (right) married TV star Chrishell Stause in Las Vegas in 2023.Credit: Getty Images
The choice of Walkmans (and accompanying cassettes), was quite deliberate. For this album, the musician, who was born in 1993, rewinds to the ’80s and nods to the glam of LA’s Sunset Strip, where big hair and bigger egos, revved cars and line-dancing, go hand in hand with high-waisted jeans and chaps. It includes a sweet ode to meeting Stause, Disco Cowgirl, the album’s first single. And while they didn’t meet line-dancing, it’s about first laying eyes on one another, followed by that feeling of “when will we meet again?”
G Flip has also borrowed from Michael J. Fox’s Back to the Future trilogy and Corey Haim’s License to Drive to muscle in on an era they could have only dreamed of living through, all rolled into one nostalgic throwback.
Written and recorded at G Flip’s LA home studio, each song on the album references a car – which makes sense given that they live in a city where life is difficult without one, along the way hinting at hits by Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston from that era. But it also points to a childhood obsession – G Flip knew every car make and model on the road as a six-year-old.
These days, obsession has shifted to Qantas plane models and serial numbers as G Flip plots a way to fly on every plane in the fleet. “I DM Qantas a little too much on socials,” they laugh.
Ksubi leather jacket. Farage shirt and tie. Venroy chinos. Zara loafers.Credit: Bec Parsons
Dream Ride also plays with the ’80s stereotypes of what it means to be a man, and sees the non-binary artist flipping the gendered past on its head. “Imagine if Bruce Springsteen was a lesbian in the ’80s, or picture a butch Madonna – that’s kind of where I’m at with the sound of this album.”
Coming out as non-binary in 2021, G Flip explains their gender identity: “A non-binary person is who I am – I don’t know how to be anything else. I use they/them pronouns and am very proud of that. I am in a queer relationship and have a beautiful wife. I write from experience and from the perspective of a non-binary queer person.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t have that representation. The backbone of my G Flip project is to be the person I never saw when I was younger. I want to make sure I am making art so that a queer kid somewhere in the world can see me online and feel they are like me.”
In Trump’s America, where the president is having a negative impact on LGBTQI+ wellbeing, G Flip says the community is not backing down. “The LBGTQI+ is banding together in these hurtful times of madness. We’re leaning on each other and are fighting the fight together.
Own leather jacket. Farage shirt. Venroy T-shirt. Zara leather pants.Credit: Bec Parsons
“It’s horrible some of the things going down in America, but we are resilient and won’t be silenced. We won’t change who we are for anyone. I think that is what makes us beautiful, strong, tough humans. I am so proud to be in the LGBTQI+ community, and of the allies who fight for our rights. You have to keep your head up.”
For now, the hardest part about living in LA is being away from family and friends in Australia. Yet for all their outward energy, even G Flip finds it challenging to make new friends. “I have lived here for nearly four years and I’m still longing to find more people I connect with like I do with my friends back home.”
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Having a supportive wife – knowing there is someone who loves them unconditionally – has certainly made the creative journey easier. In July, the pair renewed their wedding vows, hiring a castle in the Hollywood Hills and organising a wedding party with just a few days’ notice.
“Wedding parties can be hard to organise, and we didn’t want it to be stressful,” they say, adding that planning it all at the last minute “makes it so much more fun”.
The loved-up couple have also never shied from sharing their private lives. Their IVF journey, for instance, has not been smooth so far for 44-year-old Stause, who has been open about the difficulties of falling pregnant.
“We’ve been going through a rough time with the IVF process,” confirms G Flip. “We’ve been struggling with it, and though we don’t like talking too much about it because it ends up ruining our day, we acknowledge it. Queer couples are couples like anyone else.”
Adoption is also a possibility, says G Flip, but for now it’s one step at a time. “To anyone going through IVF or finding themselves on a rough road with bringing life into the world, we feel for you and we understand and we see you.”
G Flip returns to Australia for the Dream Ride tour in February 2026.
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